https://exchange.prx.org/p/568281
It's hard to believe that after nearly 15 years' worth of weekly shows we still manage to find plenty of stuff that's never been played on the show before, but sure enough, over a quarter of this week's tunes are making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut. And half of those come from artists we've never featured on the show before.
Artist: Who
Title: Underture
Source: CD: Tommy
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1969
One of the great rock instrumentals was the Underture from Tommy. Some of the musical themes used in the piece had appeared on the previous album, The Who Sell Out, as part of the song Rael. Here those themes are fleshed out considerably (the track runs a full ten minutes).
Artist: Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title: Fire
Source: Stereo British import 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Brown/Crane/Finesilver/Ker
Label: Track (original US label: Atlantic)
Year: 1968
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was unusual for their time in that they were much more theatrical than most of their contemporaries, who were generally more into audio experimentation than visual. I have a video of Fire being performed (or maybe just lip-synched). In it, all the members are wearing some sort of mask, and Brown himself is wearing special headgear that was literally on fire. There is no doubt that The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown sowed the seeds of what was to become the glitter-rock movement in the early to mid 70s.
Artist: Unrelated Segments
Title: Where You Gonna Go?
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 6-Punk, part two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mackavich/Stults
Label: Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year: 1967
The Unrelated Segments were a Detroit band that had most of its success regionally. Their nearest brush with national fame came when Story Of My Life was picked up for national distribution by Hanna-Barbera, the record label associated with such well-known TV stars as Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and (later) Scooby-Doo. Hannah-Barbera not being known for its hit records, it's probably no surprise that the song did not climb too high on the national charts, although it did do well in several midwestern cities. A followup single, Where You Gonna Go, was released later that year on the Liberty label. Although not a national hit, it garnered the band enough local popularity to get bookings as the opener for the likes of Spirit, the Who and the Jeff Beck group.
Artist: Dinks
Title: Nina-Kocka-Nina
Source: Mono LP: Also Dug-Its (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Waddell/Bergman
Label: Elektra (original label: Sully)
Year: 1965
The Ragging Regattas were a fairly typical regional band from the early 1960s, playing mostly instrumental rock songs at venues throughout the Great Plains states of Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma. In 1965 Ray Ruff, proprietor of Sully Records of Oklahoma City, hired the band to record a song he had co-written called Penny A Tear Drop. Ruff had recently relocated Sully to Texas, and the band ended up going to Amarillo to record the song. After spending several hours perfecting the tune, everyone realized they still needed a B side for the record, so the band members themselves quickly came up with a couple minutes of insanity (or maybe just inanity) they ended up calling Nina-Kocka-Nina (perhaps inspired by the Trashmen hit Surfin' Bird). The resulting recording was so unique they ended up making it the A side, and even changed their name to The Dinks to better fit the song itself. Ruff promoted the record heavily, taking out ads in various music industry publications, including one that contained a quote from none other than Bill Gavin, publisher of the Gavin Report and considered by many to be the most powerful man in radio. In the ad, Gavin called Nina-Kocka-Nina "My Personal Pick-Worst record I ever hear...people will buy it because they don't believe it". Whether many people actually did by Nina-Kocka-Nina is questionable, but in 2023 was included on an album called Also Dug-Its, a kind of addendum to Lenny Kaye's Nuggets collection that was included in the 50th anniversary edition of the original Nuggets album.
Artist: Barry McGuire
Title: Eve of Destruction
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: P.F. Sloan
Label: Original Sound (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1965
P.F. Sloan had already established a reputation for writing songs that captured the anger of youth by the time he wrote Eve Of Destruction, which Barry McGuire took into the top 10 in 1965. It would be McGuire's only major hit, and represented folk-rock at the peak of its popularity.
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Title: The Sound Of Silence
Source: CD: Collected Works (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Sounds Of Silence)
Writer(s): Paul Simon
Label: Columbia
Year: 1965
The Sound Of Silence was originally an acoustic piece that was included on Simon and Garfunkel's 1964 debut album, Wednesday Morning 3AM. The album went nowhere and was soon deleted from the Columbia Records catalog. Simon and Garfunkel themselves went their separate ways, with Simon moving to London and recording a solo LP, the Paul Simon Songbook, and Art Garfunkel going back to college in New York. While Simon was in the UK, something unexpected happened. Radio stations along the east coast began playing the song, getting a strong positive response from college students, particularly those on spring break in Florida. On June 15, 1965 producer Tom Wilson, who had been working with Bob Dylan on Like A Rolling Stone earlier in the day, pulled out the master tape of The Sound Of Silence and, utilizing some of the same studio musicians, added electric instruments to the existing recording. The electrified version of the song was released to local radio stations, where it garnered enough interest to get the modified recording released as a single. It turned out to be a huge hit, prompting Paul Simon to move back to the US and reunite with Art Garfunkel.
Artist: Kinks
Title: You Really Got Me
Source: Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: K-Tel (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1964
Although the Beatles touched off the British Invasion, it was the sheer in-your-face simplicity of You Really Got Me, recorded by an "upstart band of teenagers" from London's Muswell Hill district named the Kinks and released in August of 1964 that made the goal of forming your own band and recording a hit single seem to be a viable one. And sure enough, within a year garages and basements all across America were filled with guitars, amps, drums and aspiring high-school age musicians, some of whom would indeed get their own records played on the radio.
Artist: Electric Prunes
Title: Get Me To The World On Time
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released on LP: The Electric Prunes and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Tucker/Jones
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
With I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) climbing the charts in early 1967, the Electric Prunes turned to songwriter Annette Tucker for several more tracks to include on their debut LP. One of those, Get Me To The World On Time (co-written by lyricist Jill Jones) was selected to be the follow up single to Dream. Although not as big a hit, the song still did respectably on the charts (and was actually the first Electric Prunes song I ever heard on FM radio).
Artist: Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title: Castles Made Of Sand
Source: CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
When I was a junior in high school I used to fall asleep on the living room couch with the headphones on, usually listening to pre-recorded tapes of either the Beatles' Revolver album or one of the first two albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One song in particular from the second Hendrix album, Axis: Bold As Love, always gave me a chill when I heard it: Castles Made Of Sand. The song serves as a warning not to put too much faith in your dreams, and stands in direct contrast to the usual goal-oriented American attitude.
Artist: Human Beinz
Title: Nobody But Me
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ron, Rudy and O'Kelley Isley
Label: LP: Rhino (originally released on Capitol)
Year: 1968
The Human Beingz were a band that had been around since 1964 doing mostly club gigs in the Youngstown, Ohio area as the Premiers. In the late 60s they decided to update their image with a name more in tune with the times and came up with the Human Beingz. Unfortunately someone at Capitol Records misspelled their name (leaving out the "g") on the label of Nobody But Me, and after the song became a national hit the band was stuck with the new spelling. The band split up in 1969, but after Nobody But Me was featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Vol.1, original leader Ting Markulin reformed the band with a new lineup that has appeared in the Northeastern US in recent years.
Artist: Human Instinct
Title: Death Of The Seaside
Source: Mono British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Hall/Christie
Label: Grapefruit (original label: Deram)
Year: 1967
Formed in Tauranga, New Zealand in 1958, the Four Fours were, by the mid-1960s, one of the most popular bands in the island nation. Early in 1966 the band added Maurice Greer, a drummer who had modified his drum kit so that he could stand and sing while playing. That same year the Rolling Stones toured Australia and New Zealand, and the Four Fours, with Greer on vocals, were their opening act. Not long after that the band decided to relocate to London, changing their name to the Human Instinct in the process. The band cut three singles for Mercury before recording their most successful British single, a song called A Day In My Mind's Mind for the Deram label. The B side of that single, which came out in December of 1967, was Death Of The Seaside. Within a few months, after declining an offer to join the Jeff Beck Group, Greer and most of the other members of the Human Instinct returned to New Zealand and recorded several albums there before temporarily disbanding in 1982. 20 years later Greer reactivated the Human Instinct with a new lineup that is still active.
Artist: Blood, Sweat & Tears
Title: I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know
Source: LP: Child Is Father To The Man
Writer(s): Al Kooper
Label: Columbia
Year: 1968
Ever since he was a teenager, Al Kooper had wanted to start a rock band that had a horn section. After making his name as a session musician with Bob Dylan, Kooper joined the Blues Project in 1965 as the band's keyboardist. He left that group in early 1967 and began the slow process of assembling his dream band, Blood, Sweat & Tears, which made its vinyl debut in February of 1968. One of the best remembered songs on the album was I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know. Although not released as a single, the tune became one of the core songs heard on the new FM rock stations popping up across the country in the late 1960s. Kooper himself ended up leaving the band he founded later that same year, moving on to producing and appearing on albums like Super Session and The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, as well as continuing to work as an in-demand studio keyboardist and producer.
Artist: Them
Title: The Moth
Source: LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s): Lane/Pulley
Label: Tower
Year: 1968
After Van Morrison left Them to pursue a career as a solo artist, his old band decided to head back to Ireland and recruit Kenny McDowell for lead vocals. Them then moved out to Texas and hooked up with producer Ray Ruff, who got them a contract with Tower Records, Capitol's subsidiary label specializing in releasing already produced recordings from outside sources such as Ed Cobb's Green Grass Productions (Standells, Chocolate Watchband) and soundtrack albums for teen exploitation flicks such as Riot on Sunset Strip and Wild in the Streets from Mike Curb's Sidewalk Productions. The 1968 LP Time Out! Time In! For Them was the second of two psychedelic albums the group cut for Ruff and released onTower before moving into harder rock and another label.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: The Ostrich
Source: Canadian CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s): John Kay
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill/ABC)
Year: 1968
Although John Kay's songwriting skills were still a work in progress on the first Steppenwolf album, there were some outstanding Kay songs on that LP, such as The Ostrich, a song that helped define Steppenwolf as one of the most politically savvy rock bands in history.
Artist: Al Kooper/Stephen Stills/Harvey Brooks/Eddie Hoh
Title: Harvey's Tune
Source: CD: Super Session
Writer(s): Harvey Brooks
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1968
Probably the most overlooked track on the classic Super Session LP is the album's closer, a two-minute instrumental called Harvey's Tune. The piece was written by bassist Harvey Brooks, who, along with Mike Bloomfield, had been a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and later, the Electric Flag. Although credited as guitarist for the entire second side of the Super Session album, it is doubtful that Stephen Stills actually participated in the recording of Harvey's Tune.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: Black Sabbath
Source: LP: Black Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
This track has to hold some kind of record for "firsts". Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath, from the album Black Sabbath is, after all, the first song from the first album by the first true heavy metal band. The track starts off by immediately setting the mood with the sound of church bells in a rainstorm leading into the song's famous tri-tone (often referred to as the "devil's chord") intro, deliberately constructed to evoke the mood of classic Hollywood horror movies. Ozzy Osborne's vocals only add to the effect. Even the faster-paced final portion of the song has a certain dissonance that had never been heard in rock music before, in part thanks to Black Sabbath's deliberate use of a lower pitch in their basic tuning. The result is something that has sometimes been compared to a bad acid trip, but is unquestionably the foundation of what came to be called heavy metal.
Artist: Jean Jacques Burnel
Title: Do The European
Source: EP: The Stranglers (included as bonus disc with Stranglers LP: IV)
Writer(s): Jean Jacques Burnel
Label: IRS
Year: 1980
The fourth Stranglers album, The Raven, was not released in North America. Instead, an album called IV came out a year later in the US and Canada. Early pressings of the album included a free four-song EP; three of the songs had previously been issued, while the fourth, a J.J. Burnel solo live track that was unavailable anywhere else until 1992, when it appeared on Burnel's first solo LP.
Artist: Love
Title: 7&7 Is (2005 live version)
Source: CD: California 66
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: PruneTwang
Year: Recorded 2005, released 2009
After disbanding the original Love in 1968, Arthur Lee continued to use the Love name with various different lineups until 1974. Despite several attempts at reuniting the band's classic lineup, Lee remained relatively inactive until 1992, when a new album called Five String Serenade was released under the name Arthur Lee & Love. Lee then returned to live performing, usually backed by a band called Baby Lemonade, until 1995, when he began serving a six-year prison term for firearms offenses. In 2003 original Love guitarist Johnny Echols joined Lee's latest version of Love for a Forever Changes 35th Anniversary performance in the spring of 2003 and again for tours in 2004 and 2005. Lee himself, however, was not present on the 2005 tour due to an ongoing battle (that the rest of the band knew nothing about) with acute myeloid leukemia. A live performance of Love's most well-known song, 7&7 Is, by that version of Love was included on the 2009 compilation album California 66 on the Electric Prunes' PruneTwang label.
Artist: Static Cling
Title: Just The Facts
Source: CD EP: Infrarad Radiation Orchestra: Mad Dog Sullivan (originally released on cassette: Timbimboo)
Writer(s): Kim Draheim
Label: GTG
Year: Recorded late 1980s, released 2024
Static Cling was a punk/new wave band from west-central New York State led by guitarist/vocalist Kim Draheim that was active from the 1980s through the early 2000s. In addition to a mini album and a pair of singles, the group released an album called Timbimboo that was only available as a cassette tape. After the dissolution of Static Cling Draheim formed the Infrared Radiation Orchestra. One of the more recent releases by IRO is an EP called Mad Dog Sullivan that includes a Static Cling song originally released on Timbimboo called Just The Facts.
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Title: Ticket To Ride
Source: LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer(s): Lennon/McCartney
Label: Atco
Year: 1967
The late 1940s saw the beginning of a revolution in the way people consumed recorded music. For decades, the only available recorded media had been the brittle 78 RPM (revolutions per minute) discs made of a material known as shellac. These discs, officially known as gramophone records, generally came in three sizes: 7" (for children's records), 12" (used mostly for classical recordings) and the standard 10" discs, which held about three minutes' worth of material per side. The high revolution speed meant that even the 12" discs could only hold a maximum of five minutes' worth of music per side, making it necessary to spread out longer pieces such as operas and symphonies over several discs, severely disrupting the listening experience. Following the end of World War II the two largest record companies, RCA Victor and Columbia, each separately began working on replacements for the 78 RPM discs. RCA's replacement was pretty much one on one; the 10" 78s were replaced by the 7" 45 RPM singles with about the same running time. Columbia, on the other hand, concentrated their efforts on long playing 12" records that, revolving at 33 1/3 RPM, could contain over 20 minutes' worth of music per side. Naturally, the LPs were far more expensive than 45s, and were marketed to a more affluent class of consumer than their shorter counterparts. This in turn led to popular music being dominated by 45 RPM singles, especially among American teenagers, while albums tended to be favored by fans of jazz and classical music. This dichotomy persisted well into the 1960s, with relatively few pop stars, such as Elvis Presley and later, the Beatles, selling a signficant number of LPs. By 1967, however, teenagers were buying enough LPs to make it feasable to a youth-oriented act to be considered a success without the aid of a hit single. One of the first of these new types of rock bands was Vanilla Fudge, whose debut LP did not contain any hit singles when it was first released. It did, however, contain a pair of Beatles covers, including the album's opening track, Ticket To Ride. A year later, another cover song from the album, You Keep Me Hangin' On, which had been a hit for the Supremes around the same time that the Vanilla Fudge album first came out, began to get significant airplay and was re-released as a single.
Artist: Mojo Men
Title: Sit Down, I Think I Love You
Source: LP: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Stephen Stills
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1967
The Mojo Men started off in Rochester, NY in the early 60s. After a stint in south Florida playing mostly frat houses, the band moved to San Francisco, where they scored a contract with Reprise Records and recorded the garage-rock classic She's My Baby. Around late 1966-early 1967 the Mojo Men picked up a new drummer. Jan Errico, formerly of the Vejtables, brought with her a softer, more folky kind of sound, as well as the high vocal harmonies that are evident in this recording of the Buffalo Springfield tune Sit Down I Think I Love You, a minor hit during the summer of love.
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Title: Rock And Roll Woman
Source: LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Stephen Stills
Label: Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year: 1967
Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth) while they were together. Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock And Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 50 years after it was recorded.
Artist: Frank Zappa
Title: Road Ladies
Source: LP: Chunga's Revenge
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Bizarre/Reprise
Year: 1970
Possibly the nearest thing to a straight blues number ever recorded by Frank Zappa is Road Ladies, a track from his 1970 LP Chunga's Revenge. In addition to Zappa on guitar and lead vocals, the song features Ian Underwood on rhythm guitar, Jeff Simmons on bass guitar, George Duke on organ, Aynsley Dunbar on drums and, making their debut on a Zappa album, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan as the Phlorescent Leech and Eddie on backup vocals.
Artist: Beau Gentry
Title: Black Cat Blues
Source: Mono CD: If You're Ready-The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume 2
Writer(s): Beau Gentry
Label: Sundazed
Year: unknown, probably 1968
There is not a whole lot of info out there on a band (not an individual) called Beau Gentry, but here is what I was able to find out: The Beau Gentry originated in the Space Coast region of southern Florida in the mid-1960s and relocated to the midwest a couple years later. While living in Wisconsin they recorded the self-penned Black Cat Blues for Dunwich Records, which was transitioning from a functioning label to a production company that farmed out recordings to larger labels. As a result, Black Cat Blues got lost in the shuffle, and most of the band members ended up relocating to San Francisco in late 1968. Early in 1969 they recorded a song called Spirit In The Sky with vocalist Norman Greenbaum, and appeared with him on American Bandstand in April of 1970 (miming to the record, no doubt).
Artist: Crow
Title: Cottage Cheese
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Weigand/Waggoner
Label: Amaret
Year: 1970
In late 1970 I found myself living in Alamogordo, NM, which was at the time one of those places that still didn't have an FM station (in fact, the only FM station we could receive was a classical station in Las Cruces, 60 miles away). To make it worse, there were only two AM stations in town, and the only one that played current songs went off the air at sunset. As a result the only way to hear current music at night (besides buying albums without hearing them first) was to "DX" distant AM radio stations. Of these, the one that came in most clearly and consistently was KOMA in Oklahoma City. My friends and I spent many a night driving around with KOMA cranked up, fading in and out as long-distance AM stations always do. One of those nights in 1970 we were all blown away by Cottage Cheese, Crow's follow-up to their 1969 hit Evil Woman, Don't Play Your Games With Me, which, due to the conservative nature of the local daytime-only station, was not getting any local airplay. It turns out that Cottage Cheese was originally released as the B side of their version of Larry Williams' Hold On, but the single was quickly withdrawn, with Cottage Cheese becoming the A side, and an earlier B side called Busy Day reissued as the single's B side.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Think
Source: CD: Aftermath
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original US label: London)
Year: 1966
The 1966 album Aftermath marked a turning point for the Rolling Stones, as it was the first Stones album to be entirely made up of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Although, as with all the early Stones releases, there were differences between the US and UK versions of the album, both releases included Think, a song that is fairly representative of the mid-60s Rolling Stones sound.
Artist: Donovan
Title: Goldwatch Blues
Source: Mono LP: Hear Me Now (originally released on LP: Catch The Wind)
Writer(s): Mick Softly
Label: Janus (original label: Hickory)
Year: 1965
Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan was often compared to Bob Dylan when he made his first recordings in late 1964. Both were influenced by legendary American folksingers Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Woody Guthrie and performed solo, accompanying themselves on acoustic guitar supplemented by harmonica. Donovan, however, had British influences as well, including the English folksinger Mick Softly, whose Goldwatch Blues opens the second side of Donovan's debut LP, What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid, which was issued in the US under the title Catch The Wind.
Artist: Impressions
Title: I've Been Trying
Source: CD: Curtis Mayfield And The Impressions-The Anthology 1961-1977 (originally released on LP: Keep On Pushing and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Curtis Mayfield
Label: MCA (original label: ABC Paramount)
Year: 1964
The Impressions first hit the big time with the 1958 single For Your Precious Love, sung by the group's original lead vocalist Jerry Butler. The song was so successful, in fact, that Butler soon left the group for a solo career, leaving the Impressions floundering for the next few years. Although the Impressions were primarily a vocal group, they did have one member, 16-year-old Curtis Mayfield, who played guitar. It was Mayfield who eventually stepped up to fill Butler's shoes, getting the Impressions a contract with ABC Paramount Records and recording their first single, Gypsy Woman, in 1961. As time went on, the Impressions would trim down to a trio, with all three members sharing both lead and harmony vocal parts, supplemented by Mayfield's guitar work, on tunes like I've Been Trying, which was included on the group's most successful LP, Keep On Pushing, and later released as the B side of the classic People Get Ready single.
Artist: Majority
Title: One Third
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Barry Graham
Label: Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year: 1966
Originally known as Barry Graham and the Mustangs, the Majority moved south from Hull to London after signing with the British Decca label in 1965. A highly adaptable group, the Majority recorded a total of eight singles for Decca without achieving any chart success. Among the best of these tracks was One Third, a song from July of 1966 that was sadly relegated to being a B side. The group did manage to pick up a following on the European continent, and after their contract with Decca expired in 1968 the band packed their bags and moved overseas. After a moderately successful run in Europe using the name Majority One, the group disbanded in the mid-1970s.
Artist: Doors
Title: Soul Kitchen
Source: CD: The Doors
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra
Year: 1967
Every time I hear the opening notes of the Doors' Soul Kitchen, from their first album, I think it's When The Music's Over, from their second LP. I wonder if they did that on purpose?
