Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2151 (starts 12/13/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/397518-dc-2151

    With just a couple of exceptions, it's been over two years since any of this week's tracks have been played on either Rockin' in the Days of Confusion or our companion show, Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. One of those exceptions is a Jimi Hendrix tune that tends to pop up around the Fourth of July every year (no, not the Star-Spangled Banner) while the other, a Joni Mitchell tune, is making its first appearance on either show. We start with three tunes from 1969. From there, it's 1970 all the way.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Good Times Bad Times
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s):    Page/Jones/Bonham
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    When I was a junior in high school I used to occasionally hang out at the teen club on Ramstein AFB in Germany. One evening I was completely blown away by a new record on the jukebox. It was Good Times Bad Times by a group called Led Zeppelin. Although the members of my band knew better than to attempt to cover the song, another neighborhood group did take a shot at it with somewhat disastrous results at a gig that our two groups split on New Year's Eve of 1969-70. As I had a personal vendetta going against their bass player, I didn't feel too bad about the fact that we basically blew them out of the water that night, but over time I have come to regret doing that to the rest of the band (well, actually they did it to themselves), particularly their lead guitarist, who was actually a really nice guy. Sorry Jeff.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Politician (live version)
Source:    LP: Goodbye
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Usually the bluesier numbers performed by Cream were covers of classic works by guys like Willie Dixon (Spoonful), Muddy Waters (Rollin' and Tumblin') or Albert King (Sitting On Top Of The World). One notable exception is Politician, which was written by Cream's bassist Jack Bruce, with his songwriting partner Pete Brown. Usually the team came up with the band's more psychedelic stuff, but in this case proved that they could crank out a blues tune with the best of 'em when they wanted to. Originally released on the 1968 album Wheels Of Fire, the live version of Politician (which runs in excess of six minutes) was featured on the band's final LP, Goodbye Cream, which came out the following year.

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Life's One Act Play
Source:    British import CD: A Step Further
Writer(s):    Chris Youlden
Label:    Deram (original US label: Parrot)
Year:    1969
    Like many British blues bands, Savoy Brown had almost as many lineup changes as they did albums. In fact, it wasn't until their fourth LP, A Step Further, released in 1969, that the same group of musicians appeared on two consecutive albums. This would, however, be the last Savoy Brown album to include lead vocalist and frontman Chris Youlden, who wrote several songs on the album, including Life's One Act Play. The band is supplemented on the track by a rather large string and horn section that would be absent from the group's next LP, Looking In.

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

Artist:    Bloodrock
Title:    Gotta Find A Way
Source:    CD: Bloodrock
Writer(s):    Rutledge/Taylor/Pickens/Grundy/Cobb
Label:    One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    A friend of mine in Alamogordo, NM, went to El Paso for a Grand Funk Railroad concert in 1970 and was blown away by the opening band, a group from Dallas called Bloodrock. At the time Bloodrock has just released their first LP, and my friend immediately went out and bought a copy, playing it for the members of my own band, Friends, at the first opportunity. It wasn't long before we were learning to play the first track on the album, a song called Gotta Find A Way. We were so enthusiastic about the song we made it the first song on our own demo tape. Soon after that Bloodrock released their second album, which included their most famous track, DOA, and the band soon found itself pigeonholed by its own success. A shame, since that first album showed so much potential.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience (MkII)
Title:     Freedom
Source:     LP: Heavy Metal (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     Warner Special Products (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:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Wasp/Behind The Wall Of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B.
Source:    CD: Black Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers/Rhino
Year:    1970
    While feedback-laden bands like Blue Cheer are often credited with laying the foundations of what would come to be called heavy metal, Black Sabbath is generally considered to be the first actual heavy metal band. Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward didn't set out to create a whole new genre. They simply wanted to be the heaviest blues-rock band around. After seeing a movie marquee for an old Boris Karloff film called Black Sabbath and deciding that would make a good name for a band, however, the group soon began modifying their sound to more closely match their new name. The result was a debut album that would change the face of rock music forever. Probably the best known track on the Black Sabbath album is N.I.B., which closes out the LP's first side. Contrary to popular belief, N.I.B. is not a set of initials at all, but just the word nib done in capital letters with periods after each letter. According to Geezer Butler, who wrote the lyrics for N.I.B. "Originally it was Nib, which was Bill's beard. When I wrote N.I.B., I couldn't think of a title for the song, so I just called it Nib, after Bill's beard. To make it more intriguing I put punctuation marks in there to make it N.I.B. By the time it got to America, they translated it to Nativity In Black." On the album the song is preceded by a short bass solo from Butler, which in turn segues directly out of the previous track, Behind The Wall Of Sleep. For some reason (possibly to garner the group more royalties) Warner Brothers Records added extra song titles to the two tracks on the album cover and label to make them look like four separate pieces. The original British release, however, lists them as Behind The Wall Of Sleep and N.I.B.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Incident At Neshabur
Source:    CD: Abraxas
Writer(s):    Gianquito/Santana
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    Incident At Neshabur is one of many instrumental tracks on the second Santana album, Abraxas. In fact, among rock's elite, Carlos Santana is unique in that nearly half of his entire recorded output is instrumentals. This is in large part because, with the exception of an occassional backup vocal, Santana never sings on his records. Then again, with as much talent as he has as a guitarist, he really doesn't need to.

Artist:    Joni Mitchell
Title:    For Free
Source:    LP: Superecord Contemporary (originally released on LP: Ladies Of The Canyon)
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    For her third album, Ladies Of The Canyon, Joni Mitchell began writing more piano-oriented songs such as For Free, which foreshadows her move toward jazz that would characterize her later career. The song itself deals with the dichotomy between pure art and commercial success, a theme that she would return to on albums like Court And Spark and The Hissing Of Summer Lawns.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Fugue U/Parchman Farm/Wrath Of Daisey
Source:    CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image/Allison
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Despite drawing decent crowds in Florida (and, later, Los Angeles) and getting rave reviews from the rock press, as well as their fellow musicians, Blues Image was never able to sell a lot of albums. This is a shame, as almost all of their material was as good or better than anything else being recorded in 1969-70. A classic example is the medley of Fugue U (emulating J.S. Bach), a jazz-rock arrangement of Mose Allison's Parchman Farm and the latin-rock instrumental Wrath Of Daisey). Guitarist Mike Pinera went on to replace Eric Brann in Iron Butterfly the following year.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Sugar The Road
Source:    LP: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1970
    Ten Years After's fourth LP, Cricklewood Green, was the band's first release following their appearance at Woodstock, and by all accounts they made the best of the situation with what is generally considered to be their best studio album. In addition to progressive FM radio favorites Love Like A Man and 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain, the album contains several tunes that show the group's diversity, such as Sugar The Road, which opens side one of the LP.
       

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2150 (starts 12/6/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/396387-pe-2150 

    Quicksilver Messenger Service was far better known for their live performances than anything they tried in a recording studio, so it should come as no surprise that their second LP, Happy Trails, consisted, for the most part of live recordings. This week we present side two of Happy Trails, along with artists' sets from Cream (all from Disraeli Gears) and the Rolling Stones. Plus the usual mix of singles, B sides and album tracks, of course.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    It's My Life
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Atkins/D'Errico
Label:    Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1965
    The Animals had a string of solid hits throughout the mid-60s, many of which were written by professional songwriters working out of Don Kirschner's Brill Building in New York. Although vocalist Eric Burdon expressed disdain for most of these songs at the time (preferring to perform the blues/R&B covers that the group had built up its following with), he now sings every one of them, including It's My Life, on the oldies circuit.

Artist:    The Mamas And The Papas
Title:    Go Where You Wanna Go
Source:    LP: If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears
Writer(s):    John Phillips
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1966
    Written by John Phillips to his wife Michelle concerning one of her affairs, Go Where You Wanna Go was originally slated to be released as a single in November of 1965. In fact, promo copies of the record were even sent out to local Los Angeles radio stations, but at the last minute Lou Adler, head of Dunhill Records, decided to go with California Dreamin' as the debut single of the Mamas And The Papas. As a result, Go Where You Wanna Go was not available to the general public until the last day of February, 1966, when it appeared on the LP If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears. The following year the song, using virtually the same arrangement as the original version, became the first of many top 20 singles for the Fifth Dimension.

Artist:     Procol Harum
Title:     She Wandered Through The Garden Fence
Source:     Simulated stereo LP: Procol Harum
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label:     Deram
Year:     1967
     The first Procol Harum LP, although recorded using 4-track equipment, was originally mixed in monoraul only. In the US, however, where mono LPs were being phased out, the album was electronically re-channeled to simulate stereophonic sound. This practice was largely abandoned by 1970, although there were still a few exceptions, usually among reissues of older recordings. If you really want to know how this "fake" stereo sounds, we have She Wandered Through The Garden Fence, from one of those original 1967 US pressings of the album. 

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Sexy Sadie
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    I can't hear the song Sexie Sadie without being reminded of Charles Manson and his misinterpretation of the White Album (Sadie Mae Glutz was the nickname Manson gave Susan Atkins, one of his female followers). The song was actually inspired by the Mararishi Mahesh Yogi, or more specifically, John Lennon's disillusionment with the man. Lennon said that Sexie Sadie was the last song he wrote before leaving India, and that bandmate George Harrison would only agree to recording the tune if its original title of Maharishi was changed.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Lover Man
Source:    CD: Valleys Of Neptune
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2010
    Valleys Of Neptune is a collection of unreleased tracks featuring (mostly) members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Nearly all the tracks, including Lover Man, are credited to Hendrix, although there are a couple of blues covers on the disc as well. Although Valleys Of Neptune contains an album's worth of material, it all sounds like jams that were not intended to be heard by the general public. Whether some of these tracks may have developed into actual compositions is a question that will probably never be answered, as the group split up not long after these recordings were made and Hendrix himself changed musical directions over the next year.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    How Many More Times
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Led Zeppelin)
Writer(s):    Page/Jones/Bonham
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1969
    Like many early Led Zeppelin songs, How Many More Times was originally credited to the band members (except, for contractual reasons, singer Robert Plant). More recent releases of the song, however, list Chester Burnett (Howlin' Wolf) as a co-writer, despite the fact that he and the members of Led Zeppelin had never met. This is because of the similarity, especially in the lyrics, to a 1951 Howlin' Wolf record called How Many More Years. The band reportedly tried to trick radio programmers into playing the eight and a half minute song by listing it on the album cover as being three minutes and thirty seconds long. I doubt anyone was fooled.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Strange Brew
Source:    British import LP Picture Disc: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Clapton/Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    RSO (original US label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Strange Brew, the opening track from Cream's Disraeli Gears album, was also released as a single in early 1967. The song, which was created by adding new lyrics and melody to an existing instrumental track, has proven popular enough over the years to be included on pretty much every Cream anthology album ever compiled, and even inspired a Hollywood movie of the same name.

Artist:         Cream
Title:        Sunshine Of Your Love
Source:      CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released on LP: Disraeli Gears)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown/Clapton
Label:    Priority (original label: Atco)
Year:        1967
        Although by mid-1967 Cream had already released a handful of singles in the UK, Sunshine Of Your Love, featuring one of the most recognizable guitar rifts in the history of rock, was their first song to make a splash in the US. Although only moderately successful in edited form on AM Top-40 radio, the full-length LP version of the song received extensive airplay on the more progressive FM stations, and turned Disraeli Gears into a perennial best-seller. Clapton and Bruce constantly trade off lead vocal lines throughout the song. The basic compatibility of their voices is such that it is sometimes difficult to tell exactly who is singing what line. Clapton's guitar solo (which was almost entirely edited out of the AM version) set a standard for instrumental breaks in terms of length and style that became a hallmark for what is now known as "classic rock."

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Outside Woman Blues
Source:    LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Arthur Reynolds
Label:    RSO (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Although Cream's second album, Disraeli Gears, is best known for its psychedelic cover art and original songs such as Strange Brew, Sunshine Of Your Love and Tales of Brave Ulysses, the LP did have one notable blues cover on it. Outside Woman Blues was originally recorded by Blind Joe Reynolds in 1929 and has since been covered by a variety of artists including Van Halen, Johnny Winters, Jimi Hendrix and even the Atlanta Rhythm Section.
 
Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Magic Of Love (live)
Source:    CD: Cheap Thrills (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Mark Spoelstra
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1999
    Like many San Francisco bands of the psychedelic era, Big Brother And The Holding Company had a synergistic relationship with their audience. When they played, there would be people literally dancing in the aisles of places like the Avalon ballroom and the original Fillmore. The challenge for producer John Simon was to somehow capture the energy shared by band and audience on a vinyl disc. The group had already recorded one LP for Bob Shad's Mainstream label, but the album itself sounded sterile compared to the band's live performances. Simon's tentative solution for the second Big Brother album, Cheap Thrills, was to record the band live, starting with a show in Detroit on March 2, 1968. Ultimately, it was decided to shelve the live recordings (with one exception) and instead work with the band in the studio and sweeten the recordings with crowd sounds to simulate live performances. One of those shelved recordings, Magic Of Love (from the Detroit concert), finally surfaced on the 1999 CD reissue of Cheap Thrills as a bonus track.

Artist:    Things To Come
Title:    Come Alive
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Russ Ward
Label:    Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Long Beach, California was home to a band known as Things To Come, which featured drummer Russ Ward, who, as Russ Kunkel, would go on to become one of L.A.'s most in-demand studio drummers. Come Alive is a solid piece of garage rock written by Ward/Kunkel.
 
Artist:    Aquarian Age
Title:    Me
Source:    Mono British import CD: Tomorrow (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Alder/Wood)
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1968
    In 1968, with Tomorrow on the verge of breaking up, bassist John "Junior" Wood and drummer John "Twink" Alder, working with producer Mark Wirtz to create a pair of recordings released as a single and credited to the Aquarian Age. A Third song, Me, was also recorded at the time, but not released until 1999, when it was included as a bonus track on the CD reissue of the album Tomorrow.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Chicken Wire Lady
Source:    CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Thielhelm
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1968
    Following a year of extensive touring, the Blues Magoos decided to take a break from the hectic pace demanded by their producers and hired a mobile unit to come to their house, where they recorded several tracks for what became their third album, Basic Blues Magoos. Among those new tracks was Chicken Wire Lady, the last track on the album and, as it turned out, the last song recorded by the original lineup of the Blues Magoos.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills & Nash
Title:    49 Bye-Byes
Source:    LP: Crosby, Stills & Nash
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    Like most of his 1969 songs, 49 Bye-Byes was written about Stephen Stills's then-girlfriend Judy Collins, proving that what they say about dating a songwriter is true.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Easy Ride
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jim Morrison
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1969
    Jim Morrison was not happy with the direction the Doors were taking with their fourth studio LP, The Soft Machine. For one thing, he had a problem with some of Robby Krieger's lyrics and thus insisted that songwriting credits go to the individual band members as opposed to the entire group. He also had issues with producer Paul Rothchild's decision to bring in strings and horns, and made sure his own songs, such as Easy Ride, did not include either.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Mona/Maiden Of The Cancer Moon/Calvary
Source:    LP: Happy Trails
Writer(s):    McDaniel/Duncan/Evans
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    Most everyone familiar with Quicksilver Messenger Service agrees that the band's real strength was its live performances. Apparently the folks at Capitol Records realized this as well, since the band's second LP was recorded (mostly) live at Bill Graham's two Fillmore Auditoriums. The second side of the Happy Trails album starts with a Bo Diddly cover, Mona, which segues directly into a Gary Duncan composition, Maiden Of The Cancer Moon. The original performance segued directly into the more avant-garde Calvary (also credited to Duncan), but for the album a studio recreation of that performance was used (although the album sleeve makes it clear that it was recorded "live" at Golden State Recorders, indicating that it was done in a single take without any overdubs).

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dandelion
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    If there was a British equivalent to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in terms of time and money spent on a single song, it might be We Love You, a 1967 single released by the Rolling Stones. To go along with the single (with its state-of-the-art production) the band spent a considerable sum making a full-color promotional video, a practice that would not become commonplace until the advent of MTV in the 1980s. Despite all this, US radio stations virtually ignored We Love You, choosing to instead flip the record over and play the B side, a tune called Dandelion. As to why this came about, I suspect that Bill Drake, the man behind the nation's most influential top 40 stations, simply decided that the less elaborately produced Dandelion was better suited to the US market than We Love You and instructed his hand-picked program directors at such stations as WABC, KHJ and WLS to play Dandelion. The copycat nature of top 40 radio being what it is, Dandelion ended up being a moderate hit in the US in the summer of '67.

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

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    You Can't Always Get What You Want
Source:    CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1969
    When the Rolling Stones called for singers to back them up on their recording of You Can't Always Get What You Want, they expected maybe 30 to show up. Instead they got twice that many, and ended up using them all on the record. The song, which also features Al Kooper on organ, was orginally released as the B side of Honky Tonk Women in 1969. In the mid-1970s, after the Stones had established their own record label, Allen Klein, who had bought the rights to the band's pre-1970 recordings, reissued the single, this time promoting You Can't Always Get What You Want as the A side. Klein's strategy worked and the song ended up making the top 40.

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

Artist:    People
Title:    I Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Chris White
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 the major labels had signed just about every San Francisco band with any perceived potential. Capitol, having had some success with the Chocolate Watchband from San Jose on its Tower subsidiary, decided to sign another south bay band, People, to the parent label. The most successful single for the band was a new recording of an obscure Zombies B side. I Love You ended up hitting the top 20 nationally, despite the active efforts of two of the most powerful men in the music industry, who set out to squash the song as a way of punishing the record's producer for something having nothing to do with the song or the band itself.

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

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2150 (starts 12/6/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/396386-dc-2150

    This week the loner lies down on his sweet head in four holes while gazing at his crystal ball and dancing with Mr. D. It must be some sort of majik.

Artist:    Neil Young
Title:    The Loner
Source:    LP: The Big Ball (originally released on LP: Neil Young)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    The Loner could easily have been passed off as a Buffalo Springfield song. In addition to singer/songwriter/guitarist Neil Young, the tune features Springfield members Jim Messina on bass and George Grantham on drums. Since Buffalo Springfield was functionally defunct by the time the song was ready for release, however, it instead became Young's first single as a solo artist. The song first appeared, in a longer form, on Young's first solo album in late 1968, with the single appearing three months later. The subject of The Loner has long been rumored to be Young's bandmate Stephen Stills, or possibly Young himself. As usual, Neil Young ain't sayin'.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dancing With Mr. D.
Source:    LP: Goat's Head Soup
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Rolling Stones
Year:    1973
    Depending on whose point of view you choose to agree with, Goat's Head Soup marked either the end of the Rolling Stones' golden age or the beginning of their mid-70s decline into rock star decadence. With a track like Dancing With Mr. D. starting off the album, I'd have to go with the former view.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Sweet Head
Source:    CD: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (bonus track)
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Ryko
Year:    Recorded 1972, released 1990
    With the release of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, David Bowie firmly established himself as the king of glam rock in 1972.  Ironically the track that has been called David Bowie's "most extreme" glam rock song, Sweet Head, was left off the album and buried so deeply that even the bootleggers never heard of it until it appeared on the CD reissue of Ziggy in 1990. As Bowie says in the song itself: "Until there was rock you only had God."

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Crystal Ball
Source:    British import CD: The Magician's Birthday (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Gary Thain
Label:    Sanctuary
Year:    Recorded 1972, released 2003
    One of the least talked about members of the infamous "27 club" is New Zealander Gary Thain, who joined Uriah Heep midway through sessions for their 1972 album Demons And Wizards. His first songwriting credits with the band appeared on Uriah Heep's next LP, The Magician's Birthday, as co-writer of the album's two singles, Sweet Lorraine and Spider Woman. His only solo composition for the album, Crystal Ball, was never completed, although several different versions have since surfaced, including this bonus track from the 2003 British reissue of The Magician's Birthday.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Spiral Architect
Source:    LP: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    The final track on Black Sabbath's fifth LP, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Spiral Architect reflects lyricist Geezer Butler's fascination with DNA and the way it interacts with one's life experiences to produce a unique individual. As Butler puts it : "I used to get very contemplative on certain substances. I still do, but without those substances."

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (opening sequence)
Source:    CD: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1974
    The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was released in 1974, and features lyrics written exclusively by Peter Gabriel, who would leave Genesis, the band he co-founded, following the band's 1975 tour to promote the double LP. The album was originally met with mixed reviews, but has come to be considered by many the apex of the band's existence. More than on any other Genesis album, the songs tend to flow together without a break between them. For example, the album's opening sequence of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Fly On A Windshield, Broadway Melody Of 1974, Cuckoo Cocoon and In The Cage come across as one continuous piece that takes up nearly the entire first side of the original LP.
    
Artist:    Premiati Forneria Marconi (PFM)
Title:    Four Holes In The Ground
Source:    Italian import CD: The World Became The World
Writer(s):    Mussida/Premoli/Pagani/Sinfield
Label:    Sony Music/RCA
Year:    1974
    Premiati Forneria Marconi (PFM), was, for a time, the most popular homegrown band in Italy, second in popularity only to Emerson, Lake and Palmer, who signed them to their own Manticore label for a series of English language albums. The second of these, The World Became The World, featured lyrics by Peter Sinfield, who had also provided lyrics for King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer themselves, among others. A highlight of that album was Four Holes In The Ground, which became the band's live set opener for several years.

Artist:    Cat Stevens
Title:    Majik Of Majiks
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Cat Stevens (originally released on LP: Numbers)
Writer(s):    Cat Stevens
Label:    UTV/A&M
Year:    1975
    Bored with the formula that had brought him internation fame in the early 1970s, singer/songwriter wrote and produced his first concept album, Numbers, in 1975. Based on a story about the planet Polygor, whose entire purpose is to dispense the numbers 1 through 9 (but not zero) to the rest of the universe, the album was musically a major departure from Stevens's previous style, and ended up being a commercial disappointment (although eventually it did achieve gold record status). Although not released as a single, Majik Of Majiks was the only song from Numbers selected for inclusion on the 2000 CD The Very Best Of Cat Stevens.

Artist:    J. Geils Band
Title:    Magic's Mood
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Juke Joint Jimmy
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1976
    My two favorite J. Geils Band tracks are both B sides featuring the harmonica playing of Magic Dick. Both Magic's Mood, from 1976, and 1971's Whammer Jammer are credited to Juke Joint Jimmy. Of course, this writing credit got me curious, so I did a little research and found out that Juke Joint Jimmy (sometimes spelled Jimmie) is actually a pseudonym created specifically for songs written by the entire band. So now I guess I can put Juke Joint Jimmy in the same class as Nanker Phelge and McGannahan Skjellyfetti.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2149 (starts 11/29/21)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/395517-pe-2149

    We've been kind of neglecting Jefferson Airplane lately, so to make up for it we have a nearly eighteen minute long artists' set from them this week, about the same length as a typical LP side of the rock era. Also on tap: a Donovan set and several tracks making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut, including one from an ad hoc British blues-rock supergroup put together specifically for one recording session only.

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

Artist:     Cream
Title:     SWLABR
Source:     CD: Disraeli Gears (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label:     Polydor (original label: Atco)
    Year: 1967
    I distinctly remember this song getting played on the local jukebox just as much as the single's A side, Sunshine Of Your Love (maybe even more). Like most of Cream's more psychedelic material, SWLABR (an anagram for She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow) was written by the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown had originally been brought in as a co-writer for Ginger Baker, but soon realized that he and Bruce had better songwriting chemistry.

Artist:    Bee Gees
Title:    The Earnest Of Being George
Source:    LP: Horizontal
Writer(s):    Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    The 1968 LP Horizontal is generally considered to the Bee Gees' heaviest album, as demonstrated by songs like The Earnest Of Being George. In the words of lead guitarist Vince Melouney: "It was a band effort. We all felt that we were a part of one thing, we'd just try different things. It wasn't like it was the Gibb brothers, Colin (Petersen-drummer) and me. We were all in the Bee Gees together! 'Horizontal' made its way into the top 20 worldwide and helped cement the Bee Gees place as real contenders. And this was only the beginning!"

Artist:    Mothers Of Invention
Title:    The Air
Source:    LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook (originally released on LP: Uncle Meat)
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Bizarre/Reprise)
Year:    1969
    The fifth Mothers Of Invention album, Uncle Meat, was originally intended to be a soundtrack album for a movie that was never completed (although some of the footage was released in the 1980s). It was also part of Frank Zappa's No Commercial Potential project, along with the albums  We're Only in It for the Money, Lumpy Gravy and Cruising with Ruben & the Jets. As Zappa put it: "It's all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to. Then I could take that razor blade and cut it apart and reassemble it a different way, and it still would make sense. I could do this twenty ways. The material is definitely related." I'm thinking that it would be fun to put them all in one of those five-disc CD players and hit the "random" button just to test that out. When Warner Brothers put together their first "loss leaders" album in 1969, they chose The Air from Uncle Meat as Zappa's contribution to the budget-priced double LP set (available only through mail order).

Artist:    Stephen Stills & Jimi Hendrix
Title:    No-Name Jam
Source:    Promo CD: Selections from Carry On
Writer(s):    Stills/Hendrix
Label:    Atlantic/Rhino
Year:    1970
    For his first solo LP, Stephen Stills brought in several big name guest musicians, including Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Booker T. Jones and Jimi Hendrix. Although Hendrix played on only one track, Old Times Good Times,  on the album itself, a warm up jam featuring both Hendrix and Stills on guitar remained in the vaults for several years, finally seeing the light of day on the 2013 Stephen Stills box set Carry On.

Artist:     Vanilla Fudge
Title:     You Keep Me Hangin' On (includes Illusions Of My Childhood part one and two)
Source:     Mono LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer(s):     Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label:     Atco
Year:     1967
     The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, the the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit. The original album version was considerably longer than the single, however, due in part to the inclusion of a framing sequence called Illusions Of My Childhood (basically a series of short psychedelic instrumental pieces incorporating themes from familiar nursery rhymes such as Farmer In The Dell and Ring Around The Rosie). You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally mixed only in mono as a kind of audition tape for the band. Rather than re-record the song for their debut LP, the band chose to use that original mono mix.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Light My Fire (single version)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Once in a while a song comes along that totally blows you away the very first time you hear it. The Doors' Light My Fire was one of those songs. I liked it so much that I immediately went out and bought the 45 RPM single. Apparently I was not the only one, as the song spent three weeks at the top of the charts in July of 1967. Despite this success, the single version of the song, which runs less than three minutes, is all but forgotten by modern radio stations, which universally choose to play the full-length album version. Nonetheless, the single version, which was created by editing out most of the solo instrumental sections of the piece, is a historical artifact worth an occasional listen.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Desiree
Source:    Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Brown/Feher
Label:    Rhino (original label: Smash)
Year:    1967
    For a while it looked as if the Left Banke would emerge as one of the most important bands of the late 60s. They certainly got off to a good start, with back-to-back top 10 singles Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina. But then bandleader Michael Brown and Smash Records made a serious misstep, issuing a Brown solo effort called Ivy Ivy utilizing studio musicians and trying to pass it off as a Left Banke record. The other band members refused to go along with the charade and sent out letters to their fan club membership denouncing the single. The outraged fans, in turn, threatened to boycott any radio stations that played the single. Brown and the rest of the band, meanwhile, managed to patch things up enough to record a new single, Desiree, and released the song in late 1967. By then, however, radio stations were leery of playing anything with the words Left Banke on the label, and the song failed to chart, despite being an outstanding single. Brown left the Left Banke soon after.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    There Is A Mountain
Source:    British import CD: Mellow Yellow (bonus track originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    1967 was a year that saw Donovan continue to shed the "folk singer" image, forcing the media to look for a new term to describe someone like him. As you may have already guessed, that term was "singer-songwriter." On There Is A Mountain, a hit single from 1967, Donovan applies Eastern philosophy and tonality to pop music, with the result being one of those songs that sticks in your head for days.
    
Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Ferris Wheel
Source:    Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Sundazed
Year:    1966
    In the fall of 1966 the career of Scottish folk singer Donovan Leitch took an odd turn. Up until that point in time he had a run of successful records in the UK but got very little airplay in the US. Two events, however, combined to turn the entire situation around 180 degrees. First, Donovan had just signed a contract with Epic Records in the US, a major step up from the poorly distributed and even more poorly promoted Hickory label. At the same time contract negotiations between the singer/songwriter and his British label, Pye, had come to an impasse. As a result Donovan's next LP, Sunshine Superman, was released only in the US, making songs like Ferris Wheel unavailable to his oldest fans. His popularity in the UK suffered greatly from lack of any new recordings over the next year, while it exploded in the US with consecutive top 10 singles Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow in 1966. From that point on Donovan would have his greatest success in North America, even after securing a new record contract in the UK in late 1967.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    CD: Epistle To Dippy (alternative arrangement)
Source:    CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    Following up on his successful Mellow Yellow album, Donovan released Epistle To Dippy in the spring of 1967. The song, utilizing the same kind of instrumentation as Mellow Yellow, was further proof that the Scottish singer was continuing to move beyond the restrictions of the "folk singer" label and was quickly becoming the model for what would come to be called "singer/songwriters" in the following decade. Due to an ongoing contractual dispute between the artist and his UK record label (Pye), Epistle To Dippy was only released in the US. This "alternative" arrangement of the song was recorded about 10 months after the single version and features a violin prominently, replacing the electric guitar used on the original and giving the song a kind of gypsy vibe.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Homeward Bound
Source:    LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    Following the success of Sounds Of Silence, Paul Simon And Art Garfunkel set about making an album of all new material (Sounds Of Silence had featured several re-recorded versions of tunes from the 1965 British album The Paul Simon Songbook). The result was Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, one of the finest folk-rock albums ever recorded. The album contained several successful singles, including Homeward Bound.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I'm Only Sleeping
Source:    CD: Revolver (originally released in US on LP: Yesterday...And Today)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    Record buyers in the US were able to hear I'm Only Sleeping several weeks before their British counterparts thanks to Capitol Records including the song on the US-only Yesterday...And Today LP. There was a catch, however. Producer George Martin had not yet made a stereo mix of the song, and Capitol used their "Duophonic" system to create a fake stereo version of the tune for the album. That mix continued to be used on subsequent pressings of the LP (and various tape formats), even after a stereo mix was created and included on the UK version of the Revolver album. It wasn't until EMI released the entire run of UK albums on CD in both the US and UK markets that American record buyers had access to the true stereo version of the song heard here.

Artist:     Kinks
Title:     Deadend Street
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Year:     1967
     The last major Kinks hit of the 1960s in the US was Sunny Afternoon in the summer of 1966. The November follow-up, Deadend Street, was in much the same style, but did not achieve the same kind of success in the US (although it was a top five hit in the UK). Although the Kinks would get some minor airplay for subsequent singles such as Victoria, the would not have another major US hit until Lola was released in 1970.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Just Like Me (stereo remix)
Source:    CD: The Legend Of Paul Revere (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dey/Brown
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    Just Like Me was the first top 10 single from Paul Revere And The Raiders, a band that deserves much more credit than they are generally given. The group started in the early part of the decade in Boise, Idaho, when Revere (his real name) hooked up with saxophonist Mark Lindsay. Like most bands at the time, the Raiders' repertoire consisted mostly of instrumentals, as PA systems were a luxury that required more space than was generally allotted to a small town band. It wasn't long before the Raiders relocated to Portland, Oregon, where they became a popular attraction at various clubs. After a hiatus caused by Revere's stint in the military, the band resumed its place as one of the founding bands of the Portland music scene. They soon made their first visit to a recording studio, recording Richard Berry's Louie Louie at around the same time as another popular Portland band, the Kingsmen. The Kingsmen's version ended up being a huge national hit while the popularity of the Raiders' version was mostly restricted to the West Coast, thanks in large part to the active lack of support from Columbia Records, whose head of Artists and Repertoire (A&R), Mitch Miller, was an outspoken critic of rock 'n' roll. Undeterred, the band continued to grow in popularity, recording another single in 1964 (Like Long Hair) and going on tour. It was while playing in Hawaii that the band was noticed by none other than Dick Clark, who hired them to be the house band on his new afternoon TV show, Where The Action Is. Under the leadership of Mitch Miller Columbia Records had done their best to ignore the existence of rock 'n' roll (an effort that was somewhat undermined by one of their most popular artists, Bob Dylan, in 1965, when he went electric). Columbia had, however, a more open-minded West Coast division that included producer Terry Melcher, son of singer Doris Day and co-producer of the Rip Chords' hot rod hit Hey Little Cobra. With the Raiders now being seen daily on a national TV show, the label assigned Melcher to produce the band's records. It was a partnership that would lead to a string of hits, starting with Steppin' Out in 1965. The next record, Just Like Me, was the first of a string of top 10 singles that would last until early 1967, when rapidly changing public tastes made the band seem antiquated compared to up and coming groups like Jefferson Airplane. Just Like Me, despite some rather cheesy lyrics, still holds up well after all these years. Much of the credit for that has to go to Drake Levin, whose innovative double-tracked guitar solo rocked out harder than anything else on top 40 radio at the time (with the possible exception of a couple of well-known Kinks songs).

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

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Mr. Second Class
Source:    British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hardin/Davis
Label:    1967
Year:    Grapefruit (original label: United Artists)
            The Spencer Davis Group managed to survive the departure of their star member, Steve Winwood (and his bass playing brother Muff) in 1967, and with new members Eddie Hardin (vocals) and Phil Sawyer (guitar) managed to get a couple more singles on the chart over the next year or so. The last of these was Mr. Second Class, a surprisingly strong composition from Hardin and Davis.
   
Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Flyte Of The Byrd
Source:    German import CD: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Writer(s):    Ted Nugent
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Mainstream)
Year:    1968
    For their second LP, Detroit's Amboy Dukes decided to divide the songwriting on the album evenly between lead guitarist Ted Nugent and rhythm guitarist/vocalis Steve Farmer, with Nugent getting side one of the original LP and Farmer writing side two. As it turned out, the two ended up contributing to each other's side, but there were still some tracks, such as Nugent's Flyte Of The Byrd, that were solo compositions. The song itself gives a hint as to the direction the band's music would take over the next couple of years.
     
Artist:    Eric Clapton And The Powerhouse
Title:    Steppin' Out
Source:    Mono LP: What's Shakin'
Writer(s):    Memphis Slim
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    In mid-1966 a curiousity appeared on the record shelves from a small, New York based record company specializing in folk and blues recordings. The label was Elektra and the LP was called What's Shakin'. It was basically a collection of mostly unrelated tracks that had been accumulating in Elektra's vaults for several months. Elektra had sent producer Joe Boyd to England to help open a new London office for the label, and while there he made the acquaintance of several local blues musicians, some of which he talked into recording a few songs for Elektra. These included guitarist Eric Clapton (from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers), vocalist Steve Winwood and drummer Pete York (from the Spencer Davis Group), bassist Jack Bruce and harmonica player Paul Jones (from Manfred Mann), and pianist Ben Palmer, a friend of Clapton's who would become a Cream roadie. Recording under the name The Powerhouse, the group recorded four tracks in the studio, three of which were used on What's Shakin' (the fourth, a slow blues, has since gone missing). One of those tracks, a cover of Memphis Slim's Steppin' Out, was an instrumental, and thus did not include Winwood. It does, however, feature some outstanding guitar work by a very young Eric Clapton.

Artist:      Jefferson Airplane
Title:     Streetmasse
Source:      LP: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Kantner/Dryden/Blackman/Thompson/Balin
Label:     RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:     1967
     Of all the Jefferson Airplane albums, 1967's After Bathing At Baxter's is generally considered the most pyschedelic . For one thing, the members were reportedly all on LSD through most of the creative process and were involved in entire package, right down to the decision to divide the album up into five suites and press the vinyl in such a way that the spaces in the vinyl normally found between songs were only present between the suites themselves, making it almost impossible to set the needle down at the beginning of the second or third song of a suite (there is a slight overlap between most of the songs as well). The first suite on After Bathing At Baxter's is called Streetmasse. It consists of three compositions: Paul Kantner's The Ballad of You and Me and Pooniel; A Small Package of Value Will Come To You Shortly (a free-form jazz piece led by drummer Spencer Dryden); and the Paul Kantner/Marty Balin composition Young Girl Sunday Blues.
 
Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Somebody To Love
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Darby Slick
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    Over 40 years after the fact, it's hard to imagine just how big an impact Jefferson Airplane's fifth single had on the garage band scene. Whereas before Somebody To Love came out you could just dismiss hard-to-cover songs as being not worth learning, here was a tune that was undeniably cool, and yet virtually impossible for anyone but the Airplane to play well (and even they were unable to get it to sound quite the same when they performed it live). The mono single mix of the song heard here has noticeably less reverb than the more familiar stereo album version.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon
Source:    CD: After Bathing At Baxter's
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    The first Jefferson Airplane album (the 1966 release Jefferson Airplane Takes Off) was dominated by songs from the pen of founder Marty Balin, a few of which were collaborations with other band members such as Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen. The songwriting on the group's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, was fairly evenly balanced between the three above and new arrival Grace Slick. By the band's third album, After Bathing At Baxter's, released in the fall of 1967, Kantner had emerged as the group's main songwriter, having a hand in over half the tracks on the LP. One of the most durable of these was the album's closing track, a medley of two songs, Won't You Try and Saturday Afternoon, the latter being about a free concert that the band had participated in at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park earlier that year.
    
Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Look (Song For The Children)/Child Is Father To The Man
Source:    LP: The Smile Sessions
Writer(s):    Wilson/Parks
Label:    Capitol
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2011
    In 2004 Brian Wilson released Smile, the culmination of a project that went back nearly 40 years. Smile had begun as the projected follow up to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, with recording for the new album beginning in 1966. Due to a number of reasons the project was suspended in 1967, and a much less ambitious LP called Smiley Smile appeared in its place. For the rest of the 20th century Smile was little more than a legend, surrounded by rumours concerning the disposition of the material that had been recorded before the project was dropped. In the early 1990s some of the tapes resurfaced and were issued as part of the Beach Boys 30th anniversary box set. Still, these were only fragments, without any real sense of how they were meant to be presented on the original album. Finally, with the release of Brian Wilson's all new recordings of much of the same material, there was a template that could be used as a guideline for assembling the original album. Some elements, such as Carl Wilson's backing vocals on tracks like Child Is Father To The Man were actually recorded after the project itself was cancelled and used on later Beach Boys albums. Nonetheless, The Smile Sessions, a double LP released in 2011, is probably the closest thing we'll ever hear to the original Smile album.

Artist:    Salvation
Title:    Think Twice
Source:    German import CD: Salvation
Writer(s):    Joe Tate
Label:    Head (original US label: ABC)
Year:    1968
    If there is any one band that typifies the San Francisco music scene of 1968 it would have to be Salvation. Originally from Seattle and known as the Salvation Army Banned, the group came to the attention of ABC Records after a series of successful gigs at Golden Gate Park. The band was often seen cruising the streets of San Francisco in a converted bus and often found themselves sharing the playbill with acts like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. After recording their debut LP, Salvation, the group did a coast to coast promotional tour "from the Golden Gate to the Village Gate", only to find themselves stranded on the east coast when their management team absconded with the band's advance money. The band's fate was sealed when they, to quote keyboardist Art Resnick, "acted so incredibly wild at the main offices of ABC In in NYC when going there to meet all the top execs. It was totally insane! Wilder than any rock movie I've ever seen."

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Boogie Music
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: Living The Blues and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    L.T.Tatman III
Label:    United Artists (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Canned Heat was formed in 1966 by a group of San Francisco Bay Area blues purists. Although a favorite on the rock scene, the band continued to remain true to the blues throughout their existence, even after relocating to the Laurel Canyon area near Los Angeles in 1968. The band's most popular single was Going Up the Country from the album Living the Blues. The B side of that single was another track from Living The Blues that actually had a longer running time on the single than on the album version. Although the single uses the same basic recording of Boogie Music as the album, it includes a short low-fidelity instrumental tacked onto the end of the song that sounds suspiciously like a 1920s recording of someone playing a melody similar to Going Up The Country on a fiddle. The only time this unique version of the song appeared in stereo was on a 1969 United Artists compilation called Progressive Heavies that also featured tracks from Johnny Winter, Traffic, the Spencer Davis Group and others.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Parachute Woman
Source:    CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    The last Rolling Stones album with the original lineup was Beggar's Banquet, released in 1968. The album itself was a conscious effort on the part of the band to get back to their roots after the psychedelic excesses of Their Satanic Majesties Request. Sadly, Brian Jones was fast deteriorating at the time and his contributions to the album are minimal compared to the band's earlier efforts. As a result, Keith Richards was responsible for most of the guitar work on Beggar's Banquet, including both lead and rhythm parts on Parachute Woman.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Faro
Source:    CD: Stonedhenge
Writer(s):    Leo Lyons
Label:    Deram/Polygram
Year:    1969
    Ten Years After's fourth LP, Stonedhenge, features six tracks by the entire band alternating with one solo track each from the band's four members. Bassist Leo Lyons's piece is called Faro (presumably a corruption of "far out"), and consists of a melody played on a string bass backed by single notes plucked on an electric bass. There is also foot tapping throughout the entire minute-long piece, and a surprise ending which you'll just have to experience for yourself.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    As Kind As Summer
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    The first time I heard As Kind As Summer from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil I jumped up to see what was wrong with my turntable. A real gotcha moment.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    The End
Source:    CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: The Doors)
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    Prior to recording their first album the Doors' honed their craft at various Sunset Strip clubs, working up live versions of the songs they would soon record, including their show-stopper, The End. Originally written as a breakup song by singer/lyricist Jim Morrison, The End runs nearly twelve minutes and includes a toned-down version of the controversial spoken "Oedipus section" that got them fired from their gig as house band at the Whisky-A-Go-Go. My own take on the famous "blue bus" line, incidently, is that Morrison, being a military brat, was probably familiar with the blue shuttle buses used on military bases overseas for a variety of purposes, including taking kids to school, and simply incorporated his experiences with them into his lyrics.  The End got its greatest exposure in 1979, when Oliver Stone used it in his film Apocalypse Now.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2149 (starts 11/29/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/395516-dc-2149

 
    This week in rock has a little soul mixed in, courtesy Curtis Mayfield and (to a lesser degree) Rare Earth. It starts with Johnny Winter's original version of a song that would later become a hit for second guitarist Rick Derringer, followed by a short journey from 1967 to 1971. From there we go to 1972 for a handful of tunes before finishing things out with the Carl Wilson version of the Beach Boys, circa 1971.

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

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     Can You See Me
Source:     CD: Live At Monterey (originally released on LP: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     UMe (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1967
     The first great rock festival was held in Monterey, California, in June of 1967. Headlined by the biggest names in the folk-rock world (the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel), the festival also served to showcase the talent coming out of the nearby San Francisco Bay area and introduced an eager US audience to several up and coming international artists, such as Ravi Shankar, Hugh Masakela, the Who, and Eric Burdon's new Animals lineup. Two acts in particular stole the show: the soulful Otis Redding, who was just starting to cross over from a successful R&B career to the mainstream charts, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, formed in England in late 1966 by a former member of the US Army and two British natives. The recordings sat on the shelf for three years and were finally released less than a month before Hendrix's untimely death in 1970. Among the songs the Experience performed at Monterey was a Hendrix composition called Can You See Me. The song had appeared on the band's first LP in the UK, but had been left off the US version of Are You Experienced. An early concert favorite, Can You See Me seems to have been permanently dropped from the band's setlist after the Monterey performance.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Salt of the Earth
Source:     LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     London
Year:     1968
     After scathing critical reviews and disappointing sales for their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones took a few months off to regroup. They returned to the studio with a new producer (Jimmy Miller, who had previously worked with Steve Winwood) and a back-to-basics approach that resulted in a new single, Jumpin' Jack Flash, followed by the release of the Beggar's Banquet album. The closing track of that album was Salt of the Earth, a song that started off sounding like a drinking song (thanks in large part to Keith Richards singing the opening lines), and gradually building up to a gospel-inflected fadeout, with guest keyboardist Nicky Hopkin's piano featured prominently.

Artist:      Grand Funk Railroad
Title:     Mr. Limousine Driver
Source:      CD: Grand Funk
Writer:    Mark Farner
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1969
     When Grand Funk Railroad first appeared on the scene they were universally panned by the rock press (much as Kiss would be a few years later). Despite this, they managed to set attendance records across the nation and were instrumental to establishing sports arenas as the venue of choice for 70s rock bands. Although their first album, On Time, was not an instant hit, their popularity took off with the release of their second LP, Grand Funk (also known as the Red Album). One of the many popular tracks on Grand Funk was Mr. Limousine Driver, a song that reflects the same attitude as their later hit We're An American Band.

Artist:    Mountain
Title:    The Animal Trainer And The Toad
Source:    LP: Nantucket Sleighride
Writer(s):    West/Palmer
Label:    Windfall/Bell
Year:    1971
    Mountain hit their commercial and creative peak with the 1971 album Nantucket Sleighride. The album is full of outstanding tracks, including the side two opener, The Animal Trainer And The Toad, a tongue-in-cheek retelling of the band's origins.

Artist:    Rare Earth
Title:    (I Know I'm) Losing You
Source:    LP: Ecology
Writer:    Grant/Holland/Whitfield
Label:    Rare Earth
Year:    1970
    Although Rare Earth was not the first white act to record for Motown, it was the first successful one. When the band was signed in 1969 it was decided to retool (and rename) one of Motown's existing labels and put Rare Earth on that label. During discussions about what to rename the label one of the band members joking suggested Rare Earth Records. Oddly enough, Motown went with that suggestion, and the band soon scored two consecutive top 10 singles with remakes of previous Motown hits. The first, Get Ready, used virtually the same arrangement as the Temptations original and actually did better on the charts. The follow-up, (I Know I'm) Losing You, was more adventurous, and showed that the group was more than just one hit wonders. The LP version of the song shows Rare Earth at its creative peak.

Artist:    Curtis Mayfield
Title:    Pusherman
Source:    CD: Super Fly
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    Rhino (original label: Curtom)
Year:    1972
    Curtis Mayfield's soundtrack album for the 1972 film Super Fly is considered one of the landmark achievements of 1970s music. For one thing, it is one of the few soundtrack albums to end up making more money than the film itself. More importantly, Super Fly, along with Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, was one of the first R&B concept albums, with its harsh condemnation of the inner city drug dealing trade paired with a call for self-liberation, and is considered one of the pioneering works of the funk revolution. Pusherman, with its emphasis on heavy bass and African rhythms, is one the album's standout tracks.
    
Artist:    Little Feat
Title:    Easy To Slip
Source:    CD: Sailin' Shoes
Writer(s):    George/Martin
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    Little Feat's second album, Sailin' Shoes, was an album of firsts. It was the first Feat album to feature cover art by Neon Park. It was also the first album to show an obvious New Orleans influence. Finally, it was the first album to feature the songwriting team of Lowell George and Martin Kibbee (using the name Fred Martin), on songs like Easy To Slip, which opened the first side of the LP. Sailin' Shoes was also the last album to feature original bassist Roy Estrada, who had accompanied George after the latter had been fired from Frank Zappa's band, the Mothers, over the overt drug references in the song Willin' (which also appears on Sailin' Shoes).

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Smoke On The Water (original studio version)
Source:    LP: Machine Head
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    Based on what is quite possibly the most recognizable riff in the history of rock, Smoke On The Water was released in March of 1972 on Deep Purple's Machine Head album. The song became a huge hit after a live version of the tune appeared on the December 1972 album Made In Japan. For the US single release, Warner Brothers chose to pair up edited versions of both the live and studio renditions of the tune on either side of a 45 RPM record in May of 1973. Meanwhile, many FM rock stations continued to play the original studio version of Smoke On The Water from Machine Head heard here.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    Watcher Of The Skies
Source:    CD: Foxtrot
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1972
    The opening song for most of Genesis's live performances throughout the mid-1970s was also the opening track of their 1972 album Foxtrot. Watcher Of The Skies was inspired by the works of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood's End) and legendary comic book writer Stan Lee (the Tales Of The Watcher series), although the title itself reportedly was taken from an 1817 poem by John Keats. The two alternating chords at the beginning of the piece were actually the result of the limitations of a Mellotron MKII (a keyboard instrument that utilized tape loops of string orchestras) that keyboardist Tony Banks had just bought from King Crimson. According to Banks "There were these two chords that sounded really good on that instrument. There are some chords you can't play on that instrument because they'd be so out of tune. These chords created an incredible atmosphere. That's why it's just an incredible intro number. It never sounded so good on the later Mellotron."

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Feel Flows
Source:    LP: Surf's Up
Writer(s):    Wilson/Riely
Label:    Brother/Reprise
Year:    1971
    The 1970 album Sunflower was the worst-selling album in Beach Boys history. To rectify their falling popularity the group brought in a new manager, Jack Riely, aka KPFK DJ John Frank. Riely immediately set about making changes, including the appointment of Carl Wilson as the band's official leader and the abandonment of the group's long-standing practice of dressing alike on stage. He also worked with the band creatively, encouraging them to write more relevant songs and even doing some songwriting of his own on tracks like Feel Flows, which was co-written by Carl Wilson. Although Surf's Up has gotten mixed reviews over the years, Feel Flows is often singled out as a highlight of the album.
   

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2148 (starts 11/22/21)

 https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/394637-pe-2148

 
    Recently I experienced a touch of insomnia and decided to put it to good use by recording this week's show in the middle of the night. It starts, of course, with the Lovin' Spoonful and, being Thanksgiving week and all, ends with a real turkey of a song.

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Night Owl Blues
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Butler/Boone/Yanovsky/Sebastian
Label:    Kama Sutra/Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 2011
    Night Owl Blues was first released on the Lovin Spoonful's first album, Do You Believe In Magic, making an encore appearance as the B side of their 1966 hit Daydream. The original recording was edited down to less than three minutes on both releases. In 2011 Sundazed issued a previously unreleased recording of the Spoonful's high energy cover of the Hollywood Argyles hit Alley Oop on 45 RPM vinyl, backed with a longer, less edited version of Night Owl Blues made from the same original 1965 recording as the earlier release. The track features some nice blues harp from John Sebastian and a rare electric guitar solo from Zal Yanovsky.

Artist:     Butterfield Blues Band
Title:     Walkin' Blues
Source:     CD: East-West
Writer:     Robert Johnson
Label:     Elektra
Year:     1966
     Unlike The Blues Project, which mixed original material with improvisational arrangements of blues classics, the Butterfield Blues Band took pride in presenting an authentic Chicago blues sound. The opening track for their most famous album, East-West, was Robert Johnson's Walkin' Blues.

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:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Born On The Bayou
Source:    LP: Bayou Country
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1968
    If there is any single song that sums up what Creedence Clearwater Revival was all about, it could very well be Born On The Bayou, the opening track of CCR's second LP, Bayou Country. The song, which was written by John Fogerty late at night, became the opening for nearly every Creedence concert over the next few years, and is considered by many to be the band's signature song. Oddly enough, John Fogerty had never set foot on a bayou in his life when he wrote the song, but had always been a fan of the movie Swamp Fever, as well as having a fascination with "every other bit of southern bayou information that had entered my imagination from the time I was born."

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Going To Try
Source:    CD: Stonedhenge
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Deram
Year:    1969
    Although Ten Years After is known mostly for straight ahead blues rock and roll numbers like I'm Going Home, Alvin Lee and company did have a more experimental side, as evidenced by their third LP, Stonedhenge. The album consists of a half dozen tracks written by Lee and performed by the entire band interspersed with solo tracks from each of the four band members. The opening track, Going To Try, is possibly the most psychedelic song in the TYA catalog, being basically a series of variations on a common theme in different time and key signatures.  

Artist:    Kaleidoscope (US)
Title:    Another Lover
Source:    British import CD: Pulsating Dreams (originally released in US on LP: Bernice)
Writer(s):    David Lindley
Label:    Floating World (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1970
    The American band known as Kaleidoscope was not really a rock band. If you had to define them, you might go with terms like "roots" or even "world" music, but not rock. While still in high school, Kaleidoscope's multi-instrumentalist founder David Lindley formed his first band, the Mad Mountain Ramblers in Pasadena, California, where he met Chris Darrow, Kaleidoscope's co-founder. At age 20 (more or less) the two, who had been in rival bands, formed a new group the Dry City Scat Band, but Darrow soon left to form his own rock band. The two, along with multi-instrumentalists Solomon Feldthouse and Chester Crill (aka all sorts of odd names such as Fenrus Epp and Max Budda) along with drummer John Vidican formed Kaleidoscope in 1966. By the time they had released their fourth and final album Bernice, in 1970, with only Feldthouse, Crill (now calling himself both Connie Crill and Max Buda, depending on which instrument he was playing at the time) and Lindley, who wrote Another Lover, left from the original lineup. After contributing two new songs to the film Zabriskie Point Kaleidoscope officially disbanded.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Tend My Garden/Garden Gate
Source:    CD: James Gang Rides Again
Writer:    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
    Cleveland, Ohio's James Gang spent so much time on the road promoting their first album, Takes Off, that they didn't have much material ready when it came time to record a follow-up LP. The group found itself actually writing songs in the studio and recording them practically as they were being written. Guitarist/lead vocalist Joe Walsh, meanwhile, had some acoustic songs he had been working on, and it was decided that the new album would have one side of electric hard rock songs while the other would be an acoustic side. The opening tracks for the second side of the album were Tend My Garden, which features Walsh on both organ and guitar, followed by Garden Gate, a Walsh solo piece.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Baby Don't Scold Me
Source:    Mono CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco/Elektra
Year:    1966
    When For What It's Worth became a big hit single in early 1967, Atco recalled all unsold copies of the first Buffalo Springfield album and re-released the LP with a new track order that included For What It's Worth. Of course, that meant that one of the original songs on the album had to be cut, and for years it has been somewhere between difficult and impossible to find the song that was cut, a Stephen Stills composition called Baby Don't Scold Me. Now the album has been reissued on compact disc with both the original track order (in monoraul) and the revised listing (in stereo). As a result Baby Don't Scold Me is only available in mono, but probably sounds better than way anyway.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    The Hour Of Not Quite Rain
Source:    LP: Last Time Around
Writer(s):    Furay/Callen
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    In August of 1967, Los Angeles radio station ("Boss Radio") ran a contest in which listeners submitted original poems, with the winner being set to music by Buffalo Springfield. At the same time, a similar contest was being run in San Francisco by KFRC, with the winning entry appearing on Moby Grape's Grape Jam album. Unlike the Moby Grape piece, which is basically set against a "Musique concrète" background, The Hour Of Not Quite Rain, submitted by Micki Callen, is a lavishly produced piece with lots of orchestral backing and vocals by Richie Furay. By the time the song was released, on the album, Last Time Around, was released the band existed in name only, with all of the members having moved on to other things.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)
Source:    CD: Buffalo Springfield
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    By mid-1966 Hollywood's Sunset Strip was being taken over every night by local teenagers, with several underage clubs featuring live music being a major attraction. Many of the businesses in the area, citing traffic problems and rampant drug and alcohol abuse, began to put pressure on city officials to do something about the situation. The city responded by passing new loitering ordinances and imposing a 10PM curfew on the Strip. They also began putting pressure on the clubs, including condemning the popular Pandora's Box for demolition. On November 12, 1966 fliers appeared on the streets inviting people to a demonstration that evening to protest the closing of the club. The demostration continued over a period of days, exascerbated by the city's decision to revoke the permits of a dozen other clubs on the Strip, forcing them to bar anyone under the age of 21 from entering. Stephen Stills, a member of Buffalo Springfield, one of the many bands appearing regularly in these clubs, wrote a new song in response to the situation, and the band quickly booked studio time, recording the still-unnamed track on December 5th. The band had recently released their debut LP, but sales of the album were lackluster due to the lack of a hit single. Stills reportedly presented the new recording to label head Ahmet Ertegun with the words "I have this song here, for what it's worth, if you want it." Ertegun, sensing that he had a hit on his hands, got the song rush-released two days before Christmas, 1966, using For What It's Worth as the official song title, but sub-titling it Stop, Hey What's That Sound on the label as well. As predicted, For What It's Worth was an instant hit in the L.A. market, and soon went national, where it was taken by most record buyers to be about the general sense of unrest being felt across the nation over issues like racial equality and the Vietnam War (and oddly enough, by some people these days as being about the Kent State massacre, even though that happened nearly three years after the song was released). As the single moved up the charts, eventually peaking at #7, Atco recalled the Buffalo Springfield LP, reissuing it with a modified song selection that included For What It's Worth as the album's opening track. Needless to say, album sales picked up after that. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever even seen a vinyl copy of the Buffalo Springfield album without For What It's Worth on it, although I'm sure some of those early pressings must still exist.

Artist:    Pentangle
Title:    Pentangling
Source:    LP: Superecord Contemporary (originally released on LP: Pentangle)
Writer(s):    Cos/Jansch/McShea/Renbourne/Thompson
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Once in a while an album comes along that is so consistently good that it's impossible to single out one specific track for airplay. Such is the case with the debut Pentangle album from 1968. The group, consisting of guitarists John Renbourne and Bert Jansch, vocalist Jacqui McShea, bassist Terry Cox, and drummer Danny Thompson, had more talent than nearly any band in history from any genre, yet never succumbed to the clash of egos that characterize most supergroups. That talent is abundantly evident on Pentangling.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Love Story
Source:    CD: This Was (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968 (UK), 1969 (US)
    Love Story was the last studio recording by the original Jethro Tull lineup of Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Clive Bunker and Glenn Cornish. The song was released as a single (Jethro Tull's first in the US) following the band's debut LP, This Was. Shortly after its release Abrahams left the group, citing differences with Anderson over the band's musical direction. Love Story spent eight weeks on the UK singles chart, reaching the #29 spot. In the U.S., Love Story was released in March 1969, with A Song for Jeffrey (an album track from This Was) on the B-side, but did not chart. Like most songs released as singles in the UK, Love Story did not appear on an album until several years later; in this case on the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past. It has most recently been included as a bonus track on the expanded CD version of This Was.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Roll With It
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Children Of The Future)
Writer:    Steve Miller
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1968
    Right from the beginning, the Steve Miller band stood out stylistically from other San Francisco area bands. This was in part because Miller was only recently arrived from Chicago (by way of Texas), which had a music tradition of its own. But a lot of the credit has to go to Miller himself, who had the sense to give his bandmates (such as his college buddy Boz Scaggs) the freedom to provide songs for the band in addition to his own material. One example of the latter is Roll With It from the group's 1968 debut LP, Children Of The Future.

Artist:    Brass Buttons
Title:    Hell Will Take Care Of Her
Source:    Mono CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jay Copozzi
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Cotillion)
Year:    1968
    Rochester, New York, was home to both guitarist Gene Cornish and a band called the Brass Buttons. Cornish, who had been born in Ottawa, Canada, left Rochester for New York City in the early 1960s, eventually co-founding the most successful blue-eyed soul band in history, the (Young) Rascals. By 1968 the Rascals had formed their own production company, Peace, and Cornish invited his friends from the Brass Buttons to record a pair of songs for Peace. The recordings, including a scathing breakup song called Hell Will Take Care Of Her, were released on Atlantic's Cotillion subsidiary in 1968.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    No Time
Source:    CD: Headquarters
Writer(s):    Hank Cicalo
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1967
    No Time is basically a Little Richard styled rock 'n' roll studio jam by the Monkees, with Micky Dolenz improvising on the lyrics. The band, who played their own instruments on the recording, decided to credit the song to recording engineer Hank Cicalo, in appreciation for the hard work he was putting in as de facto producer of their Headquarters album. This actually got Cicalo in trouble with the brass at RCA, who had strict rules about engineers soliciting songs to be recorded. On the other hand, the royalties from the song helped him buy a house.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Prelude-Nothing To Hide
Source:    LP: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Epic
Year:    1970
    Spirit's first few albums had generated good reviews but poor sales. Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus was considered at the time to be their last chance to reach a larger audience. The pseudo-polygamous lyrics of the album's opening track, Prelude-Nothing To Hide, are actually about the band members' commitment to their music, a commitment that is apparent throughout the album. Unfortunately even that level of commitment did not translate to commercial success, leading vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes to split from Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne soon thereafter.

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

Artist:     Spirit
Title:     Mr. Skin
Source:     LP: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Epic
Year:     1970
     Mr. Skin, a song originally released on the 1970 album The Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, shows just how far Spirit had moved away from the jazz influences heard on their first LP in the space of only a couple of years.

Artist:    Impressions
Title:    Check Out Your Mind
Source:    CD: Curtis Mayfield And The Impressions: The Anthology 1961-1977 (originally released on LP: Check Out Your Mind)
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    MCA (original label: Curtom)
Year:    1970
    The Impressions scored their first hit single in 1958 with a song called For Your Precious Love. Not long after that lead vocalist Jerry Butler left the group for a solo career, and the Impressions faded off into obscurity. That would have been the end of the story if not for the efforts of 19-year-old Curtis Mayfield, who gathered the group together in 1961 to record their first single for the ABC Paramount label, a tune called Gypsy Woman. The song was a success, prompting several more singles for the label. By 1963 the group was pared down to the trio of Mayfield, Sam Gooden and Fred Cash. The group's style was truly established in August of that year with the song It's All Right, which went all the way to the top of the soul charts. An even bigger hit came the following year with the release of Amen, from the album Keep On Pushin'. The Impressions continued to be a presence on the R&B charts for the remainder of the decade, even after switching over to Mayfield's own Curtom label in 1968. The final Impressions album with Mayfield was Check Out Your Mind, released in 1970. By then Mayfield's songwriting had become highly topical, with virtually every song containing some sort of message. This trend continued after Mayfield left the Impressions for his solo career, notably on the soundtrack of the film Superfly. In August of 1990 a tragic stage accident left Mayfield permanently paralyzed from the neck down, ending his career as a performer.

Artist:    Joe Cocker
Title:    Delta Lady
Source:    LP: Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Writer(s):    Leon Russell
Label:    A&M
Year:    1970
    In the summer of 1971 virtually all the freaks in Mangum, Oklahoma (including the entire membership of the band Sunn) went to the local drive-in theater (our light show guy and I got in by riding in the trunk of our road manager's car) to see the film Mad Dogs & Englishmen. All of us, including the guy running the projection booth (who was also our assistant light show guy) were tripping our brains out by the time the film began. By then we had plugged in our own PA system, put a microphone next to one of the little speakers that you hang on your car window, and cranked it up to full volume, quickly running off the handful of cars who were not part of our group of crazies. Once we had the entire drive-in to ourselves, we proceded to dance, yell and sing along to songs like Delta Lady in a display of reckless abandon that would have made Ken Kesey proud. That August night in Oklahoma is the first thing I think of whenever I hear the live version of Delta Lady.
    
Artist:    Sugarloaf
Title:    Green-Eyed Lady
Source:    CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1970 (originally released on LP: Sugarloaf and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Corbetta/Phillips/Riordan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1970
    The unwritten rules of radio, particularly those concerning song length, were in transition in 1970. Take Sugarloaf's Green-Eyed Lady, for example. When first released as a single the 45 was virtually identical to the album version except that it faded out just short of the six-minute mark. This was about twice the allowed length under the old rules and it was soon replaced with an edited version that left out all the instrumental solos, coming in at just under three minutes. The label soon realized, however, that part of the original song's appeal (as heard on FM rock radio) was its organ solo, and a third single edit with that solo restored became the final, and most popular, version of Green-Eyed Lady. The song went into the top 5 nationally (#1 on some charts) and ended up being the band's biggest hit.

Artist:      Bob Dylan
Title:     It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry
Source:      CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1965
     East of Albuquerque, NM, there is a trail that is about three miles long. At the end of that trail you at Sandia Crest, which overlooks the city from about a mile above. Continuing eastward, after a short plateau you enter the eastern foothills, traveling many miles up and down hills, each one just a little lower than the one before it. Bob Dylan's career is like that: an incredibly fast rise to an unbelievable height, and then a slow downhill descent from there. The Highway 61 Revisited album is his Sandia Peak.

Artist:    Bob Dylan with The Band
Title:    Tiny Montgomery
Source:    LP: The Basement Tapes
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1975
    In July of 1966, Bob Dylan crashed his motorcycle near his home in Woodstock, NY. As a result, he had to cancel his upcoming concert schedule and instead began to focus more on his songwriting. Meanwhile his backup band, the Hawks, ended up moving to West Saugerties, a town a few miles from Woodstock, occupying a house they nicknamed "Big Pink". Once Dylan felt up to playing and singing again he invited the members of the band over to his place for some informal sessions, mostly performing covers of old folk songs. In early 1967 they set up a makeshift studio at Big Pink, using borrowed tape recorder, mixers and microphones, and began recording some of Dylan's new tunes. The first of these to be recorded was Tiny Montgomery, a song that contains such nonsensical lyrics as "Scratch your dad/Do that bird/Suck that pig/And bring it on home". I couldn't have said it better myself.
    
Artist:      Bob Dylan
Title:     Desolation Row
Source:      CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1965
    The last track on Bob Dylan's groundbreaking 1965 LP, Highway 61 Revisited, is also the only non-electric track on the album. With a running time of over eleven minutes, it is also the longest song on the album, and contains some of the bleakest imagery. If you're in the right frame of mind, Desolation Row is a fascinating journey to some pretty dark places. If not, you probably won't be able to listen to the entire piece in one sitting.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    Daddy You Been On My Mind
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1965
    Although I had heard songs like Where Have All The Flowers Gone and Blowin' In The Wind on the radio and around campfires, I did not actually own a folk record until early 1966, when I picked up a brown paper "grab bag" of four singles at a discount price at the Post Exchange at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. Among the records in the bag was a single by Joan Baez that featured a Phil Ochs song on one side and a Bob Dylan song on the other. Being a twelve-year-old kid, I had never heard of Baez or Ochs, although the name Bob Dylan was vaguely familiar to me. Still, I was intrigued by this new kind of music, that was a bit similar to songs I had heard on the radio like Where Have All The Flowers Gone, but yet had a kind of exotic strangeness that set it apart. I still have that record, although my old record player pretty much ruined it, but have since found a copy in marginally better condition to share with you. Enjoy!

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    I Am A Rock
Source:    LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK, and were deleted at Simon's request.

Artist:    Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Title:    I'll Search The Sky
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Ricochet)
Writer(s):    David Hanna
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1967
            The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band released two albums in 1967, about four to five months apart. Part of the reason for this may have been that their label, Liberty Records, was finding it difficult to get any of their releases to show up on the Billboard album charts; in fact, the first Dirt Band album was one of only two LPs on the label to accomplish that feat that year. The second LP by the group, Ricochet, was not able to duplicate the success of the first one, however, despite fine tracks like I'll Search The Sky and the band was in danger of fading off into obscurity by the end of the year. The group persisted, however, switching over to the United Artists label when it bought Liberty in the early 1970s, and eventually hit it big with their version of Jerry Jeff Walker's Mr. Bojangles. The band continued to gravitate toward country music over the next decade, eventually emerging as one of the top country acts of the 1980s.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Crosstown Traffic
Source:    LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Electric Ladyland)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 it didn't matter one bit whether the Jimi Hendrix Experience had any hit singles; their albums were guaranteed to be successful. Nonetheless the Electric Ladyland album had no less that three singles on it (although one was a new stereo mix of a 1967 single). The last of these was Crosstown Traffic, a song that has been included on several anthologies over the years.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Dark Are The Shadows
Source:    Mono British import CD: Time Out! Time In For Them (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Burnick/Monda
Label:    Rev-Ola (original US label: Tower)
Year:    1969
    Even though it was 1969, and several artists had already proven that you no longer needed a hit single to be a success, there were still some people, including Ray Ruff, who insisted on destroying a band's credibility in an attempt at having a top 40 hit. A good example of this is Dark Are The Shadows, Them's final single for the Tower label. Ruff commissioned one more single from Them (a cover of Charlie Rich's Lonely Weekend for the Happy Tiger label) that is reportedly even worse than this turkey. After that the band split up for good.