Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2143 (starts 10/18/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/389976-dc-2143 

    This week we start off with a bit of guitar rock, and follow it up with a mixture of A and B sides from 1970. A set of LP tracks from the early 1970s finishes out the show.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix/Band of Gypsys
Title:    Changes
Source:    LP: Band Of Gypsys
Writer(s):    Buddy Miles
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    Jimi Hendrix must have had some sort of sense of irony (at least in the back of his mind) when he worked out a deal to settle a lawsuit for breach of contract brought against him by Capitol Records in 1969. A few years earlier, in 1965, he had sat in on some sessions for Capitol with Curtis Knight, and had signed a generic management contract that covered his participation in the recordings. What he didn't realize at the time is that the contract also covered future recordings, even though he was only a session man for the Knight tracks. After Hendrix became famous, someone at Capitol pulled out their copy of that old contract and used it to leverage the guitarist into doing another album for them. As Hendrix had no studio material anywhere near being ready for release, he instead provided Capitol with a live album, recorded over a period of days at Madison Square Garden. Since the Jimi Hendrix Experience was no longer a viable entity at that time, Hendrix put together a three-piece band consisting of himself, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles, who had already established himself as a member of the Electric Flag and leader of the Buddy Miles Express. This was reflected in the fact that of the six songs that appeared on the album Band Of Gypsys, three (including Changes) were written (and sung) by Miles, rather than Hendrix, just as all of the songs from the 1965 sessions had been penned by Curtis Knight.

Artist:    Taste
Title:    Dual Carraigeway Pain
Source:    British import CD: Taste
Writer(s):    Rory Gallagher
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    Guitarist Rory Gallagher cuts loose on Dual Carraigeway Pain, from the first Taste album. The song title itself refers to the British term for a divided, limited-access highway, usually known in the US as a freeway or Interstate.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Sleepy Time Time
Source:    British import LP: Cream (originally released as LP: Fresh Cream)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Godfrey
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    When Cream was first formed, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worked with co-writers on original material for the band. Baker's partner was Pete Brown, while Bruce worked with his wife, Janet Godfrey. Eventually Bruce and Brown began collaborating, creating some of Cream's most memorable songs, but not before Bruce and Godfrey wrote Sleepy Time Time, one of the high points of the Fresh Cream album.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    Question
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Justin Hayward
Label:    Threshold
Year:    1970
    By 1970 the Moody Blues had developed their own unique brand of orchestral rock, and had even started their own label, Threshold (inspired by their 1969 LP On The Threshold Of A Dream). Due to the complexity of their songs, however, they were having difficulty making them sound right when performed live. In an effort to remedy the problem they tried a more stripped-down approach with their 1970 single, Question, and the subsequent LP A Question Of Balance. It worked, too, as Question became their second biggest hit single in the UK, going all the way to the #2 spot. In the long run, the band realized that their best approach was to perform with a full orchestra, which they have been doing regularly since the early 1970s.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Victoria
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    The Kinks were at their commercial low point in 1969 when they released their third single from their controversial concept album Arthur or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire. Their previous two singles had failed to chart, even in their native England, and the band had not had a top 20 hit in the US since Sunny Afternoon in 1966. Victoria was a comeback of sorts, as it did manage to reach the #62 spot in the US and the #33 spot in the UK.

Artist:     Grateful Dead
Title:     Truckin'
Source:     CD: Skeletons From the Closet (originally released on LP: American Beauty)
Writer:     Garcia/Weir/Hunter/Lesh
Label:     Warner Brothers
Year:     1970
     After two performance-oriented albums that mixed live and studio material and one double live LP, the Grateful Dead decided to shift their focus in the studio to their songwriting skills. The result was Workingman's Dead, the band's most commercially successful album up to that point. Five months later the followup album,  American Beauty defined the Grateful Dead's sound for all but the most dedicated of concertgoers (the legendary Deadheads), thanks to songs like Truckin', which would stand as the band's most successful single until the mid-1980s.

Artist:    Eric Burdon And War
Title:    Magic Mountain
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    War/Goldstein
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1970
    The 1970 LP Eric Burdon Declares "War" was accompanied by the band's first single from the album, Spill The Wine. The B side of Spill The Wine was a non-album track called Magic Mountain. Written by the band, along with producer Jerry Goldstein, the song remained unavailable in any other form until 1976, when it appeared on a collection of unreleased tracks and B sides called Love Is All Around, creditited to War featuring Eric Burdon. The following year Magic Mountain was released as an A side itself, but did not chart.

Artist:    Free
Title:    All Right Now
Source:    European import CD: All Right Now-The Collection (originally released on LP: Fire And Water)
Writer(s):    Fraser/Rodgers
Label:    Spectrum/UMC (original US label: A&M)
Year:    1970
    Led by Andy Fraser and Paul Rodgers, Free was one of the first "70s" rock bands. They made their biggest splash with All Right Now, a huge hit in 1970. The band lasted until 1973, when two of the members, Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke, split off to form Bad Company.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Bargain
Source:    LP: Who's Next
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Decca
Year:    1971
    The 1971 album Who's Next is generally considered one of the high points of the band's career, thanks to songs like Bargain. Bargain has been described as a love song, but directed toward God, rather than toward a woman. According to the song's writer, Pete Townshend, Bargain was inspired by the writing of Indian mystic Meher Baba, who taught that the way to be at one with God is to lose all the trappings of the material world.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Future Primitive/Stone Flower
Source:    LP: Caravanserai
Writer(s):    Areas/Lewis/Shrieve/Santana/Jobim
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1972
    In a move that Columbia Records president called "career suicide", Carlos Santana largely abandoned the style that had taken his band into the upper echelons of the rock music world in favor of a more experimental approach for the 1972 album Caravanserai. Several of the original band members had either already left the group, while two core members, Greg Rolie and Neal Schon, would soon be departing to form Journey. The album itself included several guest musicians from the field of latin jazz on tracks such as Future Primitive and and Stone Flower, the latter of which was written by Brazil's Antônio Carlos Jobim, sometimes called the father of bossa nova. Despite the relative commercial failure of Caravanserai, Santana would continue to move away from rock and toward jazz over the next few years.

Artist:    Foghat
Title:    What A Shame
Source:    LP: Appetizers (originally released on LP: Foghat (aka Rock and Roll)
Writer(s):    Rod Price
Label:    Bearsville
Year:    1973
    Apparently the members of Foghat couldn't come up with a good title for their second LP, so they just called it Foghat. Since their first album was also called Foghat, this would have made things a bit confusing if not for the fact that the album cover itself was a picture of a rock and a bread roll against an all-white background. For obvious reasons this has led most people to refer to the album as Rock and Roll. What A Shame was written by guitarist Rod Price, the only Foghat member not to have come from Savoy Brown, which probably explains why it doesn't sound much like Savoy Brown at all.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2142 (starts 10/11/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/389090-pe-2142

 
    This week we feature several sets that are slightly longer than the usual three songs. After an opening five-song set that takes us from 1965 to 1969, we have no less than seven tunes from 1967, all from bands originating in California. We also have an Advanced Psych segment this week featuring artists from Rochester, NY, followed by trips both up and down through the years (not to mention back and forth across the Atlantic), starting in 1965 and ending in 1964, going all the way to 1971 along the way.

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

Artist:    Cream
Title:    I Feel Free
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    After an unsuccessful debut single (Wrapping Paper), Cream scored a bona-fide hit in the UK with their follow-up, I Feel Free. As was the case with nearly every British single at the time, the song was not included on Fresh Cream, the band's debut LP. In the US, however, hit singles were commonly given a prominent place on albums, and the US version of Fresh Cream actually opens with I Feel Free. To my knowledge the song, being basically a studio creation, was never performed live by the band.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Are You Experienced?
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Until the release of Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience the emphasis in rock music (then called pop) was on the 45 RPM single, with albums seen as a luxury item that supplemented an artist's career rather than defined it. Are You Experience helped change all that. The album was not only highly influential, it was a major seller, despite getting virtually no airplay on top 40 radio. The grand finale of the LP was the title track, which features an array of studio effects, including backwards masking and tape loops. Interestingly enough, the album was originally issued only in a mono version in the UK, with later European pressings using a simulated stereo mix. After Reprise bought the rights to release the LP in the US it had its own engineers create stereo mixes of the songs from the four-track master tapes.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Young Woman
Source:    LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Lane/Pulley
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    Time Out! Time In! For Them is an overlooked classic of the psychedelic era. Featuring compositions by the husband and wife team of Tom Pulley and Vivian Lane (such as Young Woman, a song that touches on a somewhat familiar theme of the time), the album showcases the vocal talents of Kenny McDowell, who had the unenviable task of replacing Van Morrison in Ireland's premier rock band.

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    Percy's Song
Source:    LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Unhalfbricking)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    Although Bob Dylan recorded Percy's Song in 1963, his version of the song remained unreleased until 1985, when it appeared (along with other unreleased tracks) on the Biograph compilation album. Meanwhile, however, bootleg copies of the song were widely circulated and at least two cover versions of the song were released. The best known of these is by Fairport Convention, originally released on the 1969 album Halfbricking and featured on the Fairport Chronicles compilation album.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    The Wind Blows Your Hair
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Saxon/Bigelow
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1967
    The Wind Blows Your Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released as a single in October of 1967 the whole idea of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news (at least in ultra-hip L.A.) and the single went nowhere.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Unhappy Girl
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    After the success of their first album and the single Light My Fire in early 1967, the Doors quickly returned to the studio, releasing a second LP, Strange Days, later the same year. The first single released from the new album was People Are Strange. The B side of that single was Unhappy Girl, from the same album. Both sides got played a lot on the jukebox at a neighborhood gasthaus known as the Woog in the village of Meisenbach near Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, where I spent a good number of my evening hours.

Artist:    Love
Title:    You Set The Scene (alternate mix)
Source:    CD: Forever Changes (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    Love's third album, Forever Changes, was meant to be Arthur Lee's ultimate statement to the world. Lee had become convinced that he would not live past age 26 or 27, and much of Forever Changes, particularly the album's last track, You Set The Scene, reflects that viewpoint. Nonetheless, the lyrics of the song are not so much a message of doom and gloom as a statement of intention to make every remaining moment left mean something. Of course, as it turned out, Lee lived well beyond his expectations (although his friend Jimi Hendrix did die at age 27). This does not in any way diminish the impact of You Set The Scene, heard here in an alternate mix with extra vocals toward the end of the track that were left out of the official version.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Grace
Source:    LP: The Life And Times Of Country Joe And The Fish (originally released on LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Country Joe McDonald liked to write songs that were inspired by women he knew. Being Country Joe McDonald these included some women who would end up becoming quite famous as part of the San Francisco scene. One of the most famous of those was Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane, who inspired the final track on the first Country Joe And The Fish LP, Electric Music For The Mind And Body. Who would have guessed?

Artist:    Chocolate Watch Band
Title:    No Way Out
Source:    CD: No Way Out
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    The Chocolate Watch Band, from the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area (specifically Foothills Junior College in Los Altos Hills), was fairly typical of the South Bay music scene, centered in San Jose. Although they were generally known for lead vocalist Dave Aguilar's ability to channel Mick Jagger with uncanny accuracy, producer Ed Cobb gave them a more psychedelic sound in the studio with the use of studio effects and other enhancements (including additional songs on their albums that were performed entire by studio musicians). The title track of No Way Out, released as the band's debut LP in 1967, is credited to Cobb, but in reality is a fleshing out of a jam the band had previously recorded, but had not released. That original jam, known as Psychedelic Trip, is now available as a mono bonus track on the No Way Out CD and as a limited edition Record Store Day single B side.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Have You Seen Her Face
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Chris Hillman
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
    Perhaps the greatest surprise on the fourth Byrds album, Younger Than Yesterday, was the emergence of bassist Chris Hillman as a top-tier songwriter, already on a par with David Crosby and the recently departed Gene Clark, and even exceeding Roger McGuinn as a solo writer (most of McGuinn's contributions being as a collaborator rather than a solo songwriter). Although Hillman would eventually find his greatest success as a country artist (with the Desert Rose Band) it was the hard-rocking Have You Seen Her Face that was chosen to become his first track to be released as a single.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source:    CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Sundazed (original labels: Original Sound/Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    The Music Machine was by far the most sophisticated of all the bands playing on L.A.'s Sunset Strip in 1966. Not only did they feature tight sets (so that audience members wouldn't get the chance to call out requests between songs), they also had their own visual look that set them apart from other bands. Dressed entirely in black (including dyed hair), and with leader Sean Bonniwell wearing one black glove, the Machine projected an image that would influence such diverse artists as the Ramones and Michael Jackson in later years. Musically, Bonniwell's songwriting showed a sophistication that was on a par with the best L.A. had to offer, demonstrated by a series of fine singles such as The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly. Unfortunately, problems on the business end prevented the Music Machine from achieving the success it deserved and Bonniwell eventually quit the music business altogether in disgust.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM B side and on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s):    Capaldi/Winwood
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The second Traffic album saw the band taking in a broader set of influences, including traditional English folk music. (Roamin' Through The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen, originally released as the B side to the Dave Mason tune No Face, No Name, No Number, combines those influences with the Steve Winwood brand of British R&B to create a timeless classic.

Artist:    Jeff Beck
Title:    I Ain't Superstitious
Source:    LP: Truth
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Epic
Year:    1968
    To quote Jeff Beck's own liner notes on the song I Ain't Superstitious from the album Truth, "This number is more or less an excuse for being flash on guitar." I would add that Rod Stewart does an outstanding job on the vocals of this hard rocking version of the Howlin' Wolf classic.

Artist:    Temptations
Title:    Cloud Nine
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Whitfield/Strong
Label:    Motown Yesteryear (original label: Gordy)
Year:    1968
    Motown's psychedelic soul producers were Barrett Strong (whose song Money (That's What I Want) had provided the start up cash for Motown itself in the early 60s) and his partner Norman Whitfield. When the Temptations started to falter following the departure of vocalist David Ruffin in late 1968, the Whitfield-Stong team took over production for the group. Cloud Nine, a song with a frenetic tempo and a strong (no pun intended) anti-drug message, was released in December, and hit its peak in early 1969. The Whitfield-Strong team would continue to produce the Temptations for several years, cranking out hits like Psychedelic Shack, I Can't Get Next To You and Papa Was A Rolling Stone until Whitfield left Motown to form his own label in 1974.

Artist:    Squires Of The Subterrain
Title:    Mrs. Maude
Source:    CD: Pop In A CD
Writer(s):    Chris Zajkowski
Label:    Rocket Racket
Year:    Recorded 1996, released 1998
    Chris Earl was the drummer for Rochester, NY's Salamanders, a popular dance band in the mid-1990s. Before that he had been a member of a group called the Essentials. Throughout all of this he had been quietly indulging his psychedelic side in his basement, recording several songs as the Squires Of The Subterrain and forming his own Rocket Racket label in 1989. While continuing to perform locally with various groups he continued to release underground Squires cassette tapes. Finally, in 1998, he released Pop In A CD, a compilation CD taken from his previous releases. The CD has several outstanding tracks, including 1995's Mrs. Maude. Earl released several more Squires Of The Subterrain CDs over the years, the most recent being Radio Silence, released in 2019 (which I am still waiting for a copy of, if you happen to be reading this, Chris).

Artist:    McFadden's Parachute
Title:    Time
Source:    CD: Psolipsystic Psychedelic Pslyces Of McFadden's Parachute
Writer(s):    Darren Brennessel
Label:    PeterFonda
Year:    1996
    Although the psychedelic era itself officially covers only a few years in the late 1960s, for many the spirit of the era's music lives on. One such person is Darren Brennessel of Rochester, NY, who is the mastermind behind over two dozen McFadden's Parachute albums. Brennessel has been playing professionally since 1989, when he was the drummer for a band called the Purple Flashes, conceiving and recording the first McFadden's Parachute album as a side project. In the years since, in addition to playing multiple instruments on McFadden's Parachute albums, Brennessel has continued to play drums with a variety of bands, including Sky Saxon's Green Forests, which recorded an as-yet unreleased album in 2004. A while back, Darren sent me a special sampler collection of McFadden's Parachute tracks recorded mostly in the 1990s. Time is one of those tracks (I'm guessing at the year).

Artist:    Chesterfield Kings
Title:    Look Around
Source:    LP: Don't Open Til Doomsday
Writer(s):    Babiuk/Prevost/O'Brien/Cona/Meech
Label:    Mirror
Year:    1987
    Formed in the late 1970s in Rochester, NY, the Chesterfield Kings (named for an old brand of unfiltered cigarettes that my grandfather used to smoke) were instrumental in setting off the garage band revival of the 1980s. Their earliest records were basically a recreation of the mid-60s garage sound, although by the time their 1987 album, Don't Open Til Doomsday, was released they had gone through some personnel changes that resulted in a harder-edged sound on songs like Look Around.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Source:    Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Benjamin/Marcus/Caldwell
Label:    Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1965
    1965 was a huge year for the Animals. Coming off the success of their 1964 smash House Of The Rising Sun, the Newcastle group racked up three major hits in 1965, including Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, a song originally recorded by jazz singer Nina Simone. The Animals version speeded up the tempo and used a signature riff that had been taken from Simone's outro. The Animals version of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood made the top 20 in the US and the top five in both the UK and Canada.
 
Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Sittin' On My Sofa
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    For most people the Kinks were (and still are, to some extent) known for some outstanding hit singles such as You Really Got Me and Sunny Afternoon. People who bought those singles also knew them for some of the best B sides ever released, including I Need You and I'm Not Like Everybody Else. Not every Kinks single was a major hit, however, especially in the US, where the group spent five years being banned from performing. One of those lesser hits was Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, which stalled out in the #36 spot in the spring of 1966, despite being a top 5 hit in the UK. As a result the B side of the US single, a Ray Davies tune called Sittin' On My Sofa, is one of the most obscure Kinks tracks ever released. It's only LP appearance was on a 1967 compilation album called Sunny Afternoon that wasn't even released in the US.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Take Me For A Little While
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Atco Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Trade Martin
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    The original single version of Vanilla Fudge's cover of the Holland-Dozier-Holland penned Supremes hit You Keep Me Hangin' On was yet another cover of a tune written by a man but originally sung by female artists. Take Me For A Little While, written by Trade Martin, was first released in 1965, with two versions, one by Evie Sands and the other by Jackie Ross, coming out at about the same time.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Laléna
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Released only in the US due to an ongoing dispute between Donovan and the british Pye label, Laléna hit the Billboard top 40 in late 1968, hitting the #33 spot. A quiet ballad, Laléna was inspired by Lotte Lenya's character in the film version of Threepenny Opera. In a 2004 the Scottish singer/songwriter had this to say about the song: "She's a streetwalker, but in the history of the world, in all nations, women have taken on various roles from priestess to whore to mother to maiden to wife. This guise of sexual power is very prominent, and therein I saw the plight of the character. Women have roles thrust upon them and make the best they can out of them, so I'm describing the character Lotte Lenya is playing, and a few other women I've seen during my life, but it's a composite character of women who are outcasts on the edge of society."

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Violent Rose
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Herron/Whetstone
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    By 1969 the original lineup of the Electric Prunes was a distant memory. The band's name, however, was still in use, thanks to the fine print on the original contract that gave the ownership of the name Electric Prunes to the band's manager. A Canadian band called the Collectors was brought in to help with the group's third LP, 1968's Mass In F Minor, when it became clear that the complex David Axelrod score was beyond the abilities of the original Prunes (only one of which could read music), but even that group had moved on (to become Chilliwack) by the time Violent Rose was released as a B side in 1969. One of the more notable musicians appearing on Violent Rose is guitarist Ron Morgan, who by then had severed ties with the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.
        
Artist:    Santana
Title:    Para Los Rumberos
Source:    LP: Santana (III)
Writer(s):    Tito Puente
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    One of the highlights of Santana's second album, Abraxis, was a song called Oye Como Va. The song, sung entirely in Spanish, was a surprise hit and has been a part of Santana's stage repertoire ever since. The song was originally recorded in the 1950s by its songwriter, Tito Fuente, and his band, which he described as jazz with latin rhythms. Appropriately, Santana's music has often been described as rock with latin rhythms, so it was perhaps inevitable that Santana would record more of Puente's tunes. Indeed, the final track on the next Santana album was a Puente composition. Santana's version of Para Los Rumberos closely follows the original Puente arrangement, even to the presence of a horn section on the piece. I strongly recommend you use your search engine to find one of Puente's performances of the song, for comparison's sake. I did, and watching what turned out to be his final performance literally brought tears to my eyes.

Artist:     Chicago
Title:     Where Do We Go From Here
Source:     CD: Chicago
Writer:     Peter Cetera
Label:     Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:     1970
     After having success with the double LP format on their first album, the Chicago Transit Authority, the band decided to issue their next two albums as double LPs as well. The first of these, simply titled Chicago (reflecting the group's decision to shorten their name to that of the city they came from, partially to avoid legal hassles from said city's public transportation system), featured the band's breakout top 40 hit, Make Me Smile, and the hard driving 25 or 6 to 4, and helped establish Chicago as one of the top acts of the early 70s. Side four of the album was the four-part politically-charged suite It Better End Soon, followed by Peter Cetera's Where Do We Go From Here, a lyrically logical follow-up to the suite.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Volunteers
Source:     CD: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Volunteers)
Writer:     Balin/Kantner
Label:     BMG/RCA
Year:     1969
     By 1969 Jefferson Airplane's music was a staple of progressive FM stations but had all but disappeared from the top 40 charts. Still, the band continued to release singles from their albums, including the title track to their fifth (and final with the classic JA lineup) LP, Volunteers.

Artist:    Gods
Title:    Toward The Skies/Candles Getting Shorter
Source:    Mono British import LP: Genesis
Writer(s):    Joe Konas/Hensley
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    It was probably pretty pretentious for a band to call themselves the Gods, but when you consider that, at various times, the band's lineup included Greg Lake and  Mick Taylor (both future rock gods), as well as two future members of Uriah Heep, the claim somehow doesn't seem quite so outrageous. By the time their first album, Genesis, came out in 1968 both Taylor and Lake had moved on, but between guitarist/keyboardist Ken Hensley, drummer Lee Kerslake (the two aforementioned Heepsters), bassist John Glascock (who would eventually serve as Jethro Tull's bassist until his untimely death in 1979) and guitarist Joe Konas, the Gods had talent to spare. The first two songs on the album, Konas's Toward The Skies and the Konas/Hensley collaboration overlap each other, as do most of the LP's other tracks.

Artist:    Teddy And His Patches
Title:    Haight-Ashbury
Source:    Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Flores/Pearson
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Chance)
Year:    1967
    Following up on their local #1 hit Suzy Creamcheese, San Jose, California band Teddy And His Patches released another punk classic called Haight-Ashbury in June of 1967. Pure madness.
            
Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    Find The Hidden Door
Source:    British Import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released in UK on LP: Before The Dream Faded)
Writer(s):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Cherry Red)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1982
    One of London's most legendary psychedelic bands was actually from California. The story of the Misunderstood started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most West Coast bands of the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock 'n' roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes, including the addition of lead vocalist Rick Brown. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, an Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were joined by a local guitarist, Tony Hill.  Ravencroft's brother Alan got the band a deal with Fontana Records, resulting in a single in late 1966, I Can Take You To The Sun, that took the British pop scene by storm. In addition to that single, the band recorded a handful of outstanding tracks that remained unreleased until the 1980s. Among those unreleased tracks was a masterpiece called Find The Hidden Door, written (as were most of the songs the band recorded in London) by Brown and Hill.  Problems with their work visas derailed the Misunderstood, and the band members soon found themselves being deported back to the US, and in one case, drafted into the US Army.

Artist:    Five Americans
Title:    I See The Light
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Durrill/Ezell/Rabon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Abnak)
Year:    1965
    For years I was under the impression that the Five Americans were a Texas band, mainly due to Abnak Records having a Dallas address. It turns out, though, that the band was actually from Durant, Oklahoma, although by the time they had their biggest hit, Western Union, they were playing most of their gigs in the Lone Star state. I See The Light is an earlier single built around a repeating Farfisa organ riff that leads into a song that can only be described as in your face. The song was produced by the legendary Dale Hawkins, who wrote and recorded the original version of Suzy Q in the late 1950s.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Bleeker Street
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Wednesday Morning, 3AM)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1964
    One of the first of many "slice of life" songs from songwriter Paul Simon, Bleeker Street (a real street in New York's Greenwich Village) appeared on the first Simon And Garfunkel LP, Wednesday Morning, 3AM, in late 1964. The album did not initially sell well, and the duo actually split up shortly after it was deleted from the Columbia catalog. Following the success of an electrified remix of another song from the album, The Sound Of Silence, the pair reunited and Columbia reissued Wednesday Morning, 3AM in 1966.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2142 (starts 10/11/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/389089-dc-2142 

    I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: sometimes, when you have a song playing, another song pops up and says "play me next!". So you do, and while that one is playing, another song says "play me next". So you do. And so on. If you're lucky, it will go on that way for an entire show. If not, you take a break, back announce what you just played and then start the whole thing again. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of free-form rock radio programming. It doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes you have to come up with some sort of structure to get you through instead. But when it does, it's magic. This week's show is one of those.

Artist:    Hotlegs
Title:    Neanderthal Man
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Godley/Creme/Stewart
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    Sometime around the end of 1968 Eric Stewart, the former member of the Mindbenders who had provided the lead vocals for A Groovy Kind Of Love, along with songwriter Graham Gouldman and a guy named Peter Tattersill, went in together on a recording studio, renaming it Strawberry Studios in early 1969. A deal with American bubble-gum music impressarios Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz to book the studio for three months. This gave the trio the cash to upgrade their equipment. Working with fellow musicians Lol Godley and Kevin Creme, Stewart came up something called Neanderthal Man to test what they could do in the studio with the new equipment. The experimental piece came out so well that they decided to issue it as a single under the name Hotlegs. Over the next couple of years the trio, joined by Gouldman, began the build up the studio's clientele, which included, among others, Neil Sedaka. Finally, in 1974, the four of them decided to become a real band, taking the name 10cc. The rest is history.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Soul Sacrifice
Source:    CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer(s):    Brown/Malone/Rolie/Santana
Label:    Rhino (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1969
    Although this is the original recording of Santana performing Soul Sacrifice at Woodstock, it does not sound quite the same as what you may have heard on the Woodstock original movie soundtrack album. That's because they doctored the recording a bit for the original soundtrack album, adding in audience sounds, including the crowd rain chant that seques into the piece on the original LP. They also edited out nearly five minutes of the actual performance. More recent copies of the movie itself sound even more different because the people doing the remastering of the film decided to record new versions of some of the percussion tracks. Now, thanks to the box set Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm, you can enjoy hearing exactly what the audience heard back in 1969.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    For A Thousand Mothers
Source:    CD: Stand Up
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    For years, the only copy I had of this track was a homemade cassette tape. As a result I was under the impression that this was actually two separate songs. Long silences will do that. Long silences will also trip automatic sensors on automated radio station equipment, which partially explains why such a great track has always gotten far less airplay than it deserves.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    The Crunge
Source:    CD: Houses Of The Holy
Writer(s):    Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    Led Zeppelin channeling James Brown. 'Nuff said.

Artist:     David Bowie
Title:     Bombers
Source:     CD: Sound+Vision Sampler (originally released as bonus track on CD reissue of Hunky Dory)
Writer:     David Bowie
Label:     Ryko
Year:     Recorded 1971, released 1990
     When CDs fist started coming out in the mid 1980s, the track lineups were the same as the album versions. One of the first companies to include bonus tracks was Ryko with its Sound+Vision series of remastered David Bowie albums in 1990. Bombers was an unissued 1971 recording that appeared for the first time on the remastered Hunky Dory CD.

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    Alien Invasion Top SecretTraining Film
Source:    LP: Everything You Know Is Wrong
Writer(s):    Proctor/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1974
    By 1974 the Firesign Theatre had declined somewhat in popularity, which is a shame, since that was the year they released one of their consistently funniest albums. Everything You Know Is Wrong is presented as the "latest in a series of mind-breaking records" by "Happy" Harry Cox, and Art Bell type that specializes in revealing hitherto unknown truths about paranormal phenomena. The Alien Invasion Top Secret Training Film (my title, not theirs), is an example of one of those revelations.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Standing In The Rain
Source:    CD: Bang
Writer(s):    Tommy Bolin
Label:    Atco
Year:    1973
    Tommy Bolin was already becoming well-known among his fellow musicians by the time he was asked to replace Dominic Troiano as the James Gang's lead guitarist. The band had pretty much disappeared from the radio after the departure of original lead guitarist Joe Walsh, and had been dropped by the ABC label following their fifth studio LP. Bolin's presence, however, helped secure the band a new contract with Atco Records, with their 6th LP, Bang, being released on the label in 1973. Although Roy Kenner provided most of the album's lead vocals, Bolin's presence dominated the album right from the first track, Standing In The Rain (a Bolin composition). Bolin would stick around for one more album, Miami, before departing for a solo career (and a brief stint as Ritchie Blackmore's replacement in Deep Purple) in 1975.

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    A Hard Way To Go
Source:    LP: Raw Sienna
Writer(s):    Chris Youlden
Label:    Parrot
Year:    1970
    A Hard Way To Go is the opening track of the fifth Savoy Brown album, Raw Sienna. One of the group's best albums, it was also the last to feature the lead vocals of Chris Youlden, who also wrote A Hard Way To Go. Sadly, Youlden's solo career has been less than stellar, although I suppose he makes a living at it.

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:    Jeff Beck
Title:    Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
Source:    LP: Wired
Writer(s):    Charles Mingus
Label:    Epic
Year:    1976
    One of Jeff Beck's most celebrated tracks is his cover of the Charles Mingus classic Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. To this day, the tune is one of the centerpieces of Beck's stage repertoire.

Artist:    Cactus
Title:    You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover
Source:    CD: Cactus
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Wounded Bird (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Cactus was kind of an accidental supergroup formed in 1969, when plans for a new band featuring bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice from Vanilla Fudge, along with former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck, had to be scrapped due to Beck being injured in a car accident. Instead, Bogert and Appice recruited guitarist Jim McCarty, a veteran of Mitch Ryder's Detroit Wheels who had more recently been working with the Buddy Miles Express, and vocalist Rusty Day from the Amboy Dukes to form Cactus. The group released their self-titled debut LP in 1970. The album featured a mix of originals and high-energy covers of blues classics such as Willie Dixon's You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover, which had originally been recorded by Bo Diddley. The Cactus version of the tune runs six and a half minutes and includes some wailing guitar work from McCarty, who would eventually leave the band over creative differences with the other members.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Funk #49
Source:    LP: The Best Of Joe Walsh (orginally released on LP: James Gang Rides Again)
Writer(s):    Fox/Peters/Walsh
Label:    ABC
Year:    1970
                Following the release of their first LP, Yer' Album, the James Gang toured extensively, giving them little time to work up material for their followup album. Nonetheless, they managed to turn out a classic with the 1970 release James Gang Rides Again. The album starts with a song that all three band members agree was already worked out by the time they hit the studio, Funk #49. The tune is now considered the band's signature song, and was included in the Eagles' repertoire when guitarist Joe Walsh hooked up with that group in 1977.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2141 (starts 10/4/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/388074-pe-2141

 
    This week  we have a pair of British artists sets, one from the Animals and the other from Cream. Other than that, it's a roller coaster ride.

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:    Monkees
Title:    Love Is Only Sleeping
Source:    LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD.
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1967
    Among the various professional songwriters hired by Don Kirschner in 1966 to write songs for the Monkees were the husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who had hit it big with a pair of songs for Paul Revere And The Raiders (Kicks and Hungry) earlier that year. But when the Monkees rebelled against Kirschner's control over their recorded output in early 1967 it looked as though the band was done with Mann/Weil compositions altogether. Later that year, however, the Monkees themselves, now firmly in control of their own musical direction, chose to record a new Mann/Weil tune, Love Is Only Sleeping, as their fourth single. At the same time, the group was working on their fourth LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones, LTD. A last-minute change of plans resulted in a different song, Daydream Believer, being released as a single instead, with a tune from the album, Goin' Down, as the B side. Goin' Down was then deleted from the album lineup and Love Is Only Sleeping included in its place. It was the closest that Michael Nesmith would ever come to being the lead vocalist on a Monkees hit single.  

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Everybody Knows You're Not In Love
Source:    Mono CD: Underground (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
     The Electric Prunes had greater creative control over their second album than they did over their first. That control continued into early 1968, when Everybody Knows You're Not In Love, a single penned by band members Mark Tulin and James Lowe, was released. Unfortunately, the record didn't sell well and the next album, David Axelrod's Mass In F Minor, was played almost entirely by studio musicians. The original group broke up during the recording of Mass and did not play together again until the 21st century.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Soul Sacrifice
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Santana)
Writer(s):    Brown/Malone/Rolie/Santana
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    Of all the bands formed in the late 1960s, very few achieved any degree of popularity outside of their local community. Fewer still could be considered an influence on future stars. Most rare of all are those who managed to be both popular and influential while maintaining a degree of artistic integrity. One name that comes immediately to mind is Santana (both the band and the man). It might be surprising, then, to hear that the first Santana album, released in 1969, was savaged by the rock press, particularly the San Francisco based Rolling Stone magazine, who called it boring and repetitious. It wasn't until the band performed Soul Sacrifice (heard here in its original studio version) at Woodstock that Santana became major players on the rock scene.

Artist:     Simon and Garfunkel
Title:     America
Source:     45 RPM single B side (song originally released on LP: Bookends)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Year:     1968/1972
     Four years after the release of the album Bookends (and two years after the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel), Columbia decided to release the song For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her, from their final album Bridge Over Troubled Water, as a single, to coincide with the release of their Greatest Hits album. For the B side, they went even further back, pulling out the original tapes for the song America. The tracks on the Bookends album were deliberately overlapped to form a continuous audio montage, making this the first standalone version of America to be released by the duo.

Artist:    Misty Wizards
Title:    It's Love
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ted Lucas
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The Misty Wizards were formed somewhere in the midwestern US by Ted Lucas and Dick Keelan. A trip to New York found them in the studio, working with producer Harvey Brooks, the bass player from the Butterfield Blues Band turned studio guru. The group only cut one single, a tune called It's Love, that was released during the summer of 1967. The rock music world's attention, however, was focused at that time on San Francisco, and the single went nowhere.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Can't Get Your Lovin'
Source:    Mono LP: Psychotic Reaction
Writer(s):    John Byrne
Label:    Bicycle (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1966
    Following the success of the song Psychotic Reaction in fall of 1966, Count Five was given the opportunity to record an entire album for the L.A. based Double Shot record label. Like most albums by one-hit wonders of the time, the album had the same name as the hit single. Unlike most albums of the time, Psychotic Reaction only contained two cover songs, and both of those were Pete Townshend songs originally recorded by the Who. Bandleader John Byrne had a hand in writing all of the group's originals, including some, such as Can't Get Your Lovin', that credit him as the sole songwriter.

Artist:    Sonics
Title:    Strychnine
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: Here Are The Sonics)
Writer(s):    Gerald Roslie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1965
    From 1965 we have a band that maintains a cult following to this day: the legendary Sonics, generally considered one of the foundation stones of the Seattle music scene. Although the majority of songs on their albums were cover tunes, virtually all of their originals, such as Strychnine from their debut LP, are now considered punk classics; indeed, the Sonics, along with their labelmates the Wailers, are often cited as the first true punk rock bands.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Two Trains Running
Source:     CD: The Blues Project Anthology (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer:     McKinley Morganfield
Label:     Polydor (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:     1966
     My first two years as a student at the University of New Mexico were spent living off-campus in a large house shared by five other people (a varying number of which were also students). One day while rummaging through the basement I ran across a couple boxes full of reel-to-reel tapes. As I was the only person living there with a reel-to-reel machine and nobody seemed to know where the tapes had come from, I appropriated them for my own use. Unfortunately, many of the tapes were unlabeled, so all I could do was make a guess as to artists and titles of the music on them. One of those tapes was labelled simply "Love Sculpture". It wasn't until a fortuitous trip to a local thrift store a couple of years later that I realized that the slow version of Two Trains Running on the tape was not Love Sculpture at all, but was in fact the Blues Project, from their Projections album. This slowed down version of the Muddy Waters classic has what is considered to be one of the great accidental moments in recording history. About 2/3 of the way through Two Trains Running, Danny Kalb realized that one of the strings on his guitar had gone out of tune, and managed to retune it on the fly in such a way that it sounded like he had planned the whole thing.
 
Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Bonniwell Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Original Sound, stereo LP version released on Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
     The Music Machine was by far the most advanced of all the bands playing on Sunset Strip in 1966-67. Not only did they feature tight sets (ensuring that audience members wouldn't get the chance to call out requests between songs), they also had their own visual look that set them apart from other bands. With all the band members dressed entirely in black (including dyed hair) and wearing one black glove, the Machine projected an image that would influence such diverse artists as the Ramones and Michael Jackson in later years. Musically, Bonniwell's songwriting showed a sophistication that was on a par with the best L.A. had to offer, demonstrated by a series of fine singles such as The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly. Unfortunately, problems on the business end prevented the Music Machine from achieving the success it deserved and Bonniwell, disheartened, dissillusioned and/or disgusted, eventually quit the music business altogether.

Artist:     Traffic
Title:     Feelin' Alright
Source:     CD: Traffic
Writer:     Dave Mason
Label:     United Artists
Year:     1968    
    Dave Mason left Traffic after the band's first album, Mr. Fantasy, but returned in time to contribute several songs to the band's eponymous second album. Among those was his most memorable song, Feelin' Alright, which would become one of the most covered songs in rock history.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Whole Lotta Love
Source:    German import LP: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s):    Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones/Dixon
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    If any one song can be considered the bridge between psychedelic rock and heavy metal, it would have to be Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. Released in 1969 as the lead track to their second LP, the song became their biggest hit single. Whole Lotta Love was originally credited to the four band members. In recent years, however, co-credit has been given to Willie Dixon, whose lyrics to the 50s song You Need Love are almost identical to Robert Plant's.

Artist:    Who
Title:    The Seeker
Source:    CD: Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1970
    The Who's first post-Tommy single was a song called The Seeker, which Pete Townshend claims to have written while drunk out of his mind at 3AM in a Florida swamp. The band first recorded the song in Townshend's home studio, then again at IBC studios, where they ended up producing the record themselves when their regular producer, Kit Lambert, broke his jaw getting a tooth pulled.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Changeling
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1971
    Originally chosen by the band to be the first single released from the L.A. Woman album, Changeling (listed on the album cover as The Changeling) was withdrawn in favor of Love Her Madly at the behest of Jan Holtzman, president of Elektra Records. Changeling later appeared as the B side of the album's next single, Riders On The Storm.

Artist:    Humans
Title:    Warning
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Bill Kuhns
Label:    Audition
Year:    1966
    Throughout the history of rock and roll there have been bands named after various species of fauna, such as crickets, beetles, hawks, and eagles. In seems inevitable, then, that someone would decide to name themselves after the dominant species on the planet. The Humans were formed in Albion, NY in 1964 by six members of the local high school marching band during summer break. In 1966 they went into Riposo Studios in Syracuse, NY to record their only single, a folk-rocker called Take A Taxi. The B side of that single was Warning, a song that has come to be considered a garage-rock classic. The record was released on the Audition label and was successful enough to get the band gigs in Miami and New York City, opening for such name acts as the Animals and the Hollies. Animals bassist Chas Chandler even invited the band members to go with him to the Cafe Wha in the summer of '66 to see a band called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames that featured a hot new guitarist that everyone was talking about. That guitarist was Jimi Hendrix, and Chandler was able to talk him into going back to London with him, an event of major significance for the future of rock music. Meanwhile, the Humans were struck by tragedy that September when lead vocalist Danny Long was killed in a car accident, and other band members began receiving draft notices. Finally, in November, the remaining members of the band decided to call it quits, and the Humans were history. Special thanks to Bill Vosteen for sending me a copy of that Humans single.
 
Artist:    Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:    When I Was Young
Source:    Mono LP: The Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals-Vol. II (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1967
    After the Animals disbanded in 1966, Eric Burdon set out to form a new band that would be far more psychedelic than the original group. The first release from these "New Animals" was When I Was Young. The song was credited to the entire band, a practice that would continue throughout the entire existence of the group that came to be called Eric Burdon And The Animals.

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

Artist:    Animals
Title:    The Other Side Of This Life
Source:    LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals-Vol. II (originally released in US on LP: Animalism)
Writer(s):    Fred Neil
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    The final album by the original Animals was a late 1966 collection of mostly blues covers that was released only in the US. Animalism (not to be confused with the UK LP Animalisms from earlier in the year which was the basis for the US album Animalization) was recorded in Los Angeles, possibly at the same time as the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out. Frank Zappa collaborated on at least one of the album's songs (All Night Long) and is listed as a co-producer (with Tom Wilson) of the band's version of Fred Neil's best-known tune, The Other Side Of This Life, which was being performed regularly by several California bands (including Jefferson Airplane) at around the same time.

Artist:    Mothers of Invention
Title:    Big Leg Emma
Source:    CD: Absolutely Free (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Frank Zappa
Label:    Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year:    1967
    Sometime during the creation of the second Mothers Of Invention album, Absolutely Free, the band recorded a pair of stand alone tunes that were released as a 45 RPM single. The B side of that record was Big Leg Emma, a song that was written by Frank Zappa in 1962 and would eventually be added to his live show in the late 1970s.

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    Itchycoo Park
Source:    British import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane
Label:    Immediate
Year:    1967
    Led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, the Small Faces got their name from the fact that all the members of the band were somewhat vertically challenged. The group was quite popular with the London mod crowd, and was sometimes referred to as the East End's answer to the Who. Although quite successful in the UK, the group only managed to score one hit in the US, the iconic Itchycoo Park, which was released in late 1967. Following the departure of Marriott the group shortened their name to Faces, and recruited a new lead vocalist named Rod Stewart. Needless to say, the new version of the band did much better in the US than their previous incarnation.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Why
Source:    Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the earliest collaborations between Byrds songwriters David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the up-tempo raga rocker Why. The song was first recorded at RCA studios in Los Angeles in late 1965 as an intended B side for Eight Miles High, but due to the fact that the band's label, Columbia, refused to release recordings made at their main rival's studios, the band ended up having to re-record both songs at Columbia's own studios in early 1966. Although the band members felt the newer versions were inferior to the 1965 recordings, they were released as a single in March of 1966. Later that year, for reasons that are still unclear, Crosby insisted the band record a third version of Why, and that version was used for the band's next LP, Younger Than Yesterday.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Somewhere
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2013
    Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience did not officially disband until 1969, Hendrix himself was spending more and more time working with musicians outside the band as early as mid-1968. The Electric Ladyland album itself features guest appearances by the likes of Steve Winwood, Buddy Miles and Chris Wood, among others, and for years there have been even more recordings by non-Experience members rumored to exist. Among those legendary tracks is Somewhere, a piece that features Miles on drums, and, unusually, Stephen Stills on bass. In addition to a special 45 RPM single release, Somewhere is available on the 2013 album People, Hell and Angels. According to engineer Eddie Kramer, this is the final collection of unreleased studio tracks to be issued by the Hendrix family estate.

Artist:          Amboy Dukes
Title:        Journey to the Center of the Mind
Source:      Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nugent/Farmer
Label:     Big Beat (original US label: Mainstream)
Year:        1968
        From Detroit we have the Amboy Dukes, featuring lead guitarist Ted Nugent. Originally released as a single on Mainstream Records, the same label that released the first Big Brother & the Holding Company album, Journey To The Center Of The Mind became that label's biggest hit in 1968.  After butchering Big Brother's debut album, Mainstream's studio people must have taken a crash course in rock engineering as they did a much better job on this track just a few months later.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Passing The Time
Source:    CD: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Baker/Taylor
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Although Jack Bruce is generally acknowledged as the member of Cream that provided the most psychedelic material that the band recorded, drummer Ginger Baker gave him a run for his money on the studio half of their third LP, Wheels Of Fire. Perhaps the best of these was Passing The Time, which alternates between a slow, dreamlike section notable for its use of a calliope and a fast section that rocks out as hard as anything the band performed live in concert.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    British import LP: Cream (released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. Instead the song was released on two sides of a single in 1967, with 90 seconds removed from the song between parts one and two. The single never charted and now is somewhat difficult to find a copy of (not that anybody would want to). A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1969 compilation album Best Of Cream that the uncut studio version was finally released in the US.

Artist:     Cream
Title:        White Room
Source:    CD: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:        1968
        Musically almost a rewriting of Eric Clapton's Tales of Brave Ulysses (from Cream's Disraeli Gears album), White Room, a Jack Bruce/Pete Brown composition from the Wheels Of Fire album, is arguably the most popular song ever to feature the use of a wah-wah pedal prominently.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Think For Yourself
Source:    CD: Yellow Submarine Songtrack (originally released on LP: Rubber Soul)
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1965
    By the end of 1965 George Harrison was writing an average of two songs per Beatles album. On Rubber Soul, however, one of his two songs was deleted from the US version of the album and appeared on 1966's Yesterday...And Today LP instead. The remaining Harrison song on Rubber Soul was Think For Yourself. Harrison later said that he was still developing his songwriting at this point and that bandmate John Lennon had helped write Think For Yourself. The song is one of the few Beatles tunes to get a complete remix, when it was included on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack album in 1999.

Artist:    Magic Mushrooms
Title:    It's-A-Happening
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Casella/Rice
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1966
    It's not known whether or not the Magic Mushrooms heard any of the tracks from the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out when they recorded It's-A-Happening. Still, it's hard to imagine this bit of inspired weirdness being created in a vacuum. Besides this one single, nobody seems to have any knowledge whatsoever of the group known as the Magic Mushrooms, other than the fact that they hailed from Philadelphia, Pa., and, along with Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, may well have been the reason that A&M Records shied away from signing any more psychedelic rock bands for the next few years. (Well, there were Procol Harum and Joe Cocker, but their stuff was recorded for British labels and reissued in the US by A&M, so I'm not counting them).

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Who Am I
Source:    LP: I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Electric Music For The Mind And Body was pretty much missing any of the quiet, introspective tunes that Country Joe McDonald had written before forming Country Joe And The Fish. The second album by the band, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die, made up for it by including songs like Who Am I. McDonald continues to write songs like this over 50 years later.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2141 (starts 10/04/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/388073-dc-2141

    This week we rock out pretty hard, starting with Jimi Hendrix and ending up with the Doobie Brothers. In between we have classics from Mountain, Cream, Canned Heat, the Doors and plenty more for a total of 11 tracks.

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:    Cactus
Title:    Long Tall Sally
Source:    British import LP: The New Age Of Atlantic (originally released on LP: One Way...Or Another)
Writer(s):    Penniman/Johnson/Blackwell
Label:    Atlantic (original label: Atco)
Year:    1971
    The second Cactus album, One Way...Or Another, followed the same pattern as the first one: a bunch of original tunes supplemented by a pair of old rock 'n' roll tunes redone in a style reminiscent of some of Vanilla Fudge's harder rocking tracks. This makes sense, since half of Cactus (bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice) were members of Vanilla Fudge before forming Cactus in the first place. In this instance the first of the two covers was a slowed-down and louded-up version of Little Richard's Long Tall Sally. Heavy stuff.

Artist:    Mountain
Title:    Mississippi Queen
Source:    CD: The Best Of Mountain (originally released on LP: Mountain Climbing)
Writer(s):    West/Laing/Pappalardi/Rea
Label:    Columbia/Windfall
Year:    1970
    One of the most overlooked bands of the mid-1960s was the Vagrants. Based on Long Island, the group made a specialty of covering popular R&B and rock songs, often slowing them down and featuring extended solos by guitarist Leslie Weinstein, inspiring fellow Long Islanders Vanilla Fudge to do the same. Although the Vagrants never were able to gain much national attention, Weinstein himself had established quite a reputation by the time the group disbanded. Meanwhile, keyboardist/producer/songwriter Felix Pappalardi had been working with the members of Cream as a producer, but with the demise of that band was looking for a new project to sink his teeth into. That new project turned out to be a solo album by Weinstein, who by then had shortened his last name to West. The album was called Mountain, and soon after its release West and Pappalardi decided to form a band of the same name. The group first got national attention performing at Woodstock, and in 1970 released the album Mountain Climbing, featuring the hit single Mississippi Queen.

Artist:    Focus
Title:    House Of The King
Source:    45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Jan Akkerman
Label:    Sire
Year:    1970
    Dutch band Focus released House of the King as a single in 1970, between their first and second albums. After getting considerable airplay in Europe and the UK, the song was added to later pressings of their debut LP, Focus Plays Focus (also known as In And Out Of Focus). The song finally appeared on a US LP when Focus 3 was released three years later. Contrary to popular belief, the song was not re-recorded for the 1973 album.

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:    Zephyr
Title:    Hard Chargin' Woman
Source:    CD: Zephyr
Writer(s):    Givens/Givens/Bolin/Faris/Chamberlin
Label:    One Way (original label: ABC/Probe)
Year:    1969
    By the early 1970s it had become almost mandatory for a band to include one extra long track on their debut LP intended to showcase the individual talents of the various band members. Zephyr, a blues-based jam band from Boulder, Colorado, was among the first to record such a track, in this case the nine-minute Hard Chargin' Woman. The track starts off as a slow menacing blues number built around a pair of power chords, with Candy Given's unique vocals front and center. Before long Tommy Bolin starts adding guitar fills. After a couple of verses and chorus, Bolin introduces an entirely new repeating riff, giving keyboardist John Faris a chance to strut his stuff. Although bassist David Givens and drummer Robbie Chamberlin do not have any solos, both have a chance to show what they can do throughout the piece, which eventually returns to it's original slow tempo for the grand finale. Bolin, after a second album, left Zephyr to join the James Gang, and was well on his way to establishing himself as a star, both as a solo artist and as Ritchie Blackmore's replacement in Deep Purple when he suddenly became a member of the "27 club" due to a drug overdose.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    My Mistake
Source:    British import CD: Living The Blues
Writer(s):    Alan Wilson
Label:    BGO (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Although Robert "The Bear" Hite was the main lead vocalist for Canned Heat, guitarist Alan "Sunflower" Wilson had his share of the spotlight as well, particularly on songs that he wrote himself, such as My Mistake, from the 1968 album Living The Blues. Similar in sound and structure to his most famous song, Going Up The Country, My Mistake is a worthy companion to that classic.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Roadhouse Blues
Source:    CD: Morrison Hotel
Writer(s):    Morrison/The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1970
    After getting less than favorable reviews for their fourth LP, The Soft Parade, the Doors decided to go back to their roots for 1970s Morrison Hotel. One of the many bluesier tunes on the album was Roadhouse Blues, a song that soon became a staple of the group's live performances.

Artist:     Led Zeppelin
Title:     Your Time Is Gonna Come/Black Mountain Side/Communication Breakdown
Source:     CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s):    Page/Jones/Bonham
Year:     1969
    One of the great ironies of Led Zeppelin is that half the members of a band that was revered for its live performances were in fact in-demand studio musicians long before they started performing onstage. Your Time Is Gonna Come and Black Mountain Side, from the debut Zeppelin album was written by those two members, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. The two songs run together on the album, and are immediately followed by the B side of the band's first single, Communication Breakdown. I'm pretty sure that back when the album first came out, some unknown DJ was unable to stop the turntable fast enough to cut off Communication Breakdown and ended up just letting the two and a half minute track play on through. Somebody liked the way it sounded and the three have been played as a continuous set ever since. Who am I to argue with a tradition like that?

Artist:    Yes
Title:    Starship Trooper
Source:    CD: The Yes Album
Writer(s):    Anderson/Squire/Howe
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1971
    Although technically it was the third LP released by the band, The Yes Album was, in many ways, the true beginning of the Yes story. The Yes Album was the first to feature guitarist Steve Howe, whose contributions significantly altered the band's sound. This influence is particularly strong on the third section of Starship Trooper (subtitled Wurm), which Howe had brought with him from his previous band, Bodast. The opening section of the song, Life Seeker, as well as the title of Starship Trooper itself, was inspired in part by the Robert Heinlein novel, with Jon Anderson's lyrics centering on a search for God. The middle section, Disillusion, was provided by bassist Chris Squire, and was actually based on a section of an earlier piece called For Everyone. Starship Trooper, although never released as a single, quickly became a popular (and permanent) part of Yes's stage repertoire.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Rockin' Down The Highway
Source:    CD: Toulouse Street
Writer(s):    Tom Johnston
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    In the early 1970s, one sure sign that an artist had "arrived" was when both sides of a single got extensive airplay. This happened to the Doobie Brothers in November of 1972 when both Jesus Is Just Alright and its B side, Rockin' Down The Highway, did the trick for them. From then on it was smooth sailing for one of the most popular bands of the decade.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2140 (starts 9/27/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/387135-pe-2140

 
    This week we have a couple of artists' sets (Santana and the Rolling Stones), an Advanced Psych segment, and the long overdue first appearance of Iggy Pop's band, the Stooges, on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. And all that accounts for less than a third of the music on this week's show. It all starts with the opening of a music box...

Artist:    Sugarloaf
Title:    Music Box
Source:    LP: Spaceship Earth
Writer(s):    Robert Yeazel
Label:    Liberty
Year:    1971
    Following the release of their 1970 debut album, Sugarloaf recruited Robert Yeazel to be the band's second lead guitarist, joining Jerry Corbetta, Bob Webber, Bob Raymond and Bob MacVittie to record the band's second LP, Spaceship Earth. Yeazel brought strong songwriting skills to the band, and either wrote or co-wrote every song on Spaceship Earth. The album covered a lot more ground musically as well, including the unique and somewhat whimsical Music Box, a Yeazel composition that immediately preceeds the hard-rocking Tongue In Cheek to close out the LP's second side.

Artist:    Blind Faith
Title:    Had To Cry Today
Source:    LP: Blind Faith
Writer(s):    Steve Winwood
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1969
    One of the most eagerly-awaited albums of 1969 was Blind Faith, the self-titled debut album of a group consisting of Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker from Cream, Steve Winwood from Traffic and Rich Grech, who had played bass with a band called Family. The buzz about this new band was such that the rock press had to coin a brand-new term to describe it: supergroup. On release, the album shot up to the number one spot on the charts in record time. Of course, as subsequent supergroups have shown, such bands seldom stick around very long, and Blind Faith set the pattern early on by splitting up after just one LP and a short tour to promote it. The opening track of the album was a pure Winwood piece that showcases both Winwood and Clapton on separate simultaneous guitar tracks.

Artist:    Del Shannon
Title:    I Think I Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover)
Writer(s):    Del Shannon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Del Shannon? The guy who did Runaway back in '62? Yep. Also the same Del Shannon who Tom Petty has acknowledged as his number one inspiration and who was on the verge of being asked to replace the late Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys when he himself became the late Del Shannon. Unlike many of his early 60s contemporaries such as Bobby Vee or Fabian, Shannon was able to keep up with the times, as this piece of pure psychedelia (penned by Shannon himself) from the album The Further Adventures of Charles Westover demonstrates.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Cat Talking To Me
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2010
    The 1967 recording of Cat Talking To Me sat on the shelf for over thirty years before being released as the B side to the Valleys Of Neptune single in 2010. The song is notable for two reasons. The first is rather obvious in that it features a rare lead vocal by drummer Mitch Mitchell. The second thing that makes the song stand out from other Experience recordings is a bit more subtle. Cat Talking To Me is musically much more consistent with Hendrix's later tracks, especially those heard on various posthumous releases, than anything else he was working on in 1967.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    There were actually three slow versions of Hey Joe released in 1966. The first was a summer single by folk singer Tim Rose, who reportedly brainstormed the idea of slowing down the popular garage-rock tune with his friend Sean Bonniwell, leader of the Music Machine. Although Rose's version was the first released, it did not appear on an LP until 1967. The first stereo version of the song was on the Music Machine's first LP, released in the fall. In December a third slow version of Hey Joe was released, but only in the UK and Europe. That version was by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Like Rose's single, the Hendrix version of Hey Joe was originally released only in a mono version, which was remixed in stereo by engineers at Reprise Records for inclusion on the US version of the debut Hendrix LP in 1967. Like the Rose version, the Music Machine arrangement of Hey Joe focuses squarely on the vocals, with the instrumental track serving purely to set the mood for the piece. Unlike with other recordings of Hey Joe released in 1966, the label on the album Turn On The Music Machine correctly credited Billy Roberts as the song's writer.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    I Need You
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    After a series of hard-rocking hits in 1964 such as You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night, the Kinks mellowed out a bit with songs like Set Me Free and Tired Of Waiting For You the following year. Lurking on the other side of Set Me Free, though, was a song that showed that the band still knew how to rock out: I Need You.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Persuasion
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer(s):    Santana (band)
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Santana was originally a free-form jam band, but at the insistence of manager Bill Graham began to write more structured songs for their first studio LP. Released in 1969, the album received less than glowing reviews from the rock press, but following the band's successful appearance at Woodstock, the LP eventually peaked at # 4 on the Billboard album charts. One of the lesser known tracks on the album was Persuasion, a good example of the band doing what their manager told them to do.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Black Magic Woman
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Abraxas and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Peter Green
Label:    Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    A common practice among San Francisco bands was to record their first album in a matter of days then spend months on the follow up. Such was the case with Carlos Santana's band, who resisted pressure from their label to crank out a new album following their successful appearance at Woodstock. The result was Abraxas, released in spring of 1970, still considered to be one of the best rock albums ever made. The album opened with a medley that included their own version of the 1968 Fleetwood Mac song Black Magic Woman. An edited version of the song was released as a single and became the group's biggest hit.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Waiting
Source:    LP: Santana
Writer:    Santana
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    Possibly the most successful (in the long term) of the musicians to emerge from late 60s San Francisco was Carlos Santana, a Mexican-born guitarist who still plays to sellout crowds worldwide. Santana's band originally got lukewarm reviews from the rock press, but after their legendary performance at Woodstock found themselves among rock's royalty. Waiting, the opening track from the group's 1969 debut LP, is an instrumental that was also released as the B side of the band's first single, Evil Ways.

Artist:    Stooges
Title:    Little Doll (original John Cale mix)
Source:    CD: The Stooges (bonus track)
Writer(s):    The Stooges
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2005
    Producer John Cale's original mixes for the first Stooges album, done in a style emulating Lou Reed's "closet mix" of the third Velvet Underground LP, were considered "too arty" by Elektra Records honcho Jac Holzman, so he and Iggy Pop went back and remixed the entire album before it was released. The original Cale mixes sat on the shelf for years, finally surfacing as bonus tracks on the 2005 CD reissue of The Stooges. The version of Little Doll heard here is one of those John Cale mixes, albeit pitch corrected.

Artist:    John McLaughlin
Title:    Extrapolation
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Extrapolation)
Writer(s):    John McLaughlin
Label:    Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year:    1969
    Best known as the founder of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, guitarist John McLaughlin performed with a number of legendary British artists before recording his solo debut album, Extrapolation, for Giorgio Gomelsky's Marmalade label in 1969. As can be heard on the title track, McLaughlin was already quite accomplished on his instrument at this point in his career. When Marmalade folded McLaughlin moved to New York, where he joined up with Miles Davis (on the Bitches Brew album) before forming the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1971. Now known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, the guitarist remains one of the world's most highly respected jazz guitarists.

rtist:     Pleasure (featuring Billy Elder)
Title:     Poor Old Organ Grinder
Source:     CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Tandyn Almer
Label:     Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:     1969
     Tandyn Almer had one of the most innovative minds in late 60s L.A., both in and out of the recording studio (he was the inventor of the dual-chamber bong, for instance). Poor Old Organ Grinder was a song originally intended for Tommy Flanders, the original lead vocalist for the Blues Project. Flanders, however, was not able to hit the high notes. As Almers was about to cancel the entire project one of the recording engineers, Billy Elder, convinced Almer to let him take a shot at the song, and the result is the recording heard here.
    
Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    Children Of The Sun
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):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1969
    Formed in Riverside, California in 1965, the Misunderstood relocated to London in 1966, where they soon became one of the top bands on the local underground scene. Unfortunately, the band was plagued by issues involving draft eligibility, resulting in original rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter Greg Treadwell returning to the states soon after arriving in the UK. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as his replacement, Londoner Tony Hill, teamed up with vocalist Rick Brown to write even better songs, augmented by the talents of Glenn Ross Campbell, who played his leads on a pedal steel guitar.  The band soon signed with Fontana, releasing a single in December of 1966 before once again running into problems with the draft board, this time concerning Brown. With their frontman gone, the Misunderstood soon disbanded, with the remaining American members returning to California. Two years later Fontana released a second single by the Misunderstood, Children Of The Sun, which has since come to be regarded as a classic example of garage-flavored psychedelic music.

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

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Get Me To The World On Time
Source:    CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (originally released on LP: The Electric Prunes)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Jones
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    With I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) climbing the charts in early 1967, the Electric Prunes turned to songwriter Annette Tucker for two more tracks to include on their debut LP. One of those, Get Me To The World On Time (co-written by lyricist Jill Jones) was selected to be the follow up single to Dream. Although not as big a hit, the song still did respectably on the charts (and was actually the first Electric Prunes song I ever heard on FM radio).

Artist:    Country Joe McDonald
Title:    Black Fish
Source:    CD: 50
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Rag Baby
Year:    2017
    The first track that really jumped out at me on Country Joe McDonald's 2017 album 50 was a tune called Black Fish. As is characteristic of McDonald's work, the song is both musically interesting and lyrically savvy. Good stuff!

Artist:    Vertacyn Arc Materializer
Title:    El Dorado
Source:    LP: Tasting The Sea
Writer(s):    Vertacyn Arc Materializer
Label:    10 GeV
Year:    2018
    The city of San Francisco seems to produce more than its share of bands that go out of their way to maintain their anonymity. In the early 1970s the Residents even recorded an album called Not Available, intending to not release it until all of the band members had forgotten about its existence (it eventually got released in 1978 during a creative dry spell). These days the San Francisco anonymous band torch is carried by Vertacyn Arc Materializer, a band that is just as hard to describe as the Residents themselves. Their second LP, Tasting The Sea, is only available on Vinyl, and it's packaging is nothing less than spectacular. The front cover is the famous Rolling Stones "mouth" logo dissected by an actual zipper, mimicking the Stones' own Sticky Fingers cover, against a stark white background. Opening the zipper reveals a "circle c" copyright symbol. The back cover featuring "portraits" of each of the four band members: the Starbucks logo (bass, guitar), the US $20 bill version of President Andrew Jackson (drums, trumpet), Marilyn (guitar, bass, keyboards) and Homeland Security, represented by a snarling wolf (vocals, keyboards, guitar). There's even more fun stuff on the inside of the gatefold cover, but I'll let you find your own copy to check it out yourself (if you can find one; apparently there were only 500 pressed). Musically, Tasting The Sea is harder to describe; I'd put it with bands like Killing Joke and Nine Inch Nails, with a little Pere Ubu thrown in, but even that comparison falls short of the reality of Vertacyn Arc Materializer. Perhaps the most accessible track on the album is El Dorado, that has a bit of an early Pink Floyd (and slightly later King Crimson) vibe to it. Enjoy!

Artist:    Romeo Void
Title:    I Mean It
Source:    LP: itsacondition
Writer(s):    Iyall/Zincavage/Woods/Bossi
Label:    415
Year:    1981
    Formed in 1979 at the San Francisco Art Institute by vocalist Deborah Iyall and bassist Frank Zincavage, Romeo Void also included saxophonist Benjamin Bossi, guitarist Peter Woods, and a (shades of Spinal Tap!) succession of drummers. Their first LP, Itsacondition (sometimes referred to as It's A Condition) was released in 1981. I first ran across this album while doing a contemporary alternative rock show called Rock Nouveaux on KUNM in Albuquerque in the early 1980s. Although most of the album was fast-paced and punkish in nature, it was I Mean It, the haunting closing track from side one, that stood out from just about everything else that was happening musically at the time.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    I'm Going Home
Source:    European import CD: Undead
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1968
    Ten Years After was one of those bands that had to be heard live to be truly appreciated. Producer Mike Vernon certainly thought so at any rate, so, midway through recording tracks for a second studio album, he decided to instead rent a small club in London and record the band's performance there. The result was the 1968 album Undead, which includes the original live version of I'm Going Home, the song that would propel the band into the ranks of rock royalty the following year at Woodstock.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    I Need A Man To Love
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Joplin/Andrew
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Big Brother and the Holding Company recorded their first album at the Chicago studios of Mainstream records in 1967. Mainstream, however, was a jazz label and their engineers had no idea how to make a band like Big Brother sound good. When the band signed to Columbia the following year it was decided that the best way to record the band was onstage. Unfortunately, none of the live recordings the band made were considered good enough to be released, so they ended up making studio versions of most of the songs, including I Need A Man To Love, and then added ambient audience noise to them to make them sound like live recordings. Apparently it worked, as the resulting album, Cheap Thrills, ended up being the most successful album of 1968.

Artist:     Johnny Winter
Title:     Bad Luck And Trouble
Source:     LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer:     Johnny Winter
Label:     United Artists (original labels: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year:     1968
     Johnny Winter first started getting attention while playing the Texas blues circuit. His first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, originally appeared on the regional Sonobeat label and was subsequently reissued nationally on Imperial. Unlike his brother Edgar, who got caught up in the whole glam rock thing, Johnny Winter remained a respected blues artist for his entire career.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Rambling On
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M/Rebound
Year:    1968
    Procol Harum is generally considered to be one of the first progressive rock bands, thanks in part to their second LP, Shine On Brightly. In addition to the album's showpiece, the seventeen minute In Held Twas I, the album has several memorable tracks, including Rambling On, which closes out side one of the original LP. The song's rambling first-person lyrics (none of which actually rhyme) tell the story of a guy who, inspired by a Batman movie, decides to jump off a roof and fly. Oddly enough, he succeeds.

Artist:    Southwest F.O.B.
Title:    Tomorrow
Source:    LP: Smell Of Incense
Writer(s):    Colley/Seals
Label:    Hip
Year:    1968
    If Tomorrow, from the 1968 LP Smell Of Incense, sounds like an England Dan and John Ford Coley song, it's because it IS an England Dan and John Ford Coley song. The duo, along with Larry "Ovid" Stevens, were the core members of Southwest F.O.B., a popular Dallas band that had started off calling themselves the Playboys Five while the members were still in high school. At the time Coley (whose name was originally spelled Colley) and Seals were both 20 years old. They would find success as a soft rock duo in the late 1970s. In the 1980s Seals would become one of the most successful country artists of the decade.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Lady Jane
Source:     British import LP: Aftermath (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:     1966
     One of the best early Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time in the US was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated separately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8).

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Complicated
Source:    LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    The Rolling Stones' 1967 album Between The Buttons was made amidst growing problems for the band, both with their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, and guitarist Brian Jones, whose heavy drug use was beginning to take its toll. Exascerbating the problem was the band's increasing frustration with the limitations of four-track technology, which often necessitated bouncing tracks from one machine to another to make room for more tracks, resulting in a loss of overall quality. In fact, Mick Jagger has called the entire album "garbage" (with the exception of one song that was only included on the British version of the LP), due to the poor audio quality of the finished product. Still, some of the songs, like Complicated, are good representations of where the band was musically at the time the album was recorded.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Think
Source:    CD: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original US label: London)
Year:    1966
    The 1966 album Aftermath marked a turning point for the Rolling Stones, as it was the first Stones album to be entirely made up of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Although, as with all the early Stones releases, there were differences between the US and UK versions of the album, both releases included Think, a song that is fairly representative of the mid-60s Rolling Stones sound.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Hey Bulldog
Source:    CD: Yellow Submarine
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:    1969
    The original 1969 Yellow Submarine soundtrack album has always been considered a "non-essential" part of the Beatles catalog, despite containing four songs that were unavailable from any other source. Part of the reason for this is because it was, by all accounts, a "contractual obligation" album, and only two of the four new songs were actually recorded specifically for use in the film. The newest of the four was Hey Bulldog, later described by composer/lead vocalist John Lennon as "a good-sounding record that means nothing". Meaningless or not, Hey Bulldog is indeed a good sounding record, and one of the few to reflect the same sense of whimsy found on the band's annual Christmas records sent to members of their fan club.