Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2520 (B32) (starts 5/12/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/572567 

    This week Rockin' in the Days of Confusion sends you back to 1970, with artists ranging from the obscure (American Dream) to world famous (the Who).

Title:    Down By The River
Source:    CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Down By The River is one of four songs on the album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere that Neil Young wrote while running a fever of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 39.5 degrees for people in civilized nations that use the Celsius, aka centrigrade, scale). By some strange coincidence, they are the four best songs on the album. I wish I could have been that sick in my days as a wannabe rock star.

Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Wicked World
Source:    LP: Black Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1969
    The Secret Origin of Heavy Metal-Part One: After a short (one month) stint as Mick Abrahams's replacement in Jethro Tull, guitarist Tony Iommi rejoined his former bandmates Ozzy Osborne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward in the blues-rock band Earth in January of 1969. Later that year they realized that there was already another English band called Earth and decided to change their name. Taking inspiration from a playbill of a movie theater showing classic Boris Karloff horror films across the street from where they were rehearsing, they started calling themselves Black Sabbath in August of 1969 and began to forge a new sound for the band in keeping with their new name. Three months later Black Sabbath got their first record contract, releasing a cover of Crow's Evil Woman in November. They followed the (UK only) single up with their self-titled debut LP, recorded in just two days, on Friday, February 13th, 1970. The album was released three months later in the US, and spent over a year on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. Although Evil Woman was included on the UK version of the LP, Warner Brothers chose to instead include the B side of the band's British single, a song called Wicked World that was not on the UK version of the album. Most Black Sabbath fans, it turns out, consider Wicked World a stronger track, as it shows a trace of the band's original blues-rock sound, especially on its fast paced intro and closing sections.

Artist:    Savoy Brown
Title:    Money Can't Save Your Soul
Source:    CD: Looking In
Writer(s):    Simmonds/ Peverett
Label:    Deram (original label: Parrott)
Year:    1970
    Looking In was the sixth album by British blues-rockers Savoy Brown, and the first without original lead vocalist Chris Youlden. It was also the final outing for guitarist Dave Peverett, bassist Tone Stevens and drummer Roger Earl, who would go on to form Foghat after being dismissed by bandleader Kim Simmonds. The album was made up entirely of original compositions such as the low-key Money Can't Save Your Soul, which was written by Simmonds and Peverett, who had taken over lead vocals upon Youlden's departure. Both Foghat and a new Savoy Brown lineup would continue to have success, especially in the US, where both bands toured extensively throughout the 1970s.

Artist:    Buddy Miles
Title:    Paul B. Allen, Omaha, Nebraska
Source:    CD: Them Changes
Writer(s):    Miles/Lewis
Label:    Miracle/Mercury
Year:    1970
    Although the second Buddy Miles album, Them Changes, was for the most part a showcase for Miles's vocals, there were a few tasty instrumentals on the LP as well. The tastiest of these was a tune called Paul B. Allen, Omaha, Nebraska, which appeared toward the end of side two. The tune, co-written by Miles and organist Andre Lewis, has a sound reminiscent of such mid-60s jazz organists as Groove Holmes. Tasty stuff indeed.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Love Is The Answer
Source:    CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Blues Image started off in Tampa, Florida, but soon relocated to Miami, where they soon became the house band for the legendary club Thee Image. They moved out to Los Angeles in 1969, where they developed a following that included several prominent musicians, including guitarist Jimi Hendrix. It was Hendrix that pointed out to the band that they did great arrangements on other people's material but that their own tunes were lacking a certain flair. The solution, it turned out, was to set their own compositions aside for a time, then revist them, treating them the same way they would someone else's songs. Apparently it worked, as can be heard on songs like Love Is The Answer, the powerful opening track for their second LP, Open.

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

Artist:    American Dream
Title:    Raspberries
Source:    LP: The American Dream
Writer(s):    Van Winkle/Jameson
Label:    Ampex
Year:    1970
    OK, I have to admit that I know very little about the album and band called The American Dream, which was included as an unexpected free gift that came along with a vintage vinyl copy of an album I bought online. Here's what I do know. The American Dream was from Philadelphia. The album was produced by Todd Rundgren. In fact, it was his first time producing a group that he himself was not a member of. Finally, these guys were actually pretty good. How good? Well, take a listen to the album's final (and longest) track, Raspberries, and decide for yourself.

Artist:    Who
Title:    My Generation
Source:    LP: Live At Leeds
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Decca
Year:    1970
    The official title of the track was My Generation, but this fourteen and a half minute long performance from the Who's Live At Leeds album incorporates excerpts from many more Pete Townshend compositions, including the Seeker and several of the tunes from the rock opera Tommy. The album itself has cited by many critics as the best live rock recording of all time.

Artist:    Paul McCartney
Title:    Maybe I'm Amazed
Source:    LP: McCartney
Writer(s):    Paul McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1970
    Paul McCartney began working on his first solo album before the Beatles officially broke up. In fact, it was the release of that album that led him to publicly announce the dissolution of the band on April 10, 1970. In September, 1969, John Lennon had privately informed the rest of the group that he was leaving the Beatles, and McCartney responded by making a series of home recordings on which he played all the instruments himself. The album, released in April of 1970, was savaged by the rock press. Nonetheless, McCartney spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard LP charts that year. Although there were no singles released from the album, a live version of Maybe I'm Amazed, released in 1977, became a top 10 hit.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2519 (B31) (starts 5/5/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/571703

    Lots of tunes from 1966 and 1967 this week, including a set of obscure British singles. Also on tap: A Jethro Tull set featuring singles from 1969 and a live extended version of one of their earliest tunes.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    See See Rider
Source:    LP: Animalization
Writer(s):    Ma Rainey
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    One of the last singles released by the original incarnation of the Animals (and the first to use the name Eric Burdon And The Animals on the label), See See Rider traces its roots back to the 1920s, when it was first recorded by Ma Rainey. The Animals version is considerably faster than most other recordings of the song, and includes a signature opening rift by organist Dave Rowberry (who had replaced founder Alan Price prior to the recording of the Animalization album that the song first appeared on) that is unique to the Animals' take on the tune.

Artist:    Butterfield Blues Band
Title:    Get Out Of My Life Woman
Source:    CD: East-West
Writer(s):    Alan Toussaint
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    The second Butterfield Blues Band album, East-West, released in 1966, is best known for the outstanding guitar work of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. One often overlooked member of the group was keyboardist Mark Naftalin, who, along with Butterfield and Bishop, was a founding member of the band. Naftalin's keyboard work is the highlight of the band's cover of Alan Toussaint's Get Out Of My Life Woman, which was a top 40 hit for Lee Dorsey the same year.

Artist:     Seeds
Title:     Evil Hoodoo
Source:     LP: The Seeds
Writer:     Saxon/Hooper
Label:     GNP Crescendo
Year:     1966
     With a title like Evil Hoodoo, one might expect a rather spooky track. Indeed, the song does start off that way, but soon moves into standard Seeds territory (as does most everything on the band's debut album). Luckily, Sky Saxon and company would turn out to be a bit more adventurous on their second LP.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    She Belongs To Me
Source:    Mono LP: Bringing It All Back Home
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1965
    Bob Dylan first recorded an acoustic version of She Belongs To Me on January 13, 1965 before bringing in a full band the next day for the version included on the album Bringing It All Back Home. There are conflicting theories about who the song is actually about, but it's obvious that whoever it was about actually belonged to nobody but herself.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Dreaming
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Jack Bruce
Label:    Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    Although Cream recorded several songs that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce co-wrote with various lyricists (notably poet Pete Brown), there were a few that Bruce himself wrote words for. One of these is Dreaming, a song from the band's first LP that features both Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton on lead vocals. Dreaming is also one of the shortest Cream songs on record, clocking in at one second under two minutes in length.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     D.C.B.A.-25
Source:     Mono LP: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer:     Paul Kantner
Label:     Sundazed (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:     1967
     D.C.B.A.-25 was named for the chords used in the song. As for the "25"...it was 1967. In San Francisco. Paul Kantner wrote it. Figure it out.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    I Don't Want To Spoil Your Party (alternate version of Dino's Song)
Source:    CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service (originally released on CD: Unreleased Quicksilver)
Writer(s):    Dino Valenti
Label:    RockBeat (original label: Capitol)
Year:    Recorded 1968, alternate version released 2000)
    A few years back I picked up the DVD collector's edition of the telefilm that DA Pennebacker made of the Monterey International Pop Festival. In addition to the film itself there were two discs of bonus material, including a song by Quicksilver Messenger Service that was listed under the title All I Ever Wanted To Do (Was Love You). I spent some time trying to figure out which album the song had originally appeared on, but came up empty until I got a copy of the first Quicksilver album and discovered it was actually called Dino's song. The album version has a definite garage sound to it, similar to the classic Van Morrison song Gloria. In 2000 Collector's Choice released a compilation of previously unheard Quicksilver tracks, including this alternate version of Dino's Song that uses yet another title: I Don't Want To Spoil Your Party. This version has a more country-rock sound to it than the original LP version. I suspect the confusion in song titles is connected to the origins of the band itself, which was the brainchild of Dino Valenti and John Cipollina (and possibly Gary Duncan). The day after their first practice session Valenti got busted and spent the next few years in jail for marijuana possession. My theory is that this was an untitled song that Valenti showed Cippolina at that first practice. Since it probably still didn't have a title when the group performed the song at Monterey, the filmmakers used the most repeated line from the song itself, All I Ever Wanted To Do (Was Love You). When the band recorded their first LP in 1968 they just called it Dino's Song. Presumably by the time this alternate version was released in 2000 Valenti had come up with an official title, I Don't Want To Spoil Your Party. If anyone knows of another explanation, please pass it along.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Love In The City
Source:    CD: 20 Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Turtle Soup and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Kaylan/Volman/Nichol/Pons/Seiter
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1969
    One of the most overlooked songs in the Turtles catalog, Love In The City, produced by Ray Davies, was the last single released from the album Turtle Soup in 1969. At this point the band had gone through various personnel changes, although the group's creative core of Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman and Al Nichol remained intact. Still, as good as Love In The City was, it had become clear that the Turtles had run their last race. After releasing one more single (a rather forgettable balled called Lady-O), the band called it quits. Kaylan and Volman would end up joining the Mothers of Invention, appearing on the legendary Live At Fillmore East album before striking out on their own as the Phlorescent Leech (later shortened to Flo) And Eddie.

Artist:      Derek And The Dominos
Title:     I Looked Away
Source:      CD: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Writer(s):    Clapton/Whitlock
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:     1970
     It took Eric Clapton many years to get comfortable with the idea of being a rock god. One of his attempts to avoid being the center of attention was to form a band as quietly as possible and just put the music out there for people to hear. Obviously, it didn't work out quite as planned, as both the record company and rock press heralded the Layla album as a Clapton solo project. I Looked Away is the opening track from that album.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Little Wing
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Although it didn't have any hit singles on it, Axis: Bold As Love, the second album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was full of memorable tunes, including one of Hendrix's most covered songs, Little Wing. The album itself is a showcase for Hendrix's rapidly developing skills, both as a songwriter and in the studio. The actual production of the album was a true collaborative effort, combining Hendrix's creativity, engineer Eddie Kramer's expertise and producer Chas Chandler's strong sense of how a record should sound, acquired through years of recording experience as a member of the Animals.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Bluebird
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    When it comes right down to it Buffalo Springfield has one of the highest ratios of songs recorded to songs played on the radio of any band in history, especially if you only count the two albums worth of material that was released while the band was still active. This is probably because Buffalo Springfield had more raw songwriting talent than just about any two other bands. Although Neil Young was just starting to hit his stride as a songwriter, bandmate Stephen Stills was already at an early peak, as songs like Bluebird clearly demonstrate.

Artist:     Donovan
Title:     Young Girl Blues
Source:     LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer:     Donovan Leitch
Label:     Epic
Year:     1967
    In 1966 Donovan got into a prolonged contract dispute with his British record label, Pye Records. As a result, his two most successful albums, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, were only released in the US. Eventually the dispute was settled and Pye released a British version of Mellow Yellow that was actually a pastiche of the two US releases. During the dispute, however, Donovan acquired a somewhat jaded view of not only the British music scene, but of British youth culture in general. Young Girl Blues reflects this sort of youthful cynicism.
 
Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Eleanor Rigby
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    The Beatles' Revolver album is usually cited as the beginning of the British psychedelic era, and with good reason. Although the band still had one last tour in them in 1966, they were already far more focused on their studio work than on their live performances, and thus turned out an album full of short masterpieces such as Paul McCartney's Eleanor Rigby. As always, the song was credited to both McCartney and John Lennon, but in reality the only Beatle to appear on the recording was McCartney himself, and then only in a vocal capacity. The instrumentation consisted of simply a string quartet, arranged and conducted by producer George Martin. Released as a double-A-sided single, along with Yellow Submarine, the song shot to the upper echelons of the charts in nearly every country in the western world and remains one of the band's most popular and recognizable tunes.

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:     Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:     There's Always Tomorrow
Source:     LP: Midnight Ride
Writer:     Levin/Smith
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
     Paul Revere and the Raiders was one of the many bands of the early 1960s that helped lay the groundwork for the temporary democratization of American popular music later in the decade (for more on that head over to hermitradio.com and click the link to "The Psychedelic Era"). After honing their craft for years in the clubs of the Pacific Northwest the Raiders caught the attention of Dick Clark, who called them the most versatile rock band he had ever seen. Clark introduced the band to Terry Melcher, which in turn led to Paul Revere and the Raiders being the first rock band ever signed to industry giant Columbia Records, at that time the second largest record company in the country. In addition to organist Revere the band featured Mark Lindsay on lead vocals and saxophone, Phil "Fang" Volker on bass, Drake Levin on lead guitar and Mike "Smitty" Smith on drums. Occassional someone other than Lindsay would get the opportunity to sing a lead vocal part, as Smitty does on There's Always Tomorrow, a song he co-wrote with Levin shortly before the guitarist quit to join the National Guard. Seriously, the guy who played the double-tracked lead guitars on Just Like Me quit the hottest band in the US at the peak of their popularity to voluntarily join the military. I'd say there was a good chance he was not one of the guys burning their draft cards that year.

Artist:    Syndicate Of Sound
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Baskin/Gonzalez
Label:    Rhino (original labels: Hush & Bell)
Year:    1966
    San Jose California, despite being a relatively small city in the pre-silicon valley days, was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced more than its share of hit records from 1966-68. One of the earliest and biggest of these hits was the Syndicate Of Sound hit Little Girl, which has come to be recognized as one of the top garage-rock songs of all time. Little Girl was originally released regionally in mid 1966 on the Hush label, and reissued nationally by Bell Records a couple months later.
    
Artist:    Association
Title:    Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Renaissance)
Writer(s):    Gary Alexander
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: Valiant)
Year:    1966
    Following up on their monster hit Cherish, the Association released their most overtly psychedelic track, Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies, in late 1966, in advance of their second LP, Renaissance. The group had wanted to be more involved in the production process, and provided their own instrumental tracks for the tune, written by band member Gary Alexander. Unfortunately for the band, the single barely made the top 40, peaking at # 35, which ultimately led to the band relying more on outside songwriters and studio musicians for their later recordings such as Never My Love and Windy.

Artist:    Otis Redding
Title:    The Happy Song (Dum-Dum)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Redding/Cropper
Label:    Volt
Year:    1968
    One of the great tragedies in the history of American music was the plane crash that took the lives of Otis Redding and most of the Bar-Kays in early 1968. In the months following the crash, several "new" Otis Redding singles were released, including The Happy Song (Dum-Dum), co-written by guitarist Steve Cropper.

Artist:    Episode Six
Title:    Love-Hate-Revenge
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Adams/Levin
Label:    Rhino (original US label: Elektra)
Year:    1967
    Episode Six was formed in London in July of 1964, and after a couple of personnel changes that saw Ian Gillan take over lead vocals, signed with Pye Records in 1965. Although they were performing an average of 20 shows a month, their nine singles failed to chart in the UK, although at least one of them topped the charts in Belgium. Five of their singles were also issued in the US on a variety of labels, the most notable being Love-Hate-Revenge, which was released on Elektra in 1967. The group disbanded in 1969 when Gillan and bassist Roger Glover left to join Deep Purple.

Artist:    Kaleidoscope (UK)
Title:    Flight From Ashiya
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Daltry/Pumer
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1967
    Although they did not have any hit singles, London's Kaleidoscope had enough staying power to record two album's worth of material for the Fontana label before disbanding. The group's first release was Flight From Ashiya, a single released in September of 1967. Describing a bad plane trip with a stoned pilot, the song is filled with chaotic images, making the song's story a bit hard to follow. Still, it's certainly worth a listen.

Artist:    The Mickey Finn
Title:    Garden Of My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Waller/Marks
Label:    Rhino (original label: Direction)
Year:    1967
    Not every band in the world makes a living performing their own original material. In fact, the majority of working musicians are members of cover bands, playing a variety of venues all over the world. Most of these bands will never see the inside of a recording studio. There have been times and places, however, when even cover bands could get recording contracts, especially if they had a sizable local following. One such time and place was London in the mid-1960s, where bands like Mickey Finn And The Blue Men found steady work playing ska and R&B covers for the Mod crowd. They recorded a series of singles for several different local labels, one of which was Garden Of My Mind, a freakbeat tune written by guitarist Mickey Waller and vocalist Alan Marks and released on the Direction label. As the decade wore on and the Mod fad began to die out, the Mickey Finn (as they were then known) found itself playing more and more on the European continent, eventually calling it a day (or night) in 1971. I guess that's what happens when you name your band after an early date-rape drug.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Driving Song
Source:    LP: Living In The Past (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    By 1969 the presence of "underground" FM radio stations in most major US cities playing what would come to be called album rock was making it possible for an artist to be considered successful without having the benefit of a top 40 hit record. This was not the case in the UK, where top 40 itself had been, until July of 1967, considered an underground format heard on illegal AM pirate stations broadcasting from offshore transmitters. Momentum being what it is, British bands such as Jethro Tull continued to put out singles and EPs that were successful in their native England but difficult to find in the US well into the 1970s. For example, Driving Song was originally released as the B side of Living In the Past in 1969. As was the case with every other early Jethro Tull single, the record, although released in the US failed to make a dent in the charts, and was not heard by most Americans until the Living In the Past LP was released in 1972.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Sweet Dream
Source:    CD: Stand Up (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol
Year:    1969
    Jethro Tull released several singles from 1968 through 1970 that were not originally available on any LPs. Among the best of these was Sweet Dream, a tune that made the top 10 in the UK and top 20 in Ireland and Germany but failed to make the charts in North America. The song was included on the 1972 double LP Living In The Past, and is currently available as a bonus track on the Stand Up CD.

Artist:     Jethro Tull
Title:     Dharma For One (live)
Source:     LP: Living In The Past
Writer:     Anderson/Bunker
Label:     Chrysalis
Year:     Recorded 1970, released
     Most of the songs on Jethro Tull's 1972 album Living In The Past had originally appeared on 45 RPM vinyl, with only one song from each of their first four albums included in the collection. The only "new" material on the double-LP were a pair of live tracks recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1970. The more energetic of these was a heavily rearranged version of Dharma For One, a track showcasing drummer Clive Bunker that had appeared on the group's first LP, This Was. The Living In The Past version of Dharma For One includes vocals (the original was an instrumental) and an expanded drum solo, making the entire piece run nearly ten minutes.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Baby Blue
Source:    Mono CD: The Inner Mystique (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Uptown)
Year:    1967
    Many artists have covered Bob Dylan songs over the years, but few managed to do it with as much attitude as the Chocolate Watchband on their version of It's All Over Now Baby Blue. The song appeared in early 1967 as the B side of the Watchband's first "official" single, Sweet Young Thing. As good a track as Sweet Young Thing was (and it is indeed a good one), Baby Blue, being a bit more recognizable, may have been a better choice for a potential hit single. We'll never know.
        
Artist:    Peanut Butter Conspiracy
Title:    Wonderment
Source:    CD: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading/The Great Conspiracy (originally released on LP: The Great Conspiracy)
Writer(s):    John Merrill
Label:    Collectables (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    Like many bands of the psychedelic era, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy was known for its onstage improvisational skills. Unfortunately, when they were signed to Columbia they were paired up with Gary Usher, who is best known for his work with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, as well as his various studio creations such as the Hondells and, later, Sagittarius. Usher insisted on supplementing the band's sound with studio musicians on their first LP, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading. The second PBC album, The Great Conspiracy, is a better representation of what the band was truly about, although even then they weren't able to cut loose the way they did onstage. Probably the closest they did come to capturing their live sound was on Wonderment, the last track on The Great Conspiracy. Sales were not good enough for the band to continue with a major label, however, and PBC co-founder John Merrill left the group not long after The Great Conspiracy's release.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Waterloo Sunset
Source:    CD: Something Else
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    One of the most beautiful tunes ever recorded by the Kinks is Waterloo Sunset, a song that was a hit single in the UK, but was totally ignored by US radio stations. The reason for this neglect of such a stong song is a mystery, however it may have been due to the fear that American audiences would not be able to relate to all the references to places in and around London in the song's lyrics. The fact that the American Federation Of Musicians refused to issue permits for the Kinks to play concerts in the US between 1965 and 1969 (in all fairness due mainly to the band members' onstage behavior) probably had something to do with it as well.

Artist:    Young Rascals
Title:    A Place In The Sun
Source:    CD: Groovin'
Writer(s):    Miller/Wells
Label:    Warner Special Products (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1967
    It took a coule of years for the Young Rascals' songwriting skills to develop (their first LP, for instance, had only one original on it), but by their third album, Groovin', the band member, particularly Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati, had found their groove (ahem). In fact, the 1967 LP had only one cover song on it: Stevie Wonder's 1966 hit A Place In The Sun. It would be the last time the Rascals included any material not written by band members until their sixth LP, See, released in 1969.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Magic Of Love
Source:    45 RPM single (from box set Move Over)
Writer(s):    M. Spoelstra
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Until 2011, the only available recordings of Magic Of Love by Big Brother And The Holding Company were of live performances in 1967 and 1968. What very few people realized, however, is that the band actually recorded a studio version of Magic Of Love for possible inclusion on their Cheap Thrills album in 1968. Ultimately, though, it was decided that Cheap Thrills would be presented as a set of live recordings, and only two (three if you count Turtle Blues) of the original studio tracks were used on the album (although other studio recordings disguised as live tracks were used as well). Thus the studio version of Magic Of Love was put on the shelf for over 40 years, finally surfacing as part of a special box set of four 45 RPM records called Move Over.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Careful With That Axe, Eugene (live)
Source:    LP: Ummagumma
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label:    Harvest
Year:    1969
    Pink Floyd's first double LP, Ummagumma, consisted of a live album with four tracks and a studio LP showcasing each individual member of the group. In later years the album would find itself disparaged by band members and critics alike, although one critic did point out that the live version of Careful With That Axe, Eugene, was actually a pretty decent rendition of one the band's most popular early tunes.

    
        
 

 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2519 (B31) (starts 5/5/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/571701

    This week it's another long progression through the years, from 1969 to 1976, framed by tunes from Uriah Heep's Sweet Freedom album and Fairport Convention's Liege And Lief.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    If I Had The Time
Source:    LP: Sweet Freedom
Writer(s):    Ken Hensley
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    It's somewhat unusual to run across the song that actually expresses satisfaction with one's own life rather than the usual complaining about something that didn't go the way you wanted it to, but If I Had The Time, the opening track of the second side of the sixth Uriah Heep studio LP, Sweet Freedom, is just that. Like the majority of songs on Sweet Freedom, If I Had The Time was written by keyboardist Ken Hensley.

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Winter And My Soul
Source:    CD: Grand Funk
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    Anyone who wants to know just what made Grand Funk Railroad the most popular arena rock band of the early 1970s needs only listen to GFR's second album, Grand Funk (usually just referred to as the Red Album). The 1969 album is pure...well, pure Grand Funk Railroad. It's loud, it's messy and, most importantly, it rocks. Hard. Case in point: Winter And My Soul, which opens the LP's second side.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Nature's Way/Animal Zoo/Love Has Found A Way/Why Can't I Be Free
Source:    CD: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Writer(s):    California/Ferguson/Locke
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1970
    Spirit was one of those bands that consistently scored well with the critics, yet was never truly able to connect with a large segment of the record buying audience at any given time. Perhaps their best album was Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, released in 1970 to glowing reviews. Despite this, the album actually charted lower than any of their three previous efforts, and would be the last to feature the band's original lineup. In the long haul, however, Twelve Dreams has become the group's top selling album, thanks to steady catalog sales over a period of years. Unlike many more popular records of the time, Twelve Dreams sounds as fresh and original today as when it first appeared, as can be easily heard on the four-song medley that makes up the bulk of the LP's first side. Indeed, despite never having charted as a single, Nature's Way, a Randy California tune which starts the sequence, is one of the best-known songs in the entire Spirit catalog. Additionally, its ecological theme segues naturally into Animal Zoo, a Jay Ferguson tune with a more satirical point of view. Love Has Found A Way, written by vocalist Ferguson and keyboardist John Locke, can best described as psychedelic space jazz, while Why Can't I Be Free is a simple, yet lovely, short coda from guitarist California. Although Spirit, in various incarnations, would continue to record for many years, they would never put out another album as listenable as Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus.

Artist:    Focus
Title:    Hocus Pocus
Source:    LP: Moving Waves
Writer(s):    van Leer/Akkerman
Label:    Sire
Year:    1971
    Although it was not a hit until 1973, Hocus Pocus by the Dutch progressive rock band Focus has the type of simple structure coupled with high energy that was characteristic of many of the garage bands of the mid to late 60s. The song was originally released on the band's second LP, known alternately as Focus II and Moving Waves, in 1971. Both guitarist Jan Akkerman and keyboardist/vocalist/flautist Thijs Van Leer have gone on to have successful careers, with Van Leer continuing to use to Focus name as recently as 2006.

Artist:    Graham Nash and David Crosby
Title:    The Wall Song
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    David Crosby
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1972
    Such was the popularity of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in the early 70s that each of the members, both as solo artists and in various combinations of two or three members, released albums in addition to official group recordings, all of which sold well. One such effort was the 1972 album by Graham Nash and David Crosby. One of the more notable tracks on the album is The Wall Song, featuring (in addition to Crosby and Nash) Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann on guitar, bass and drums. The version heard here is the rare mono mix of The Wall Song, issued as a B side in 1972.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Rat Bat Blue
Source:    Japanese import CD: Who Do We Think We Are
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    The final album by the most popular lineup of Deep Purple was Who Do We Think We Are, released in 1973. By this point, after an extensive and exhausting touring schedule, several of the band members were no longer on speaking terms and ended up recording their own parts at separate times. Nonetheless, the album hangs together pretty well, especially on tracks like Rat Bat Blue, which opens the LP's second side.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day
Source:    LP: "M.U." The Best Of Jethro Tull (originally released on LP: War Child)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1974
    Jethro Tull has always seemed to me to be a band with a split personality. At times they are highly focused with a strong musical vision (Aqualung, Thick As A Brick), while at other times they seem merely self-indulgent (A Passion Play, virtually everything from the 80s on). Some albums, such as War Child, have elements of both. Side one of the album is, quite frankly, pretty boring introspective stuff, while most of the tracks on side two are brilliant, including Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day, an early song addressing the issue of climate change. Although written in 1972 as part of the aborted Chateau D'isaster album, Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day wasn't released until 1974, when it became the opening track of the second side of War Child.

Artist:    Mahogany Rush
Title:    Strange Universe
Source:    Canadian import CD: Strange Universe
Writer(s):    Frank Marino
Label:    Just A Minute (original label: 20th Century)
Year:    1975
    Although there are countless guitarists that have been influenced by Jimi Hendrix in various ways, only one has been able to capture his entire sound from a production as well as performance standpoint. That one is Frank Marino, whose band, Mahogany Rush, has been recording since 1972. A listen to the title track of the 1975 album Strange Universe pretty much proves my point.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    The Caves Of Altamira
Source:    CD: The Royal Scam
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1976
    Steely Dan had a reputation for bringing in some of the finest guest musicians available to help them on their albums. The Caves Of Altamire, from their fifth LP, The Royal Scam, is a good example. The piece, based on a book by Hans Baumann, features a tenor saxophone solo from John Klemmer.

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    Crazy Man Michael
Source:    LP: Liege And Lief
Writer(s):    Thompson/Swarbrick
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    1969 was a singularly prolific year for Britain's premier folk-rock band, Fairport Convention, who released no fewer than three albums over a period of less than twelve months. It was also the only year that vocalist Sandy Denny was a member of the band; in fact, by the time Liege And Lief was released she had already left the group to form Fotheringay. 1969 was also a year of transition for the band. Their 1968 debut LP had drawn comparisons to early Jefferson Airplane. Leige And Lief, their fourth effort, is considered by some to be the seminal British folk-rock album, combining new arrangements of traditional material with original compositions in a similar style, one example being Crazy Man Michael, which closes out the LP.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2518 (B30) (starts 4/28/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/570854

    This week we have artists' sets from opposite ends of the San Francisco Bay, a couple progressions through the years and one seriously long set from 1967.

Artist:    Nashville Teens
Title:    Tobacco Road
Source:    Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    John D. Loudermilk
Label:    K-Tel (original US label: London)
Year:    1964
    The Nashville Teens were not teens. Nor were they from Nashville. In fact, they were one of the original British Invasion bands. Their version of John D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road was a huge international hit in the summer of 1964. The lead guitar parts on the recording are the work of studio musician Jimmy Page.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Steeled Blues
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Beck/Relf
Label:     Epic
Year:     1965
     The first Yardbirds record with Jeff Beck on lead guitar (replacing Eric Clapton) was a single written by Graham Gouldman called Heart Full Of Soul. The song featured Beck playing riffs originally designed for sitar, as well as his own solo in the song's instrumental break. The B side of that single was an instrumental blues jam called Steeled Blues that was basically a showcase for Beck and harmonicist Keith Relf, who trade off licks throughout the track.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    God Only Knows
Source:    Mono LP: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    Possibly the first time a deity appeared in the title of a pop song was the Beach Boys song God Only Knows on the Pet Sounds album. Both Brian and Carl Wilson were going through a spiritual phase and were in the habit of praying for guidance throughout the making of Pet Sounds. The song was released, along with Wouldn't It Be Nice, as a double A sided single a few weeks after the album came out, and both songs made the top 40, although Wouldn't It Be Nice was the bigger hit in the US. In the UK, where Beatle Paul McCartney was enthusiastic in his support of the tune, God Only Knows went all the way to the # 5 slot, considerably higher than in the US.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:     The Door Into Summer
Source:     LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.
Writer:     Douglas/Martin
Label:     Colgems
Year:     1967
     After playing nearly all the instrumental tracks on their third album themselves, the Monkees came to the painful conclusion that they would not be able to repeat the effort and still have time to tape a weekly TV show. As a result, the fourth Monkees LP, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD., used studio musicians extensively, albeit under the creative supervision of the Monkees themselves. The group also had the final say over what songs ended up on the album, including The Door Into Summer, a tune by Bill Martin, a friend of band leader Michael Nesmith. For reasons that are too complicated to get into here (and probably wouldn't make much sense anyway), co-credit was given to the band's producer, Chip Douglas.

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

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Blues From An Airplane
Source:    LP: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off)
Writer(s):    Balin/Spence
Label:    Victor
Year:    1966
    Blues From An Airplane was the opening song on the first Jefferson Airplane album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. Although never released as a single, it was picked by the group to open their first retrospective album, The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane, as well.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Greasy Heart
Source:    LP: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1968
    The Jefferson Airplane released their fourth LP, Crown of Creation, in the summer of '68. Greasy Heart, a Grace Slick composition, was chosen for single release to AM top 40 radio, but by then the group was getting far more airplay on album-oriented FM stations with tunes like Lather and Triad and the mysteriously named House at Pooniel Corners. As a result, Greasy Heart, despite being a more commercial tune, is far less familiar to most people than any of those other songs.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Crown Of Creation
Source:    LP: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Crown Of Creation)
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    Victor
Year:    1968
    After the acid rock experimentalism of After Bathing At Baxter's, the Airplane returned to a more conventional format for 1968's Crown Of Creation album. The songs themselves, however, had a harder edge than those on the early Jefferson Airplane albums, as the band itself was becoming more socio-politically radical. The song Crown of Creation draws a definite line between the mainstream and the counter-culture.
    
Artist:    The Blues Inc.
Title:    7&7 Is
Source:    Mono CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wylde Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: United Audio)
Year:    1968
    It's hard to imagine anyone doing an even heavier version of Arthur Lee's 7&7 Is than Love's original, but a band from Warren, Pennsylvania, a small (pop. 1000) city located about fifteen miles south of Jamestown, NY, certainly gave it their best effort on a B side issued on Youngstown, Ohio's United Audio label in 1968. Unlike the 1966 Love version, The Blues Inc.'s rendition of 7&7 Is features organ prominently.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Emotions
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Emotions, the last track on side one of the first Love album, sounds like it could have come directly from the soundtrack of one the spaghetti westerns that were popular with moviegoers in the mid-1960s. Probably not coincidentally, the instrumental is also the only Love recording to carry a writing credit for lead guitarist Johnny Echols (with the exception of the 17-minute jam Revelation on their second LP, which is credited to the entire band).

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Renaissance Fair
Source:    Mono LP: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Crosby/McGuinn
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Younger Than Yesterday was David Crosby's last official album with the Byrds (he was fired midway through the recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers) and the last one containing any collaborations between Crosby and Jim (now Roger) McGuinn. Renaissance Fair is one of those collaborations. The song was inspired by a free concert given in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park by the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, among others.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    The Wind Cries Mary
Source:    CD: Live At Monterey
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/UMe
Year:    1967
    The art of recording live rock bands was still in its infancy when the Jimi Hendrix Experience made their US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. For that matter, most live performances were marred by equipment problems, especially when it came to the public address (PA) system, which was the only way to make vocals heard over increasingly loud instruments. Monterey, however, raised the bar for both its sound system and the quality of the recordings made at the festival. In some cases, however, the improved sound system only made other equipment problems more noticable. One such problem was the annoying crackling sound coming from Jimi Hendrix's speakers during the Experience's performance of The Wind Cries Mary. Although it sounds at first like it might be a blown speaker, my own experience with Marshall amplifiers tells me that the problem was with Hendrix's amp, which was being pushed to its limits throughout the entire performance.

Artist:    Boston Tea Party
Title:    My Daze
Source:    Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Travis/Rich/Mike
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Vogue International)
Year:    1967
    Despite the implications of their name, the Boston Tea Party was actually from Burbank, California. The group cut three singles and one album before disbanding. The best of those singles was My Daze, released on the Vogue International label in 1967.

Artist:    Cyrkle
Title:    Don't Cry, No Fears, No Tears Comin' Your Way
Source:    CD: Red Rubber Ball (compilation CD) (originally released on LP: Neon)
Writer(s):    Dannemann/Dawes
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1967
    If you were to look up the term "diminishing returns" in a pop music encyclopedia, you might see a picture of the Cyrkle. Their first single, Red Rubber Ball, was a huge hit in 1966, going all the way to the #2 spot, with the album of the same name peaking at #47. The follow-up single, Turn Down Day, was also a top 20 hit, but it would be their last. Each consecutive single, in fact, would top out just a little bit lower than the one before it. Their track record with albums wasn't any better, as the Cyrkle's second LP, Neon, only managed to make it to #164 on the album charts, despite having some decent originals such as Don't Cry, No Fears, No Tears Comin' Your Way. The group disbanded later that same year, with the two main songwriting members of the band, Don Danneman and Tom Dawes, going on to become successful jingle writers  (Danneman wrote the Uncola song for 7 Up while Dawes came up with the Pop Pop Fizz Fizz jingle for Alka-Seltzer, among other things). Dawes also produced a pair of Foghat albums in the mid-1970s.

Artist:     Five Americans
Title:     Western Union
Source:     Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Rabon/Ezell/Durrell
Label:     Rhino (original label: Abnak)
Year:     1967
     One of the biggest hits of 1967 came from a band formed at Southeastern State College in Durant Oklahoma, although they had their greatest success working out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Having already scored a minor hit with I See The Light the previous year, the Five Americans hit the #5 spot on the national charts with Western Union, featuring a distinctive opening organ riff designed to evoke the sound of a telegraph receiver picking up Morse code.

Artist:    Peter Fonda
Title:    November Night
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gram Parsons
Label:    Rhino (original label: Chisa)
Year:    1967    
    Once upon a time the son of actor Henry Fonda was hanging around the swimming pool with his friends Gram Parsons, Stewart Levine and Hugh Masakela and decided he wanted to be a rock star. Levine and Masakela had started their own record label, Chisa (based on a Zulu "exclamation"), and Parsons provided the song November Night for Fonda to record. Although the single did get released, it failed to make an impression with anyone, and young Fonda decided that instead of trying to be a singer he perhaps should follow in his father's footsteps and become an actor like his sister Jane had. It turned out to be the right career move, as Peter Fonda would become famous for the film Easy Rider just two years later.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    You Keep Me Hangin' On
Source:    Mono CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original 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 AM radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit (not that they needed one).

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Incense And Peppermints
Source:    Mono CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label:    Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year:    1967
    Incense and Peppermints started off as an instrumental from Los Angeles band Thee Sixpence members Mark Weitz and Ed King, mostly because the band simply couldn't come up with any lyrics. Their producer decided to bring in professional songwriters John S. Carter and Tim Gilbert to finish the song, and ended up giving them full credit for it. This did not sit well with the band members. In fact, they hated the lyrics so much that they refused to sing them. Undaunted, the producer persuaded 16-year-old Greg Munford, a friend of the band who had accompanied them to the recording studio, to sing the lead vocals on the track, which was was then issued as the B side of the group's fourth single, The Birdman Of Alkatrash, on the All-American label. Somewhere along the line a local DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) immediately signed the band (which by then had changed their name to the Strawberry Alarm Clock) issuing the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side. Naturally, the song went to the number one spot, becoming the band's only major hit.

Artist:    Fun & Games Commission
Title:    Someone Must Have Lied (To You)
Source:    Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    DJ Greer
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    Apparently more than one person got the idea to call a band the Sixpence. In California there was one known as Thee Sixpence before changing their name to Strawberry Alarm Clock. The band I want to talk about, however, was from Houston, and originally called themselves the Six Pents, changing it to the Sixpentz in late 1966. When they discovered the existence of Thee Sixpence they made a name change of their own, to the Fun & Games Commission. They only released two singles before shortening their name to the Fun And Games; the first was a somewhat obscure record for a local Houston label, while the second was released on the larger Mainstream label in 1968. Someone Must Have Lied (To You) was the B side of the final Fun & Games Commission single. As Fun & Games they signed with the even larger Uni label in 1968 and had a somewhat unremarkable career as a bubble gum group.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Super Bird
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Country Joe and the Fish, from Berkeley, California, were one of the first rock bands to incorporate political satire into their music. Their I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag is one of the most famous protest songs ever written. Super Bird is even heavier on the satire than the Rag. The song, from the band's debut LP, puts president Lyndon Johnson, whose wife and daughter were known as "Lady-bird" and "Linda-bird", in the role of a comic book superhero.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Shadows
Source:    Mono CD: The Complete Reprise Singles (originally released as 45 RPM promo single)
Writer(s):    Gordon Phillips
Label:    Real Gone Music/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Released only to radio stations, Shadows may well be the last song issued by the original lineup of the Electric Prunes in the 1960s. The song was recorded for a film called The Name Of The Game Is To Kill (a movie I know absolutely nothing about), and was issued in between two singles written by David Axelrod for concept albums that came out under the Electric Prunes name in 1968. Stylistically, Shadows sounds far more like the group's earlier work than the Axelrod material.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    She Weaves A Tender Trap
Source:    Mono British import CD: Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Uptown)
Year:    1967
    The third Chocolate Watchband single, Misty Lane, was made, according to rock historian Alec Paleo, "under duress". Reportedly, the band hated the single so much that they took turns tossing copies in the air and using them for target practice. The B side was even less appropriate for the band, being a ballad orchestrated by Lincoln Mayorga called She Weaves A Tender Trap. The song was provided to the band by producer Ed Cobb, who later admitted that he didn't really know what to do with them in the studio.

Artist:     Chocolate Watchband
Title:     Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-In)
Source:     CD: No Way Out
Writer(s):    McElroy/Bennett
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year:     1967
     The Love-In was a cheapo teensploitation flick from American International that included a clip of the Chocolate Watchband performing this tune, written at the last minute by Ethan McElroy and Don Bennett, studio musicians in the employ of producer Ed Cobb. As both the Watchband and AIP's soundtracks were on Tower Records it was a perfect fit.

Artist:    Chocolate Watch Band
Title:    I Ain't No Miracle Worker
Source:    British import CD: Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist (originally released in US on LP: The Inner Mystique)
Writer:    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Originally recorded by the Merced California band the Brogues, I Ain't No Miracle Worker was penned by the same songwriting team of Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz that had written the Electric Prunes' biggest hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night). The Chocolate Watch Band version is actually a touch slower and (unexpectedly) more melodic than the 1965 Brogues original.

Artist:    Mothers Of Invention
Title:    How Could I Be Such A Fool
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Barking Pumpkin (original label: Verve)
Year:    1966
    Historically, rock music and waltzes have been pretty much mutually exclusive. There are exceptions, however, and many of those were written by Frank Zappa. Perhaps the earliest of these was How Could I Be Such A Fool from the Mothers Of Invention's Freak Out album, which in many ways is one of the most conventional compositions Zappa ever came up with. I can almost picture some mid-60s mainstream and/or jazz singer releasing it as a single.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    2000 Man
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    Setting any work of art in the relatively near future is always risky business. (Remember 1984? It's taken over forty years to actually start happening, and in a different country at that.) But then again 33 years seems like forever when you yourself are still in your twenties. I mean who, including the Rolling Stones themselves, could have imagined that Mick, Keith, Charlie and company would still be performing well into the 21st century when they recorded 2000 Man for their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request? It's actually kind of interesting to listen to the lyrics now and see just how much of the song turned out to be an accurate prediction of what was to come.

Artist:    Electric Flag
Title:    Texas
Source:    LP: A Long Time Comin'
Writer(s):    Miles/Bloomfield
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    It's generally agreed that the two biggest names in the Electric Flag were guitarist Mike Bloomfield and drummer Buddy Miles. Oddly, though, the two only collaborated as songwriters on one tune, Texas, which opened the second side of the band's debut album, A Long Time Comin'.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Abbey Road Medley #2
Source:    LP: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1969
    The Beatles had been experimenting with songs bleeding into other songs since the Sgt. Pepper's album. With Abbey Road they took it a step further, with side two of the album containing two such medleys (although some rock historians treat it as one long medley). The second one consists of three songs credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney: Golden Slumbers is vintage McCartney, while Carry That Weight has more of a Lennon feel to it. The final section,The End, probably should have been credited to the entire band, as it contains the only Ringo Starr drum solo on (a Beatles) record as well as three sets of alternating lead guitar solos (eight beats each) from Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon (in that order).

Artist:    Cat Stevens
Title:    I've Got A Thing About Seeing My Grandson Grow Old
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Cat Stevens
Writer(s):    Cat Stevens
Label:    A&M
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2000
    Cat Stevens was almost a classic example of a flash in the pan. His first four singles made the top 30 on the British charts, with two of them making into the top 10. His first album went to the #7 spot in the UK. But he soon found himself pigeonholed as a teen star, and spent the next three years trying to out from underneath that burdon. During this time he worked on developing a style that was more in line with his own personal preference to sit cross-legged on the floor with an acoustic guitar, playing whatever he felt like playing. In early 1970 he began sessions for Mona Bone Jakon, his first new album since 1967's New Masters (which had failed to chart anywhere). I've Got A Thing About Seeing My Grandson Grow Old is an outtake from those sessions that remained unreleased until 2000.

Artist:     Fifty Foot Hose
Title:     Rose
Source:     LP: Cauldron
Writer:     David Blossom
Label:     Limelight
Year:       1968
     Although most of the more avant-garde bands of the psychedelic era were headquarted in New York, there were some exceptions, such as San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose. The core members of the band were founder and bassist Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, guitarist David Blossom, and his wife, vocalist Nancy Blossom. The group used a lot of unusual instruments, such as theramin, Moog synthesizer and prepared guitar and piano. After one album the group called it quits, with most of the members joining the cast of Hair. In fact, Nancy Blossom played lead character Sheila in the San Francisco production of the musical.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Watch Yourself
Source:    CD: Volume 3-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer:    Robert Yeazel
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Although the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band usually wrote their own material, they occassionally drew from outside sources. One example is Watch Yourself, written by Robert Yeazel, who would go on to join Sugarloaf for their second LP, Spaceship Earth, writing much of the material on that album.

Artist:     Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title:     Piece Of My Heart
Source:     CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer:     Ragovoy/Burns
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1968
     By 1968 Big Brother and the Holding Company, with their charismatic vocalist from Texas, Janis Joplin, had become as popular as fellow San Francisco bands Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Somehow, though, they were still without a major label record deal. That all changed with the release of Cheap Thrills, with cover art by the legendary underground comix artist R. Crumb. The album itself was a curious mixture of live performances and studio tracks, the latter being led by the band's powerful cover of the 1966 Barbara Lynn tune Piece Of My Heart. The song propelled the band, and Joplin, to stardom. That stardom would be short-lived for most of the band members, however, as well-meaning but ultimately wrong-headed advice-givers convinced Joplin that Big Brother was holding her back. The reality was that Joplin was far more integrated with Big Brother And The Holding Company than anyone she would ever work with again.

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

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Queen Jane Approximately
Source:    CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    The thing that stands out to me about Bob Dylan's Queen Jane Approximately from his Highway 61 Revisited album is the fact that somebody's guitar is badly out of tune throughout the song. Yes, the song has sufficiently deep, meaningful lyrics (it is Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan, after all), and the rhyming structure is unique, but all I can hear is that out of tune guitar.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2518 (B30) (starts 4/28/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/570853

    This week we feature, in its entirety, the musical piece that inspired one of the longest-running shows in public radio history: Pink Floyd's Echoes, from the Ummagumma album. Before we get there, however, we take a journey from 1967 to 1973, one tune at a time.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Wait Until Tomorrow
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Axis: Bold As Love)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Jimi Hendrix showed a whimsical side with Wait Until Tomorrow, a track from his second Jimi Hendrix Experience LP, Axis: Bold As Love. The song tells a story of a young man standing outside his girlfriend's window trying to convince her to run away from him. He gets continually rebuffed by the girl, who keeps telling him to Wait Until Tomorrow. Ultimately the girl's father resolves the issue by shooting the young man. The entire story is punctuated by outstanding distortion-free guitar work that showcases just how gifted Hendrix was on his chosen instrument. Why this song was never issued as a single is a mystery to me.

Artist:    Gun
Title:    Race With The Devil
Source:    German import CD: Gun
Writer(s):    Adrian Gurvitz
Label:    Repertoire (original label: CBS)
Year:    1968
    One of the most popular songs on the jukebox at the teen club on Ramstein Air Base, Germany in 1969 was a song called Race With The Devil by a band called Gun. The song was so popular, in fact, that at least two local bands covered it (including the one I was in at the time). Nobody seemed to know much about the band at the time, but it turns out that the group was fronted by the Gurvitz brothers, Adrian and Paul (who at the time used the last name Curtis); the two would later be members of the Baker-Gurvitz Army with drummer Ginger Baker. I've also learned recently that Gun spent much of its time touring in Europe, particularly in Germany, where Race With The Devil hit its peak in January of 1969 (it had made the top 10 in the UK in 1968, the year it was released).

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Got This Thing On The Move
Source:    CD: Heavy Hitters! (originally released on LP: Grand Funk)
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    From summer of 1967 to summer of 1970 I lived in Germany. This gave me a bit of a different perspective on the state of rock music during those years. For example, the Who, a band I had only barely heard of in the US, was huge overseas. On the other hand, bands like the Grateful Dead were little more than a distant legend in Europe at that time. On my return to the States in summer of 1970, I learned of the existence of a power trio from Flint, Michigan called Grand Funk Railroad.  In the US they were universally hated by rock music critics, yet managed to set all kinds of attendance records throughout 1969 and 1970, pretty much single-handedly inventing arena rock in the process. They also managed to get no less than three albums certified gold in 1970 alone. Despite this, GFR was totally unknown in Europe, leading me to believe that the people who ordered albums for the BX were paying too much attention to the Village Voice and Rolling Stone magazine and not enough attention to actual record sales and concert attendance figures. Anyway, I soon got my hands on the album Grand Funk (aka the Red Album) and was totally blown away by the opening track, Got This Thing On The Move. There's a valuable lesson in there somewhere.

Artist:     Allman Brothers Band
Title:     In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
Source:     CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: Idlewild South)
Writer:     Dicky Betts
Label:     Polydor (original label: Capricorn)
Year:     1970
     The second Allman Brothers Band LP, Idlewild South, was notable for the emergence of guitarist Dicky Betts as the band's second songwriter (joining Gregg Allman, who wrote all of the band's original material on their debut album). One of Betts's most enduring compositions is the instrumental In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed, which soon became a concert staple for the group, and is one of two tracks on their Live At The Fillmore East album to get extensive airplay (the other being Whipping Post).

Artist:     Focus
Title:     Janis
Source:     LP: Moving Waves
Writer:    Jan Akkerman
Label:     Sire
Year:     1971
     In a sense Jan Akkerman is the prototype for the Scandanavian heavy metal guitarist archetype: technically proficient and blisteringly fast. Akkerman, however, is generally better known as one of the early jazz-rock fusion players. Janis, from the second Focus album, is a good example of the latter, with a touch of the former almost incongruously thrown in as well.

Artist:    Sailcat
Title:    B.B. Gunn
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    John Wyker
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1972
    Sailcat was a studio band formed by John D. Wyker and Court Pickett that included several prominent members of the Muscle Shoals music scene. Wyker had been a guitarist and vocalist in the Rubber Band (with John Townsend), while Pickett was the bassist/vocalist for Sundown, a band based in Macon, Georgia. The duo cut a demo of Motorcyle Mama that was originally discarded by the band, but eventually led to a contract with Elektra Records. The resulting album, also called Motorcycle Mama, was a concept album with a biker theme that included songs like B.B. Gunn (sung by Wyker), which was also released as the B side of the band's second and final single.
    
Artist:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Sabbra Cadabra
Source:    LP: Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    The last great Black Sabbath album (according to vocalist Ozzy Osbourne), was Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, released in December of 1973, when the band was at its peak as a functional unit before creative and personality issues began interfering with the quality of the music itself. The band, following an exhausting tour promoting their previous album that got cut short following a performance at the Hollywood Bowl that ended with guitarist Tony Iommi walking off stage and collapsing, began trying to come up with new material during the summer of '73, but soon decided to take a break and return to England, where they ended up renting Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The band found the atmosphere there inspiring, if somewhat sinister (they used a dungeon as rehearsal space) and soon were in the process of creating the music that became Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. At this time the band members' fondness for playing practical jokes on each other, combined with rumors of the castle being haunted, began to get out of hand, leading to the band leaving the place before their alloted time there had expired. The band soon got to work recording their new material at Morgan Studios in London, where Yes was working on an album called Tales From Topographic Oceans in the next studio. Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman ended up sitting in on the instrumental Sabbra Cadabra, which finishes out side one of the original LP.
    
Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Echoes
Source:    CD: Meddle
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Mason/Gilmour
Label:    Pink Floyd Records (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1971
    Meddle is often cited as the beginning of Pink Floyd's new direction that would define the band in the 1970s, leaving behind the last vestiges of founder Syd Barrett's influence. The most prominent track on the album, taking up the entire second side, is a piece called Echoes. The piece started off as an experiment; after setting some rough guidelines, each band member recorded their own part independently of the others, without hearing what anyone else in the band was doing. They then assembled some, but not all, of the various fragments into a running order they labeled as Nothing, Parts 1-24. They continued to add new parts to the piece under the working titles of The Son Of Nothing and later The Return Of The Son Of Nothing before settling on Echoes as a final title. The piece was first performed live, as The Return Of The Son Of Nothing, on April 22, 1971, with the final studio version of the track released in November of that year.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2517 (starts 4/21/25)

 https://exchange.prx.org/p/569991

    On October 5, 1962, EMI released a single on its second-tier Parlophone label written and performed by four young men from Liverpool. That single touched off what came to be known as Beatlemania the following year. The year after that Beatlemania reached the US, launching an invasion of the US music industry by British "beat" bands, which in turn inspired American teenagers to form their own self-contained garage bands, setting the stage for what we now call the Psychedelic Era. This week we celebrate that British Invasion, starting at the very beginning with that 1962 single.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Love Me Do (Ringo on drums version)
Source:    Mono CD: Past Masters Volume One (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple Parlophone
Year:    1962
    The Beatles made three recordings of their debut single, Love Me Do. The first version of the song (which had actually been written before the Beatles even existed) was made on June 6, 1962  for the band's EMI Artist Test with Pete Best playing drums. Although the band passed the audition, they decided to change drummers soon after, replacing Best with Richard Starkey, AKA Ringo Starr. On September 4, 1962 they returned to EMI studios for their first official recording session and cut the song a second time, this time with Ringo on drums. Producer George Martin was not entirely satisfied with Ringo's drumming on the recording, and so the song was recut a week later, on September 11, 1962, with studio drummer Andy White (Ringo played tambourine on this version). The single was first issued on October 5th of that year, using the version with Ringo on drums. That version was soon replaced, however, with the Alan White version, which was included on the band's 1963 debut LP Please Please Me, as well as the first pressings of Vee Jay's Introducing...The Beatles LP and the US single version of the song released on the Tollie label.

Artist:     Tornados
Title:     Telstar
Source:     45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:     J. Meek
Label:     London
Year:     1962
     Before the Beatles kicked off the British Invasion in 1964 there had only been two British recordings that had been able to hit the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The first was Strangers On The Shore, a jazz piece by saxophonist Mr. Acker Bilk. The second chart-topper (the first by a rock band) was the Tornados' Telstar, a quasi-surf instrumental named for the first transatlantic communication satellite.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Please Please Me
Source:    Mono CD: Please Please Me
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple Parlophone
Year:    1963
    When Love Me Do was released in autumn of 1962 it did respectively well for a debut single from a group situated well outside the London hub of the British music scene, peaking at #17 on the British charts. The next single by the band, Please Please Me, did considerably better, going to the #1 spot on all but one of the British music charts (which ironically has come to be the one that is now considered the "official" chart of the time). More importantly, Please Please Me touched off a phenomenon that soon came to be called Beatlemania.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    From Me To You
Source:    Mono CD: Past Masters Volume One (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1963
    The first Beatles single to top every British record chart was From Me To You, released on April 11, 1963. It was the first of 11 consecutive number one hits for the band.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    She Loves You
Source:    Mono CD: Past Masters Volume One (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Capitol (original US label: Swan)
Year:    1963
    Beatlemania hit its British peak in the fall of 1963, when She Loves You spent 18 weeks in the UK top 5, six of them in the # 1 spot. Such was the popularity of the band at that time that thousands of copies of the single had been pre-ordered before the song was even written, a number that grew to half a million by the time the record was released. She Loves You is the all-time best-selling Beatles single in the UK, and was the group's second consecutive # 1 hit in the US as well (knocking I Want To Hold Your Hand out of the top spot on March 21, 1964. The song, which was initially released in the US on the Swan label, was at first considered a flop, selling only about 1,000 copies when it first hit the American record racks in September of 1963. Eventually, though, the song became one of the five Beatles songs to occupy the top 5 spots on the US charts simultaneously in April of 1964 and ended up being the second-highest ranked song of the year, behind I Want To Hold Your Hand.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Want To Hold Your Hand
Source:    CD: Past Masters Volume One (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Capitol
Year:    1963
    Originally released in the UK in November of 1963, I Want To Hold Your Hand was originally slated for a January 1964 release in the US, but when a Washington DC disc jockey started playing an imported copy of the British single in early December Capitol Records decided to move up the release of the song to December 26th. By the middle of January the song was in the US top 50 and on February 1st it took over the #1 spot, staying there for seven weeks and touching off what would come to be known as the British Invasion. Unlike many later Beatles songs that, despite being credited to the songwriting team of John Lennon and Paul McCartney were actually written by one or the other of the pair, I Want To Hold Your Hand was a true collaboration worked out in the basement of the house McCartney was living in. The group performed the song on the Ed Sullivan TV show in mid-January, setting all-time records for viewership. The track (the first by the band to be recorded on four-track equipment and mixed in stereo as well as mono) was included on their first album for Capitol, Meet The Beatles. That album, released on January 20, 1964, actually ended up outselling the single, the first time in US history that had happened. It was not long before other British bands started hitting the US charts and American kids began growing their hair out in imitation of the Beatles, many of them even going so far as to form their own British-influenced garage bands.

Artist:    Dusty Springfield
Title:    I Only Want To Be With You
Source:    Mono LP: History Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hawker/Raymonde
Label:    Sire (original label: Philips)
Year:    1963
    Released in November of 1963, Dusty Springfield's debut single as a solo artist, I Only Want To Be With You, became the first non-Beatles single of the British Invasion to hit the US charts, making its debut at #77 the last week of January, 1964. It would eventually hit its peak at #12.

Artist:     Dave Clark Five
Title:    Glad All Over
Source:     Mono CD: 5 By Five (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Clark/Smith
Label:    Hollywood (original label: Epic)
Year:     1963
     The Dave Clark Five were originally formed as a way of raising money for Clark's football (soccer) team. Toward the end of 1963 they scored a number one hit in England with Glad All Over, which was released to an enthusiastic US audience a few months later. For a while they even rivaled the Beatles in popularity.

Artist:    Freddie And The Dreamers
Title:    I'm Telling You Now
Source:    Mono LP: I'm Telling You Now (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Garrity/Murray
Label:    Tower
Year:    1963
    Although it was not released in the US until 1965, Freddie And The Dreamers' I'm Telling You Now was a huge UK hit in 1963, going all the way to the #2 spot on the British charts. The wild, almost comical, dancing style of bandleader Freddie Garrity inspired a short-lived dance called The Freddie following the song's US release. Probably the most famous performance of the dance was by Gomez Addams (played by John Astin) in a 1965 episode of the TV show The Addams Family called "Lurch, the Teenage Idol".

Artist:    Gerry And The Pacemakers
Title:    I Like It
Source:    Mono LP: History Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mitch Murray
Label:    Sire (original UK label: Columbia; original US label: Laurie)
Year:    1963
    Gerry And The Pacemakers were the second band to be managed by Brian Epstein and probably the second most popular band to come from Liverpool, behind the Beatles. They were the first band, however, to hit the #1 spot on the British charts will their first three singles, a record that was not equalled until the 1980s (ironically by another Liverpool band, Frankie Goes To Hollywood). The second of those three songs was a Mitch Murray tune called I Like It. Released in May of 1963, the song made it into the US top 20 in early 1964 but was soon eclipsed by the ballad Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying.

Artist:    Swinging Blue Jeans
Title:    Hippy Hippy Shake
Source:    Mono LP: History Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Chan Romero
Label:    Sire (original UK label: His Master's Voice; original US label: Imperial)
Year:    1963
    Merseybeat is the term applied to bands from Liverpool that were popular from around 1962 to 1965. Perhaps the most typical example of a Merseybeat band was the Swinging Blue Jeans. Formed as a skiffle sextet called the Bluegenes in 1957, the group switched to rock 'n' roll in 1962 after being booed off the stage at Hamburg's Star Club, taking the name Swinging Blue Jeans at the same time. They released their first single for EMI's His Master's Voice label in June of 1963, but had their greatest success with their December 1963 cover of Chan Romero's Hippy Hippy Shake. The song went to the #2 spot on the British charts and was one of the first British Invasion records to hit the Hot 100 in the US, peaking at #24.

Artist:    Nashville Teens
Title:    Tobacco Road
Source:    Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    John D. Loudermilk
Label:    K-Tel (original US label: London)
Year:    1964
    The Nashville Teens were not teens. Nor were they from Nashville. In fact, they were one of the original British Invasion bands. Their version of John D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road was a huge international hit in the summer of 1964. The lead guitar parts on the recording are the work of studio musician Jimmy Page.

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    I'm A Man
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Elias McDaniel
Label:    Epic
Year:    1965
    It's pretty much a given that the Rolling Stones were the most influential band in the world when it came to inspiring American garage bands. The single song that had the most influence on those bands, however, was probably the Yardbirds high-energy cover of Bo Diddley's I'm A Man, which electrified the US charts in 1965. I spell M....A.....N....Yeah!

Artist:     Troggs
Title:     Wild Thing
Source:     Simulated stere LP: History Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Chip Taylor
Label:     Sire (original label: Fontana)
Year:     1966
    I have a DVD copy of a music video (although back then they were called promotional films) for the Troggs' Wild Thing in which the members of the band are walking through what looks like a train station while being mobbed by girls at every turn. Every time I watch it I imagine singer Reg Presley saying "giggity-giggity" as he bobs his head.

Artist:     Status Quo
Title:     Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Source:     Simulated stereo CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Francis Rossi
Label:     K-Tel (original label: Cadet Concept)
Year:     1968
     The band with the most charted singles in the UK is not the Beatles or even the Rolling Stones. It is, in fact, Status Quo, quite possibly the nearest thing to a real life version of Spinal Tap. Except for Pictures of Matchstick Men, the group has never had a hit in the US. On the other hand, they remain popular in Scandanavia, playing to sellout crowds on a regular basis (yes, they are still together).

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Beggar's Farm
Source:    LP: This Was
Writer(s):    Abrahams/Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1968
    Although Jethro Tull would eventually come to be considered almost a backup band for flautist/vocalist/songwriter Ian Anderson, in the early days the group was much more democratically inclined, at least until the departure of guitarist and co-founder Mick Abrahams. In addition to providing a more blues-based orientation for the band, Abrahams shared songwriting duties with Anderson as well, including collaborations such as Beggar's Farm from the band's 1968 debut LP, This Was.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Cirrus Minor
Source:    CD: Relics (originally released on LP: Music From The Film "More")
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    Capitol (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1969
    In the years between the departure of founding member Syd Barrett and their breakthrough album Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd provided music for several independent films such as Zabriskie Point and one called More. One of the tracks from the latter film, Cirrus Minor, foreshadows how the band would sound during its most successful period during the late 70s and early 80s. The song, written by keyboardist Roger Waters, features lead vocals by Barrett's replacement, guitarist David Gilmour.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Lola
Source:    LP: Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1970
    By 1970 the Kinks were all but forgotten in the US and not doing all that much better in their native UK. Then came Lola. I guess I could stop right there. Or I could mention that the song was based on a true story involving the band's manager. I could even say something about Dave Davies' claim that, although his brother Ray is credited as the sole songwriter of Lola, Dave actually came up with the music and Ray added the lyrics. But you've probably heard it all before. This is Lola, the most famous transvestite song in history, we're talking about, after all.

Artist:    Pink Fairies
Title:    War Girl
Source:    CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Neverneverland)
Writer(s):    Twink aka John Charles Edward Alder
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1971
    The Pink Fairies were formed when three members of the Deviants (Paul Rudolph, Duncan Sanderson, and Russell Hunter), who had fired their own band leader during a disastrous North American tour, decided to hook up with Twink (John Charles Edward Alder), the former drummer of Tomorrow and the Pretty Things. Twink had done a one-shot gig with an ad hoc group of musicians under the name Pink Fairies in 1969, and the new group decided that they liked the name and appropriated it for themselves. The band gained immediate notoriety for putting on free concerts, often just outside the gates of places that were charging premium prices for tickets to see more well-known bands. By the end of 1970 the Fairies had secured a contract with Polydor and releasing their first single late in the year. This was followed by a 1971 album called Neverneverland that featured several tracks written by Twink, such as War Girl. Although the Pink Fairies split up in 1976, they still get together from time to time to put on a show.

Artist:    Them
Title:    Baby, Please Don't Go
Source:    Mono 12" single (reissue)
Writer:    Joe Williams
Label:    A&M
Year:    1964
    Belfast, Northern Ireland was home to one of the first bands that could be legitimately described as punk rock. Led by Van Morrison, the band quickly got a reputation for being rude and obnoxious, particularly to members of the English press (although it was actually a fellow Irishman who first labeled them as "boorish"). Their first single was what has come to be considered the definitive rock and roll version of the 1923 Joe Williams tune Baby, Please Don't Go. Despite its UK success, the single did not chart in the US, although its B side, Gloria, did get some airplay before being banned on most US radio stations due to its suggestive lyrics. Them's recording of Baby, Please Don't Go gained renewed popularity in the 1980s when it was used in the film Good Morning Vietnam and reissued as a 12' promotional single in 1988.  One side of that record is the song "in the clear", while the other (heard on this week's show) includes an introduction by Robin Williams in his film role as US Air Force disc jockey Adrian Cronauer.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Catch The Wind
Source:    Mono CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released in UK on LP: What's Bin Did And What's Bin Hid and in US on LP: Catch The Wind)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Legacy (original US label: Hickory)
Year:    1965
    Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch released his first single, Catch The Wind, in March of 1965. The record was an instant hit, going to the #4 spot on the British charts and later hitting #23 in the US. He ended up re-recording the song twice; first for his debut LP,  What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid (released in the US as Catch The Wind), and then again in stereo for his 1969 greatest hits album, when Epic Records was unable to secure the rights to either of the original versions. By the late 1990s, however, Epic was able to substitute the first LP version for the later one on the CD issue of Donovan's Greatest Hits (although the liner notes erroneously state that the single version was used). Having heard all three, I would personally pick the original mono LP version heard here as the best of the lot.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    The Trip
Source:    Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sundazed/Epic
Year:    1966
    Donovan had already established a reputation in his native Scotland as the UK's answer to Bob Dylan, but had not had much success in the US, where his records were being released on the poorly distributed Hickory label. That all changed in 1966, however, when he began to move beyond his folk roots and embrace a more electric sound. Unlike Dylan, who basically kept the same style as his acoustic songs, simply adding electic instruments, Donovan took a more holistic approach. The result was a body of music with a much broader range of sounds. The first of these new electric tunes was Sunshine Superman, sometimes cited as the first top 10 psychedelic hit. The B side of Sunshine Superman was a song called The Trip, which managed to be even more psychedelic than its A side. Both songs soon appeared on Donovan's major US label debut, an album that was not even released in the UK due to a contractual dispute between the singer/songwriter and Pye Records.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Hurdy Gurdy Man
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Hurdy Gurdy Man)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1968
    In early 1968 Donovan Leitch decided to try his hand at producing another band, Hurdy Gurdy, which included his old friend bassist Mac MacLeod. However, creative differences with the band led to Donovan recording the song himself and releasing it as a single in May of that year. The song is done in a harder rock style than most of Donovan's recordings, and features some of London's top studio musicians, including Clem Cattini on drums, Alan Parker on guitar and future Led Zeppelin member John Paul Jones on bass. It has long been rumoured that Jimmy Page and John Bonham also participated on the recording, but their presence is disputed. Donovan reportedly wanted to use Jimi Hendrix on the recording, but the guitarist was unavailable at the time.

Artist:    Blossom Toes
Title:    Look At Me I'm You
Source:    British import CD: We Are Ever So Clean
Writer(s):    Godding/Gomelski
Label:    Sunbeam (original label: Marmalade)
Year:    1968
    Bands often have to work hard to get "discovered". The Blossom Toes had a different, more short-term goal however; they wanted Georgio Gomelski to be their manager. Originally calling themselves the Ingoes (after an obscure Chuck Berry tune), the band formed in 1964 and was willing to play anywhere and anytime for whatever pay they could get. The first time they approached Gomelski, who was already well-known locally as the manager of the Yardbirds, he told them to come back when they had gotten themselves together. They took him at his word and went to Dortmund, Germany, for a three-week long engagement where, in the words of bandleader Brian Godding, "the learning curve became a vertical line". Upon their return they again approached Gomelski and were again rejected, but this time tasked his right-hand man Hamish Grimes with finding the group some "educational" gigs around London. Gomelski finally took on the band as clients, but soon sent them to Paris, where they were billed as "Los Ingoes from the world-famous Marquee Club". Eventually the band changed its name to the Blossom Toes and got the opportunity to record their debut LP for Gomelski's own Marmalade label. The resulting album, We Are Ever So Clean has been called an example of "quintessentially British Psychedelia". Britain's Melody Maker magazine referred to it as "Giorgio Gomelsky's Lonely Hearts Club Band", and indeed, Gomelski co-wrote the album's opening track, Look At Me I'm You, with Godding. Blossom Toes went on to record a second, harder rocking album for Marmalade before disbanding in 1970 due to lack of commercial success.

Artist:    Bonzo Dog Band
Title:    I'm The Urban Spaceman
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Neil Innes
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (as they were originally called) was as much theatre (note the British spelling) as music, and were known for such antics as starting out their performances by doing calisthentics (after being introduced as the warm-up band) and having one of the members, "Legs" Larry Smith tapdance on stage (he was actually quite good). In 1967 they became the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's TV show that also featured sketch comedy by future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin along with David Jason, the future voice of Mr. Toad and Danger Mouse. Late in the year they appeared in the Beatles' telefilm Magical Mystery Tour, performing a song called Deathcab For Cutie. In 1968 the Bonzos released their only hit single, I'm The Urban Spaceman, co-produced by Paul McCartney. Frontman Neil Innes would go on to hook up with Eric Idle for the Rutles project, among other things, and is often referred to as the Seventh Python.

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

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Wring That Neck (aka Hard Road)
Source:    LP: Purple Passages (originally released on LP: The Book Of Taleisyn)
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Lord/Simper/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year:    1968
    Wring That Neck is an instrumental piece by Deep Purple first recorded for their second LP, The Book Of Taleisyn. The piece served as the band's opening number for live performances, particularly when touring the US in 1968 and 1969. The title refers to the playing styles of guitarist Richie Blackmore and bassist Nicky Simper, who would "wring the neck" of their instruments to "squeeze out" the notes, according to Simper. The band's American label, Tetragrammaton, felt that the title was too violent, however, and had it changed to Hard Road for the album's US release. One of the stops on the band's American tour was San Francisco, home of a band called It's A Beautiful Day. Don And Dewey, the opening track of It's A Beautiful Day's second LP, Marrying Maiden (released in 1970), uses an almost identical signature riff to that of Hard Road. Perhaps not coincidentally, Child In Time, the best-known track on Deep Purple's 1970 LP Deep Purple In Rock, is built around a riff nearly identical to that of Bombay Calling, a popular concert piece from It's A Beautiful Day's 1969 debut album.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    It's My Life
Source:    Mono CD: Retrospective (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:    Animals
Title:    Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Source:    Mono LP: The Best Of The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Benjamin/Marcus/Caldwell
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1965
    1965 was a huge year for the Animals. Coming off the success of their 1964 smash House Of The Rising Sun, the Newcastle group racked up three major hits in 1965, including Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, a song originally recorded by jazz singer Nina Simone. The Animals version speeded up the tempo and used a signature riff that had been taken from Simone's outro. The Animals version of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood made the top 20 in the US and the top five in both the UK and Canada.
 
Artist:    Animals
Title:    We Gotta Get Out Of This Place (US version)
Source:    Mono CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Abkco (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1965
    In 1965 producer Mickey Most put out a call to Don Kirschner's Brill building songwriters for material that could be recorded by the Animals. He ended up selecting three songs, all of which are among the Animals' most popular singles. Possibly the most familiar of the three is a song written by the husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil called We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. The song (the first Animals recording to featuring Dave Rowberry, who had replaced founder Alan Price on organ) starts off with what is probably Chas Chandler's best known bass line, slowly adding drums, vocals, guitar and finally keyboards on its way to an explosive chorus. The song was not originally intended for the Animals, however; it was written for the Righteous Brothers as a follow up to (You've Got That) Lovin' Feelin', which Mann and Weil had also provided for the duo. Mann, however, decided to record the song himself, but the Animals managed to get their version out first, taking it to the top 20 in the US and the top 5 in the UK. As the Vietnam war escalated, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place became a sort of underground anthem for US servicemen stationed in South Vietnam, and has been associated with that war ever since. Incidentally, there were actually two versions of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place recorded during the same recording session, with an alternate take accidentally being sent to M-G-M and subsequently being released as the US version of the single. This version (which some collectors and fans maintain has a stronger vocal track) appeared on the US-only LP Animal Tracks in the fall of 1965 as well as the original M-G-M pressings of the 1966 album Best Of The Animals. The original UK version, on the other hand, did not appear on any albums, as was common for British singles in the 1960s. By the 1980s record mogul Allen Klein had control of the original Animals' entire catalog, and decreed that all CD reissues of the song would use the original British version of the song, including the updated (and expanded) CD version of The Best Of The Animals. Abkco decided to use the US version, however, on the 2004 Retrospective CD, which for the first time combines tracks from both the original Animals and later lineups that went by the name Eric Burdon And The Animals.

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

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    I'm A Man
Source:    Mono LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Miller
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1967
    The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve and Muff Winwood, was one of the UK's most successful white R&B bands of the sixties, cranking out a steady stream of hit singles. Two of them, the iconic Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man, were also major hits in the US, the latter being the last song to feature the Winwood brothers. Muff Winwood became a successful record producer, while his brother Steve went on to form the band Traffic. Then Blind Faith. Then Traffic again. And then a successful solo career. Meanwhile, the Spencer Davis Group continued on for several years with a series of replacement vocalists, but were never able to duplicate their earlier successes with the Winwoods.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Tell Me
Source:    Singles Collection-The London Years
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco
Year:    1964
    The first song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to be recorded by the Rolling Stones, Tell Me was only available as an LP cut in the UK. In the US it became a hit single, establishing the Stones as serious competition to the Beatles themselves. Jagger and Richards would continue to write songs together, eventually outlasting the John Lennon/Paul McCartney team by several decades (and still counting).

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Ruby Tuesday
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and on LP: Between The Buttons)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    One of the most durable songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Ruby Tuesday was originally intended to be the B side of their 1967 single Let's Spend The Night Together. Many stations, however, balked at the subject matter of the A side and began playing Ruby Tuesday instead.

Artist:    Rolling Stones (also released as Bill Wyman)
Title:    In Another Land
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Bill Wyman
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    In Another Land was the first Rolling Stones song written and sung by bassist Bill Wyman, and was even released in the US as a Wyman single. The song originally appeared on the Stones' most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, in late 1967.