Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2538 (starts 9/15/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/588117

    We've got a ton of tunes this week that have never been played on the show before, including a thirteen-minute long live recording from a Welsh band making its Rockin' in the Days of Confusion debut.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Reeling In The Years
Source:    CD: Can't Buy A Thrill
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1972
    My first radio gig (sort of), was volunteering at the Voice Of Holloman, a closed-circuit station that served a handful of locations on Holloman AFB, about 10 miles from Alamogordo, NM. I had been taking broadcasting courses through a community college program that was taught by Sgt. Tim Daniels, who was the NCO in charge of the base Information Office, which ran the station, as well as a free weekly newspaper that was distributed on base. After completing the classes, Tim gave me the opportunity to do a daily two-hour show on the VOH, using records that had been sent to the station by various record labels. We got excellent singles service from some labels (Warner Brothers and Capitol in particular), but virtually nothing from others, such as ABC. This was unfortunate, as one of the best songs out at the time was Steely Dan's Reeling In The Years, from their 1972 Can't Buy A Thrill album. Tim, whose previous gig was with the Armed Forces Vietnam Network, was a big rock fan, however, and went out and bought his own copy of the album, making a copy of Reeling In The Years on reel to reel tape, which we then played extensively until the song had run its course on the charts. Thus the Voice Of Holloman, with its audience consisting mostly of guys working out at the base gym, was playing the longer album version of a song that was also getting airplay on Alamogordo's daytime-only top 40 AM station, KINN, in its edited single form. It was just about the nearest the Voice Of Holloman ever got to being an underground rock station (although I did manage to sneak in some Procol Harum, Jethro Tull and Deep Purple from time to time from the aformentioned Warner Brothers singles).

Artist:    Blue Öyster Cult
Title:    Mistress Of The Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)
Source:    LP: Tyranny And Mutation
Writer(s):    Bouchard/Pearlman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    The general consensus among Blue Öyster Cult fans is that Mistress Of The Salmon Salt (subtitled Quicklime Girl) is about a serial killer prostitute with a thing for Coast Guard crewmen on shore leave. Sure, why not?

Artist:    Randy California
Title:    Day Tripper
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Kapt. Kopter And The (Fabulous) Twirly Birds)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Sony Music (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1972
    In 1972, with his band Spirit having fallen apart (temporarily as it turned out), guitarist Randy California released his first solo LP, Kapt. Kopter And The (Fabulous) Twirly Birds, on which he also sang lead vocals. The album contained a mix of original tunes and covers, of which Day Tripper was the most recognizable. Indeed, one of the primary criticisms of the album was the fact that most of the cover songs sounded like jams on the songs' main riffs rather than actual arrangements. 

Artist:    Fusion
Title:    Somebody's Callin' My Name
Source:    LP: Border Town
Writer(s):    Luther/Gibson
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Originally known as the Jazz Folk, L.A.'s Fusion recorded only one album, and Border Town, released in 1969, certainly lives up to its name. The five-man band consisted of Bill Wolff, who had played lead guitar on the second Peanut Butter Conspiracy album, former Rising Sons bassist Gary "Magic" Marker, saxophonist Harvey Lane, drummer Richard Matzkin, and multi-instrumentalist Rick Luther. Also appearing on the album as a guest musician was Marker's former bandmate Ry Cooder, whose slide guitar can be heard on several tracks. The band called itself Fusion because it combined latin jazz, funk and even country with blues-based rock to produce a unique sound, as can be heard on Somebody's Callin' My Name.

Artist:    Martin Mull
Title:    Bun And Run #3 (Happy Cows)
Source:    45 RPM single B side (promo)
Writer(s):    Martin Mull
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1979
    You'd think that growing up in Cleveland would automatically predispose one to become a comedian, but Martin Mull actually broke into show business as a songwriter. Maybe it was because his family moved to Connecticut when he was 15, but that doesn't explain how his first song to hit any chart was A Girl Named Johnny Cash, which landed on the country charts as a single by Jane Morgan in 1970. He soon began a career as a solo artist, performing onstage sitting on a sofa purchased at a thrift store, with similar furniture decorating the stage. His songs were just as off-the-wall as his stage persona, releasing tunes like Dueling Tubas and Santafly in the early 1970s. By the end of the decade Mull had established himself as a comedic actor, first in the series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and then as host of Fernwood 2Night, a late-night talk show set in Mary Hartman's home town. One of the notable regulars on Fernwood 2Night was bandleader Happy Kyne, played by the sad-faced Frank DeVol, himself a noted bandleader and arranger whose career dated back to the 1940s. A running gag on the show was references to Happy's fast-food restaurant, Bun And Run. Mull's last album, Near Perfect / Perfect, featured two radio style commercials for Bun And Run (subtitled #1 and #3), both of which appeared as the B side of his final single, Bernie Don't Disco. In 1979 Mull quit recording to concentrate on his acting career. Probably his best known role was Roseanne Conner's gay boss Leon Carp, which he played on a weekly basis from 1991 to 1997. He was also the last celebrity to occupy the center square on the long-running game show Hollywood Squares in the early 2000s. Mull continued his acting career well into his 70s, finally retiring around 2018. Martin Mull died on June 27, 2024 at age 80.

Artist:    Kak
Title:    Trieulogy
Source:    British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released in US on LP: Kak)
Writer(s):    Yoder/Grelecki
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    The story of Kak is one of the strangest in rock history. Guitarists Gary Yoder and Dehner Patton had both been members of the Oxford Circle, the legendary East (San Francisco) Bay area band that broke up in early summer of 1967. Not long the breakup Yoder was approached by a guy named Gary Grelecki, who introduced himself as a fan of the band and offered to get Yoder a deal with Columbia, then the second largest record label in the country. Yoder figured that he didn't have anything to lose by saying yes; sure enough, two months later he got a call from Grelecki saying the contract was a done deal. It turned out that Grelicki's father was with the CIA and had been using Columbia as a front for agency activities in East Asia, and actually had legitimate contacts at the label. Yoder got into contact with Dehner, who had been playing in a band called Cherry Jam since the Oxford breakup, performing original material in the Davis area. One of the other members of Cherry Jam was percussionist/harpsichordist Chris Lockheed, who had previously played in a band called the Majestics. The lineup was completed with the addition of bassist Joe-Dave Damrill, who had been playing with another Davis band called Group B. The new band, calling itself Kak, was signed to Columbia's Epic subsidiary, releasing their only LP in 1969. Although neither the band (which played fewer than a dozen gigs in its entire existence) or the album was a commercial success at the time, Kak gained a cult following that exists to this day. The most ambitious track on the album, Trieulogy, is made up of three originally unrelated pieces, Golgotha, Mirage and Rain, that Yoder later said "blended well together", adding that "it's a logical pattern, lyrically and musically." The third part of Trieulogy, Rain, was also released as a single in 1969.
    
Artist:    Fantasy
Title:    Stoned Cowboy
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Robbins/DeMeo/Kimple/Russo 
Label:    Liberty
Year:    1970
    Fantasy was formed in Miami in 1967 by a group of teenagers that included Billy Robbins (vocals), Bob Robbins (bass), Jim DeMeo (guitar), Mario Russo (keyboards) and Greg Kimple (drums). The group slowly built up a following and eventually became the house band at Thee Image, the club managed by another, better known band, Blues Image. Fantasy held that gig for several months until front man Billy Robbins, who was a major reason for the group's popularity, went missing, and was found shot to death a month later. After the singer's death, the group began a search for a new vocalist, eventually settling on 16-year-old Lydia Janene Miller. Not long after Miller joined the band, they signed with Liberty Records, releasing one album in 1970. All of the band members contributed to the songwriting chores on the self-titled LP, with all but Miller credited on the instrumental Stoned Cowboy. Not long after the album's release, Miller left the group for a solo career, while the rest of the band carried on under the name Year One for awhile. 
    
Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Highway Star
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Deep Purple (originally released on LP: Machine Head)
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Archives/Rhino
Year:    1972
    Deep Purple's most successful album was Machine Head, which hit #7 on the Billboard album charts in 1972 and went all the way to the top in several countries, including the UK. The LP starts off with Highway Star, a song that was written on the band's tour bus as a demonstration of how the band created new material. It was first performed the same day it was written. The song is a hard rocker that features extended solos from both guitarist Richie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord. Both solos were inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The song became a concert staple and was often used as the show opener throughout the band's existence.

Artist:    Man
Title:    Many Are Called, But Few Get Up
Source:    British import LP: Maximum Darkness
Writer(s):    Ace/John/Jones/Leonard/Williams
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1975
    Although not as common as it was in the 1960s, there were a few bands that were successful enough in the United Kingdom to stay together and perform regularly, but could not make even the tiniest of dents in the US charts. One of best of these was the Welsh band called Man. Formed in 1968, Man released their debut LP, Revolution, the following year in both the UK and US. Their next five albums, however, were not released in North America at all. Although their next three LPs were released in the US, their 1975 live album, Maximum Darkness, was not, despite the presence of guest guitarist John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service fame. Although their were some problems with Cipollina's guitar tuning, most of the tracks on the album, including  the thirteen and a half minute long Many Are Called, But Few Get Up, feature Cipollina's playing prominently.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Saviour Machine
Source:    CD: The Man Who Sold The World
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1970
    David Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold The World, was the first one in which his band played a major role in the development of the songs themselves. Indeed, producer/bassist Tony Visconti later said  "the songs were written by all four of us. We'd jam in a basement, and Bowie would just say whether he liked them or not." According to Bowie's biographer, Peter Doggett, "The band (sometimes with Bowie contributing guitar, sometimes not) would record an instrumental track, which might or might not be based upon an original Bowie idea. Then, at the last possible moment, Bowie would reluctantly uncurl himself from the sofa on which he was lounging with his wife, and dash off a set of lyrics." Bowie himself, however, later said that he was indeed the sole songwriter on the album, as evidenced by the chord changes in the songs themselves. As Bowie put it, "No one writes chord changes like that". Regardless of who actually wrote what, there is no question that The Man Who Sold The World rocked out harder than anything else Bowie had done up to that point (and perhaps never would again), and songs like Saviour Machine, about the pitfalls of turning to a higher power (in this case a omnipotent computer) for solutions to problems, are on a par with what Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were doing around the same time.
    
Artist:     Procol Harum
Title:     Conquistador
Source:     LP: Procol Harum Live
Writer:     Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:     1972
     Procol Harum was formed in 1966 in Southend-on-sea, Essex, England. One of the songs on their 1967 debut album was Conquistador. Five years later the live version of the song, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra (and a notably different band lineup), was released as a single, becoming the second-biggest hit for the group (after A Whiter Shade Of Pale).

    
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2537 (starts 9/8/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/587313

    This week we have an Advanced Psych set featuring tracks from all three decades of the 21st century. To balance it out, we also have the B side of the record that started the whole Pacific Northwest scene back in 1959. We also have a lot of tunes from 1967 this time around, and when you least expect it, a Rolling Stones set. It all starts with a long set of tunes from 1966.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Let's Get Together
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti)
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    Although Dino Valenti recorded a demo version of his song Let's Get Together in 1964, it wasn't until two years later that the song made its first appearance on vinyl as a track on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The Airplane version of the song is unique in that the lead vocals alternate between Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin, with each one taking a verse and all of them singing on the chorus.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamara'd Into Submission)
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Paul Simon's sense of humor is on full display on A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamara'd Into Submission). The song first appeared, with slightly different lyrics on Simon's 1965 LP The Paul Simon Songbook, which was released only in the UK after Simon and Garfunkel had split following the disappointing sales of their first Columbia LP, Wednesday Morning 3AM. When the duo got back together following the surprise success of an electrified version of The Sound Of Silence, they re-recorded A Simple Desultory Philippic, including it on their third Columbia LP, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. The song is a deliberate parody/tribute to Bob Dylan, written in a style similar to It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), and is full of sly references to various well-known personages of the time as well as lesser-known acquaintances of Simon himself. 

Artist:     Love
Title:     Softly To Me
Source:     Australian import CD: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer:     Bryan MacLean
Label:     Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year:     1966
     Before the signing of Love in 1966, Elektra was a folk and ethnic music label whose closest thing to a rock band was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which was at that time very much into creating as authentic Chicago blues sound as possible for a band of mostly white boys from New York. Love, on the other hand, was a bona-fide rock band that was packing the clubs on the Sunset Strip nightly. To underscore the significance of the signing, Elektra started a whole new numbering series for Love's debut album. Bryan McLean's role as a songwriter in Love was similar to George Harrison's as a Beatle. He didn't have many songs on any particular album, but those songs were often among the best tracks on the album. The first of these was Softly To Me from the band's debut LP.  

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    You're A Better Man Than I
Source:    Mono Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released in US on LP: Having A Rave Up With The Yardbirds)
Writer(s):    Mike & Brian Hugg
Label:    Raven (original label: Epic)
Year:    1965
    Perhaps more than any other British Invasion band, the Yardbirds' US and UK catalogs varied considerably. This is because the band only released a pair of LPs in the UK, one of which was a live album, with the bulk of their studio output appearing on 45 RPM singles and EPs. In the US, on the other hand, the group released four (mostly) studio LPs, compiled from the various UK releases. One song, You're A Better Man Than I, actually came out on a US album four months before it was issued as a single B side in February of 1966 in the UK. 

Artist:    Eric And The Chessmen
Title:    You Don't Want My Loving
Source:    Mono German import LP: Sixties Rebellion Vol. 5-The Cave (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Eric Thorngren
Label:    Way Back (original label: Kama)
Year:    1966
    Utica, New York was home base for Eric And The Chessmen. Formed sometime around late 1964-early 1965, the band went through several personnel changes before recording their only single in 1966, a tune written by Eric Thorngren, the only remaining member of the original group.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    See See Rider
Source:    CD: Retrospective (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s):    Ma Rainey
Label:    Abkco (original 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:     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:    Mystery Trend
Title:    Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nagle/Cuff
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year:    1967
    The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster (without actually specifying what he did), surprising friends, family and neighbors. Despite being an excellent tune, the song's lyrics were way too dark for top 40 radio in 1967, and the record sank like a stone.

Artist:    Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield/John Kahn/Skip Prokoff
Title:    That's All Right
Source:    Mono German import LP: The Blues (originally released on LP: The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield And Al Kooper)
Writer(s):    Arthur Crudup
Label:    CBS (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1968
    Quickly following up on the success of the Super Session album, Al Kooper organized a live concert at the Fillmore West in late September that resulted in a double-LP called The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield And Al Kooper that was released at the end of the year. The album is notable for including the first recorded lead vocals by guitarist Mike Bloomfield on the Arthur Crudup standard That's All Right.

Artist:     Pink Floyd
Title:     Fearless
Source:     CD: Meddle
Writer(s):    Waters/Gilmour/Rodgers/Hammerstein
Label:    Pink Floyd (original label: Harvest)
Year: 1971
     If you were to ask several Americans in the sixties to name a psychedelic band you probably would receive several answers. If you asked several Englishmen during the same era you likely would have gotten the same answer from all of them: Pink Floyd. By 1971 the band was well on the way to establishing the sound that would define them throughout the decade with the album Meddle. The experimental nature of the band is on display in the song Fearless, which incorporates field recordings of a crowd of soccer fans singing You'll Never Walk Alone disappearing into a mass of reverberation at the end of the song.

Artist:     Guess Who
Title:     American Woman
Source:     Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer:     Bachman/Cummings/Peterson/Kale
Label:     BMG/RCA
Year:     1970
     From 1968-1970 I was living on Ramstein Air Base, which was and is a huge base in Germany with enough Canadian personnel stationed there to justify their own on-base school. For much of the time I lived there I found myself hanging out with a bunch of Canadian kids and I gotta tell you, they absolutely loved everything by the Guess Who, who were, after all, the most successful Canadian band in history. In particular, they all loved the band's most political (and controversial) hit, the 1970 tune American Woman. I rather liked it myself, and immediately went out and bought a copy of the album, one of the first to be pressed on RCA's Dynaflex vinyl. Luckily, the album is now available on CD, which sounds much better than Dynaflex ever did. 
     
Artist:    Santana
Title:    Treat
Source:    CD: Santana
Writer(s):    Santana (band)
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1969
    Guitarist Carlos Santana's original band was known to the San Francisco area as a jam band with a decidedly Latino flavor. Promoter Bill Graham convinced the band to write more structured material for their first LP, which was released in 1969. Although not an instant success, the album, buoyed by the group's appearance at Woodstock, eventually reached the # 4 spot on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Treat, a fairly representative example of the group's early style, is indeed structured, yet maintains much of the band's free-flowing energy through several style and tempo changes.

Artist:     First Edition
Title:     Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Mickey Newbury
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     Kenny Rogers has, on more than one occassion, tried to put as much distance between himself and the 1968 First Edition hit Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) as possible. I feel it's my duty to remind everyone that he was the lead vocalist on the recording, and that this song was the one that launched his career. So there.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    I'll Give You A Stone If You Throw It (Changing Tymes)
Source:    LP: Janis Ian
Writer:    Janis Ian
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:    1967
    Janis Ian got her first poem published in a national magazine at age 12. Not content with mere literary pursuits, the talented Ms. Ian turned to music. After being turned down by several major labels, Ian finally got a contract with the tiny New Sounds label and scored her first major hit with Society's Child, a song about interracial dating that was banned on several stations in the southern US. This led to her self-titled debut album at age 15, and a contract with M-G-M subsidiary Verve Folkways. I'll Give You A Stone If You Throw It (Changing Tymes) is taken from that first LP. 

Artist:    Nice
Title:    Tantalising Maggie
Source:    CD: The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack
Writer(s):    Jackson/Emerson
Label:    Fuel 2000 (original label: Immediate)
Year:    1967
    The Nice, the first band to fuse rock, jazz and classical music, creating a totally new genre in the process, had rather unique origins. In 1966 Ike and Tina Turner did a tour of England, with their backup vocal group, the Ikettes, in tow. One of the Ikettes, P.P. Arnold, made such a strong impression on both Mick Jagger and his manager/producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, that they convinced her to stay in London and embark on a solo career. Starting in April of 1967, Oldham, who was in the process of setting up his own record label, set about putting together a band to back her up. Oldham's first recruit was bassist Lee Jackson of the local R&B group Gary Farr and the T-Bones. Jackson soon brought in former fellow T-Bone Keith Emerson, who was already getting a reputation as the London club circuit's hottest Hammond organ player. The two of them soon recruited guitarist Davy O'List and drummer Brian Davison to complete the new band, which Oldham had already decided would be called the Nice. To save money, Oldham, instead of hiring an opening act, let the Nice do a short warmup set before being joined by Arnold onstage. Since Arnold herself performed a fairly standard mix of R&B and soul songs, the Nice were encouraged to create something different for their own set. That "something different" ended up being a mix of jazz, classical and psychedelic rock that had never been heard before. It wasn't long before the Nice, with their new "progressive rock" sound, became a bigger attraction than Arnold herself, and by the end of the year the Nice had signed with Oldham's new label, Immediate Records. In December of 1967 The Thoughts Of Everlist Davjack (the title being an amalgamation of the members' last names) was released. Early releases of the album gave shared songwriting credits to the entire band. The CD reissue of The Thoughts Of Everlist Davjack, however, is more specific, with Emerson and Jackson sharing writing credit on tracks like Tantalising Maggie.

Artist:    Wailers
Title:    Road-Runner
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Dangel/Greek
Label:    Golden Crest
Year:    1959
    Golden Crest was not a rock label, yet in 1959 they released what has been called the very first American garage-rock record: Tall Cool One by the Tacoma, Washington band the Wailers (sometimes known as the Fabulous Wailers to distinguish them from Bob Marley's band). The B side of that record, Road-Runner, was an even better example of garage rock. The record was recorded in New York, but the band chose to return to Tacoma following it's release. This prompted Golden Crest to cancel the band's contract, which turned out to be a plus for the band when, after a couple of personnel changes, three of the band members formed their own label, Etiquette Records, which added the Sonics to their roster in 1964 and is still in existence today (unlike Golden Crest, which folded in 1984).

Artist:    Mommyheads
Title:    Genius Killer
Source:    CD: Genius Killer
Writer(s):    Adam Cohen
Label:    Mommyhead Music
Year:    2022
    The Mommyheads are one of those rare bands that were able to recover from being totally screwed over by a major record company, although the process took several years. Formed around 1987 in New York, they already had several releases on independent labels by the time they signed with Geffen and recorded the album called The Mommyheads in 1997. Before the album was even released, however, the band was dropped from the label due to a company-wide shakeup, and within a few months had disbanded altogether. Nearly ten years later, following a reunion concert, the Mommyheads once again became a working band, re-releasing some of their earlier material over the next few years. In 2011 they released Delicate Friction, their first album of all-new material since the 1990s. Since then they have been releasing albums on a somewhat steady basis, including the 2020 re-release of their 1997 major label debut album. Their most recent release is Genius Killer, which came out on September, 20, 2022. 

Artist:    Sand Pebbles
Title:    Bees Around The Honey
Source:    CD: A Thousand Wild Flowers (originally released in Australia on CD: Ceduna)
Writer(s):    Sand Pebbles
Label:    Sensory Projects
Year:    2008
    Neighbours is the longest-running drama series on Australian television, having aired its first episode in March of 1985. It is also the unlikely origin point for Sand Pebbles, a band formed in 2001 by three Neighbours screenwriters. Those three founding members, bassist Christopher Hollow, guitarist Ben Michael and drummer Piet Collins were soon joined by guitarist/vocalist Andrew Tanner. The band's fourth album, Ceduna, released in 2008, also featured guitarist/vocalist Tor Larsen. The following years the Sand Pebbles released A Thousand Wild Flowers, a compilation album made up of tracks from their previous releases such as Bees Around The Honey, as their first CD geared toward the US market.

Artist:    Sugar Candy Mountain
Title:    666
Source:    LP: 666
Writer(s):    Reiter/Halsey
Label:    People In A Position To Know
Year:    2016
    It's easy to read something into both the band name and album title of the 2016 release 666 by Sugar Candy Mountain. It's better, however, to not do any of that and instead simply listen to any of the album's 10 tracks for what they are: good music. Sugar Candy Mountain was officially formed on 2011 by guitarist/vocalist Ash Reiter and multi-instrumentalist Will Halsey, natives of Oakland, California who relocated to Joshua Tree not long after the band was formed. They are joined on the album's title track by guitarist Bryant Denison and keyboardist Jason Quever (who also mixed the album). 

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source:    Simulated Stereo CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Priority (origina label: Columbia)
Year:    1965
     After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the band turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics taken directly from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song. The song was never mixed in true stereo, forcing the band's record label to use a simulated stereo mix on stereo copies of the LP. Once monoraul albums were phased out in the late 1960s, this "fake" stereo version remained the only one available for many years, appearing on various compilations before a mid-1990s remaster of the Turn! Turn! Turn! album used the original mono mix. 

Artist:    The Raik's Progress
Title:    I'm Going To Change The World
Source:    Mono LP: Sewer Rat Love Chant
Writer(s):    Eric Burdon
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2003
    "A bunch of 17-year-old quasi-intellectual proto-punks" was how Steve Krikorian, later to be known as Tonio K, described his first band. Krikorian, along with friends Alan Shapazian, Steve Olson, Nick van Maarth, and Duane Scott, formed The Raik's Progress in 1966 in Fresno, California. By the end of the year they had already cut a single for a major label (Liberty) and would soon find themselves opening for Buffalo Springfield at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium. The Raik's Progress was best known for their stage show, which included sitting down and playing a game of poker between songs and other strange antics. Their music was equally eccentric, in that it combined influences from the more blues oriented British Invasion bands like the Animals and Them with an avant-garde sensibility more in line with what Frank Zappa's Mothers were doing at the time. Although they only released one single, the band did manage to record an album's worth of material before disbanding. Those tunes, including a cover of an obscure Animals B side called I'm Going To Change The World, were finally released on an LP called Sewer Rat Love Chant in 2003.

Artist:    Cherry Slush
Title:    I Cannot Stop You
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dick Wagner
Label:    Elektra (original labels: Coconut Grove/USA)
Year:    1967
    I Cannot Stop You, released by the Cherry Slush in 1967, has the distinction of being one of the few garage-rock singles to show up on all three of the US charts: Billboard, Cashbox and Record World. Not that it charted particularly high on all of them (its highest position was #35 on the Cashbox chart), but it was successful enough to keep the band going for a couple more years. The group was originally formed in late 1964 as the Wayfarers by a group of eigth-graders at Saginaw's Arthur Hill High School. As one of the first garage bands to jump on the folk-rock bandwagon they changed their name to the Bells Of Rhymny in 1966. That year, the band recorded a few demos that they later played for Dick Wagner, a popular local guitarist who fronted his own band, the Bossmen. Wagner liked what he heard and agreed to produce their first single, a song he wrote himself called The Wicked Old Witch. The song was released on the local Dicto label. The band recorded Wagner's I Cannot Stop You as a followup single, but personnel changes and a search for a record deal delayed the song's release until late in the year, by which time the band had changed its name to the Cherry Slush. Once the single had been released, on the local Coconut Grove label, it quickly gained popularity on local top 40 radio, and the band was close to signing with Columbia Records when they found out their contract with Coconut Grove had been sold to the Chicago based USA label, which reissued the song nationally in early 1968. Unfortunately, USA itself went bankrupt just as the band was releasing their next single, dashing their hopes of breaking out nationally. After releasing one more single (as The Slush) on yet another small local label (Chivalry) the group decided to call it quits in 1969.

Artist:    H.P. Lovecraft
Title:    Mobius Trip
Source:    CD: Two Classic Albums from H. P. Lovecraft (originally released on LP: H.P. Lovecraft II)
Writer(s):    George Edwards
Label:    Collector's Choice (original label: Philips)
Year:    1968
    The second album by H.P. Lovecraft (the band, not the author) is sometimes referred to as the ultimate acid rock album. In fact, it has been rumoured to be the first album made entirely under the influence of LSD (although the same has been said of the 1967 Jefferson Airplane LP After Bathing At Baxter's and both albums by the 13th Floor Elevators as well). This may in part because the band had relocated from their native Chicago to Marin County, California, where they shared billing with established Bay Area bands like Big Brother and the Holding Company and the aforementioned Jefferson Airplane. The album also featured more original material than the band's debut LP, including the lounge-lizard-on-acid sounding Mobius Trip.

Artist:    Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones)
Title:    In Another Land
Source:    LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Bill Wyman
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    During recording sessions for the late 1967 Rolling Stones album Their Satanic Majesties Request bassist Bill Wyman made a forty-five minute drive to the studio one evening only to find out that the session had been cancelled. The band's manager and producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, managed to salvage the moment by asking Wyman if he had any song ideas he'd like to work on while he was there. As it turned out, Wyman had just come up with a song called In Another Land, about waking up from a dream only to discover you are actually still dreaming. Utilizing the talents of various people on hand, including Steve Marriott, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts and Nicky Hopkins, Wyman recorded a rough demo of his new tune. When Mick Jagger and Keith Richards heard the song they liked it so much that they added background vocals and insisted the track be used on the album and released as a single by Bill Wyman (with another track from the LP on the B side credited to the entire band). They even went so far as to give Wyman solo artist credit on the label of the LP itself (the label reads: Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Rolling Stones*, with the next line reading *by Bill Wyman), with an asterisk preceeding the song title in the track listing. Wyman reportedly hated the sound of his own voice on the song, and insisted that a tremelo effect be added to it in the final mix. The snoring at the end of the track is Wyman himself, as captured in the studio by Mick and Keith.
 
Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Lady Jane
Source:    CD: Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (London)
Year:    1966
    One of the best 60s Rolling Stones albums is 1966's Aftermath, which included such classics as Under My Thumb, Stupid Girl and the eleven-minute Goin' Home. Both the US and UK versions of the LP included the song Lady Jane, which was also released as the B side to Mother's Little Helper (which had been left off the US version of Aftermath to make room for Paint It, Black). The policy at the time was for B sides that got a significant amount of airplay to be rated separately from the A side of the single, and Lady Jane managed to climb to the # 24 spot on the Hot 100 (Mother's Little Helper peaked at # 8). Both tunes were also included on the 1967 LP Flowers.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
Source:     LP: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     London
Year:     1967
     Following the critical and commercial success of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Stones responded with their most psychedelic album ever, Their Satanic Majesties Request, with its own cover parodying the Sgt. Pepper cover. As an added touch, the Stones album featured cover art done on special holographic paper (the same material used for holo rings purchased from bubble gum machines) to simulate a 3D effect. The first side wrapped up with the nearly eight-minute Sing This All Together (See What Happens), a sort of psychedelic jam track featuring an unusual array of instruments and effects. 

Artist:    Kinks (Dave Davies)
Title:    Death Of A Clown
Source:    LP: Something Else
Writer(s):    Ray and Dave Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    The first Kinks album to be recorded and mixed in stereo, Something Else was virtually ignored in the US, where the band had been banned from performing since 1964. In the UK, however, the album was another in a series of successes for the band. One of the songs from that album, Death Of A Clown, featured lead guitarist and co-writer Dave Davies on lead vocals. Even though the entire band played on the track, the song was released as Dave Davies solo debut single, hitting the UK top 10 in the fall of 1967. 

Artist:    Fallen Angels
Title:    Mother's Homesick Too
Source:    British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released in US on LP: Fallen Angels)
Writer(s):    Decker/Meier
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1967
    Washington, DC, was home to the Fallen Angels, an off-the-wall band that evolved from another DC band, the Mad Hatters, in 1965. Descrbing themselves as "ravenous mimics with a penchant for political satire", the Angels began their recording career with an indie single and a pair of 45s for the Laurie label before signing with the then-powerful Roulette label in 1967. Their self-titled debut LP, including the song Mother's Homesick Too, hit the racks in 1967. After their second album, It's A Long Way Down, failed to make a commercial impression, the group disbanded in 1969, only to reunite for a third album, Rain Of Fire, nearly 30 years later.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less)
Source:    Mono LP: The Electric Prunes
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Reprise)
Year:    1967
    For a follow-up to the hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), producer Dave Hassinger chose another Annette Tucker song (co-written by Jill Jones) called Get Me To The World On Time. This was probably the best choice from the album tracks available, but Hassinger may have made a mistake by choosing Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less) as the B side. That song, written by the same Tucker/Mantz team that wrote I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) could quite possibly been a hit single in its own right if it had been issued as an A side. I guess we'll never know for sure. 

Artist:    Crosby, Stills And Nash
Title:    Helplessly Hoping
Source:    LP: Crosby, Stills and Nash
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    By 1969 there was a significant portion of the record-buying public that was more interested in buying albums than in picking up the latest hit single. This in turn was leading to the emergence of album-oriented FM radio stations as a player in the music industry. Crosby, Stills and Nash took full advantage of this trend. Although they did release a pair of singles from the debut LP (Marrakesh Express and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes), it was their album tracks like Helplessly Hoping that got major airplay on FM radio and helped usher in the age of the singer/songwriter, making the trio superstars in the process.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2537 (starts 9/8/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/587311

    Once again we have a show that starts off nice and organized but ends up a chaotic mess. But a beautiful mess it is, thanks to people like Harvey Mandel, Blues Image and the Allman Brothers Band, among others. How many others? Well, we have a dozen artists with a dozen tracks, nearly half of which have never been played on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion before. We start, however, with an old favorite.

Artist:     Traffic
Title:     Feelin' Alright
Source:     CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Traffic)
Writer:     Dave Mason
Label:     Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:     1968
     Dave Mason left Traffic after the band's first album, Mr. Fantasy, but returned in time to contribute several songs to the band's eponymous second LP. Among those was the classic Feelin' Alright, which would become one of the most covered songs in rock history.

Artist:    Climax Blues Band
Title:    Hey Baby, Everything's Gonna Be Alright, Yeh Yeh Yeh
Source:    German import CD: 25 Years (originally released on LP: Plays On)
Writer(s):    Climax Blues Band
Label:    Repertoire (original US label: Sire)
Year:    1969
    Before devolving into a generic 80s pop-rock band, the Climax Blues Band was exactly what their name implied, as can be heard on Hey Baby, Everything's Gonna Be Alright, Yeh Yeh Yeh from their second LP, Play On. 

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience (MkII)
Title:     Freedom
Source:     CD: First Rays of the New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: Rainbow Bridge)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1970
     Jimi Hendrix was working on a new double album when he died, but nobody else seemed to be sure where he was going with it. As there were several tracks that were unfinished at the time, Reprise Records gathered what they could and put them together on an album called The Cry Of Love. Freedom, a nearly finished piece (the unfinished part being a short "placesetter" guitar solo that Hendrix never got around to replacing with a final take), is the opening track from the album. Soon after that, a new Hendrix concert film called Rainbow Bridge was released along with a soundtrack album containing most of the remaining tracks from the intended double album. Finally, under the auspices of the Hendrix family in 1997, MCA (with the help of original engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell) pieced together what was essentially an educated guess about what would have been that album and released it under the name First Rays of the New Rising Sun. 
    
Artist:    Carole King
Title:    Beautiful
Source:    LP: Tapestry
Writer(s):    King/Stern
Label:    Ode/Epic
Year:    1971
    One of the most successful songwriting teams in pop music history was the husband-and-wife combination of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Starting with the 1960 Shirelles hit Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, the pair turned out a string of best-sellers, including The Loco-Motion, Up On The Roof, Pleasant Valley Sunday and many other hit singles. King also had a recording career in the early 1960s, with her biggest hit being It Might as Well Rain Until September, a Goffin/King composition she recorded in 1962. By the middle of the decade, however, King had left her singing career, instead concentrating on motherhood and songwriting. In 1968, after she and Goffin divorced, King once again began performing. Her big breakthrough came in 1971 with the album Tapestry and it's lead single, It's Too Late, which went to the top of the charts in the US and Canada and made the top 10 in the UK and Australia. The album produced several more hits, including I Feel The Earth Move, So Far Away and Smackwater Jack, winning several awards and going on to become one of the top selling albums in history. For all that, there are still songs on Tapestry that have been overlooked for years, including Beautiful, a song that King later said came to her spontaneously while riding the subway in New York.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    For My Lady
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Ray Thomas
Label:    Threshold
Year:    1972
    The classic Moody Blues lineup of Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Ray Thomas,Graeme Edge and Mike Pinder released a total of seven albums over a six year period spanning the years 1967-1972, and every one of those albums included songwriting credits for all five band members, both as individuals and collaborators. Ray Thomas, who played various wind instruments for the group, contributed the song For My Lady to the 1972 LP Seventh Sojourn. The song, which was written not long after his divorce, expresses a desire for a "gentle lady", a term that he apparently did not apply to his former wife.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    The Rain Song
Source:    CD: Houses Of The Holy
Writer(s):    Page/Plant
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1973
    One of the most popular songs in the Led Zeppelin catalog, The Rain Song was reportedly written in response to a comment made by George Harrison of the Beatles to drummer John Bonham, that Led Zeppelin never did any ballads. When guitarist Jimmy Page heard about it he went to work on the piece, which he initially called Slush for its simulated orchestral arrangements on guitar. He presented the finished melody to Robert Plant, who then wrote lyrics and came up with the final title for the tune. John-Paul Jones added mellotron tracks, adding to the orchestral feel of the seven and a half minute long piece.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Wind Up
Source:    CD: Aqualung
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
    The first three Jethro Tull albums saw the group transition from a blues base to a more eclectic sound, defined by the songwriting of vocalist/flautist/acoustic guitarist Ian Anderson. The real breakthrough for the band, however, was their fourth LP, Aqualung, which for a while was the most-played album on progressive rock radio in the US. The second side of the album is a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy of modern organized religion. The final track, Wind Up, takes its title from the closing line of the album: "I don't believe you, you've got the whole damn thing all wrong. He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sunday."

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Done Somebody Wrong
Source:    LP: At Fillmore East
Writer(s):    Kirkland/James
Label:    Mercury (original label: Capricorn)
Year:    1971
    As a general rule, live albums by rock bands are made up mostly of tunes that the group had previously released on studio albums. The Allman Brothers Band, however, took a different path for their 1971 double LP At Fillmore East. Of the seven tracks spread across four album sides, only the last two had previously appeared on the band's two studio efforts. The first four tunes, in fact, were blues covers such as Done Somebody Wrong, a tune generally attributed to Elmore James, who recorded the song in 1960. James, however, had actually rearranged a song that Eddie Kirkland had released in 1959 called I Must Have Done Somebody Wrong. Kirkland had given James permission to record the song, but only if Kirkland was credited as the songwriter, however James's name appeared on the 1960 single as the sole songwriter. When the Allman Brothers Band performed the song at the Fillmore East they introduced it as "an old Elmore James" tune.

Artist:      Blues Image
Title:     Pay My Dues
Source:      CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:     1970
     When I first heard Blues Image's Ride Captain Ride on the radio I wasn't all that impressed with it. Then the local club I hung out at got it on the jukebox and people started playing the B side, a song called Pay My Dues. Then I went out and bought the album, Open. Yes, Pay My Dues is that good. As it turns out, so is the rest of the album. Even Ride Captain Ride sounds better now. Shows the latent power of a B side, doesn't it?

Artist:    Harvey Mandel
Title:    Wade In The Water
Source:    LP: Cristo Redentor
Writer(s):    Traditional
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    Harvey Mandel first came to national attention as the guitarist on Stand Back! Here Comes Charlie Musselwhite's South Side Band, one of the first blues albums to be also targeted to rock listeners. One of the standout tracks on the album was Christo Redemptor, which has come to be considered Musselwhite's signature song. Not long after the album was released, Mandel moved to San Francisco, performing regularly at the Matrix club and often jamming with fellow guitarists Elvin Bishop and Jerry Garcia. A chance meeting with local disc jockey Abe "Voco" Kesh led to Mandel's first solo LP, the instrumental Cristo Redentor, released in 1968. The traditional African song Wade In The Water (attributed on the label to James Alexander and Sam Cooke) is often cited as the album's most outstanding track, and led to Mandel being invited to replace Henry Vestine in Canned Heat the following year. 

Artist:    Ainsley Dunbar Retaliation
Title:    Sage Of Sydney Street
Source:    LP: The Ainsley Dunbar Retaliation
Writer(s):    Ainsley Dunbar
Label:    Blue Thumb
Year:    1968
    Drummer Ainsley Dunbar is probably best known for being an integral part of several successful bands, including Journey, Jefferson Starship, Whitesnake and the Mothers Of Invention. His career didn't have such an illustrious start, however. In fact, he was actually fired from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in 1967 and replaced by Mick Fleetwood. After sitting in on a few early singles by the Jeff Beck Group, Dunbar decided to get even with Mayall by forming the Ainsley Dunbar Retaliation. Dunbar recruited multi-instrumentalist Victor Brox, cited by both Jimi Hendrix and Tina Turner as their favorite white blues singer, to be the band's lead vocalist. He filled out the rest of the group with lead guitarist John Morshead and bassist Alex Dmochowski, whose playing dominates the instrumental Sage Of Sydney Street.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Morning Will Come
Source:    CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer(s):    Randy California
Label:    Epic
Year:    1970
    When Lou Adler switched distribution of Ode Records from Columbia to A&M, part of the deal was to sell Spirit's recordings to Columbia's parent company, CBS. CBS then assigned the band to its Epic label, while strongly hinting that if the next album didn't show an improvement in sales over their previous efforts their contract would be terminated. Spirit responded with the 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, widely regarded as their best album. One of the better known songs from Sardonicus is Morning Will Come, a Randy California tune with a strong R&B flavor (including a horn section). Initial sales of the album, however, were not that good, resulting in lead vocalist Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes leaving Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne the following year.
    
    

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2536 (starts 9/1/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/586432

    This week's show features a set of post-Experience Jimi Hendrix tunes, along with several old favorites and a pop-up battle of the bands.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Hillman/McGuinn
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    By early 1967 there was a building resentment among musicians and rock press alike concerning the instant (and in many eyes unearned) success of the Monkees. One notable expression of this resentment was the Byrds' So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star, which takes a somewhat sarcastic look at what it takes to succeed in the music business. Unfortunately, much of what they talk about in the song continues to apply today (although the guitar has been somewhat supplanted by the computer as the instrument of choice).

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:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Minstrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle wrote (and sang lead on) most of the songs on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the group, thanks to the fact that one of the two songs he sang lead on, Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), became a huge top 40 hit. It wasn't long before the official name of the band was changed to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status, leaving the First Edition far behind.

Artist:    David Bowie (recording as Davy Jones)
Title:    You've Got A Habit Of Leaving
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):    David Bowie
Label:    Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1965
    David Bowie scored his first major success at the age of 22 with the release of Space Oddity, a song that went all the way into the top 5 on the British charts in 1969 (it would not be a US hit until nearly five years later). Bowie was already a seasoned veteran in the recording studio by the time Space Oddity hit the charts, however. His first single, Liza Jane, had come out in 1964, credited to Davie Jones with The King Bees. After leaving the King Bees he hooked up with the more versatile Manish Boys for another cover tune, I Pity The Fool, released in 1965. His next single, You've Got A Habit Of Leaving, was credited to Davy Jones as both writer and artist, and used the Who-influenced Lower Third as a backup band. This would be the last time Bowie used his birth name, however, as another Davy Jones was already achieving fame playing the Artful Dodger in the stage production of Oliver, and would go on to even greater fame as a member of the Monkees. 

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Don't Bring Me Down
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually admitted he liked.

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:    John Wonderling
Title:    Man Of Straw
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Wonderling/Allane/Goldfluss
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US labels: Loma/Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Recorded on September 11, 1968, Man Of Straw was the B side of John Wonderling's debut single on two different (but closely related) labels in October of the same year. Wonderling, who produced the record himself, has called it "the only I've ever composed in over 35 years that was 'religious' in intent", a view contradicted by lyricist Edward Goldfluss, who claims "there was no religious intent whatsoever". Whatever the intent, it was the last single ever released on the Loma label, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers that had previously specialized in R&B artists such as Ike & Tina Turner.

Artist:    Joe Cocker
Title:    With A Little Help From My Friends
Source:    British import CD: Peace & Love (originally released on LP: With A Little Help From My Friends)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original US label: A&M)
Year:    1969
    It takes stones to name your first album after an already popular Beatles song, but that's exactly what Joe Cocker did in 1969. To top it off he brought in some of the UK's top talent to back him up on songs like the title track, that features (among others) drummer B.J. Wilson from Procol Harum and some guy named Jimmy Page on guitar. 

Artist:    Love
Title:    Can't Explain
Source:    Mono CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols/Fleckenstein
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1966
    Love's original lineup consisted of bandleader Arthur Lee on vocals, Johnny Echols on lead guitar, John Fleckenstein on bass and Don Conka on drums, with Lee, a prolific songwriter, providing the band's original material. They were soon joined by singer/songwriter/guitarist Bryan MacLean, who gave up his traveling gig as a roadie for the Byrds. Before they completed their first album, however, Fleckenstein and Conka had been replaced by Ken Forssi and Snoopy Pfisterer, although Lee himself provided most of the drums and some of the bass tracks on the LP. Two of the tracks on the album, however, are rumored to have been performed by the original five members, although this has never been verified. One of those tracks is Can't Explain, on which Fleckenstein has a writing credit. The song is certainly one of the band's earliest recordings and captures Love's hard-edged "L.A.-in" take on folk-rock.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Trouble
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of The Music Machine-Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    Sean Bonniwell had definite plans for the Music Machine's first album. His primary goal was to have all original material, with the exception of a slow version of Hey Joe that he and fellow songwriter Tim Rose had been working on (and before you ask, both Rose and the Music Machine recorded it before Jimi Hendrix did). Unfortunately, the shirts at Original Sound Records did not take their own company name seriously and inserted four cover songs that the band had recorded for a local TV show. This was just the first in a series of bad decisions by the aforementioned shirts that led to a great band not getting the success it deserved. To hear Turn On The Music Machine the way Bonniwell intended it to be heard program your CD player to skip all the extra cover songs. Listened to that way, Trouble is restored to its rightful place as the second song on the disc (following Talk Talk) and a fairly decent album is transformed into a work that is equal to the best albums of 1966.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    I've Loved You
Source:    CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1967
    The fourth and final single released on the Original Sound label by the Music Machine is generally considered to be the most psychedelic one as well. The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly is a feedback drenched political statement, while its B side, I've Loved You, can best be described as primal (three years before John Lennon brought primal scream therapy into the spotlight with songs like Cold Turkey and Remember). The band recorded a few more tunes before falling apart in mid-1967, but those recordings ended up on a different label, either as singles or on the album Bonniwell Music Machine that was released later in the year. 
    
Artist:    Love
Title:    Alone Again Or
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Elektra/Rhino
Year:    1967
    The only song Love ever released as a single that was not written by Arthur Lee was Alone Again Or, issued in 1970. The song had originally appeared as the opening track from the Forever Changes album three years earlier. Bryan McLean would later say that he was not happy with the recording due to his own vocal being buried beneath that of Lee, since Lee's part was meant to be a harmony line to McLean's melody. McLean would later re-record the song for a solo album, but reportedly was not satisfied with that version either. I wonder what he would have thought of the Damned's cover of the song in the mid-1980s, had he lived to hear it?

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    You'll Love Me Again
Source:    CD: Beyond The Garage (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1968
    Following the success of the first Music Machine album and its hit single Talk Talk, the Music Machine went back into the studio, recording a pair of singles for Original Sound before signing with the Warner Brothers label in 1967. Before an entire album's worth of material could be recorded, however, the original lineup disbanded. Bandleader Sean Bonniwell quickly put together a new lineup to complete the LP, which was released under the name Bonniwell Music Machine (a name that also appeared on the band's next two singles). The group's final two singles, however, were released under the name Music Machine, including To The Light, which was backed with You'll Love Me Again. Both tracks were recorded while the band was on tour, using whatever facilities Bonniwell could book on a moment's notice. 
 
Artist:    Arthur Lee
Title:    Everybody's Gotta Live
Source:    CD: Love Story (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Vindicator)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1972
    After disbanding Love Arthur Lee got to work on his first solo LP, Vindicator. Two months before the album was released, A&M issued Lee's first single, Everybody's Gotta Live, on June 1, 1972. Despite positive reviews from the rock press, the song failed to chart, and Lee ended up re-recording the song two years later for Reel To Real, an album officially credited to Love.

Artist:    Rare Earth
Title:    Eleanor Rigby
Source:    LP: Ecology
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Rare Earth
Year:    1970
    Like them or not, nobody can deny that Rare Earth had a sound that was uniquely their own, as can be heard on this six and a half minute long version of Paul McCartney's Eleanor Rigby. The song appeared as the final track on their 1970 LP Ecology.

Artist:    Blood, Sweat & Tears
Title:    God Bless The Child
Source:    CD: Blood, Sweat & Tears
Writer(s):    Holiday/Herzog
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1969
    Although it was never released as a single, Blood, Sweat And Tears' version of the Billy Holiday classic God Bless The Child has become one of their most popular recordings over time, even to the point of being included on the group's Greatest Hits collection. The track was also chosen as the band's contribution to Columbia's Heavy Sounds collection that was released around 1969. 

Artist:    Kingston Trio
Title:    Where Have All The Flowers Gone
Source:    CD: Songs Of Protest (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1961
    Protest songs did not start in the 1960s. Indeed, two of the genre's torchbearers, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, had been around since the 1930s. But McCarthyism in the early 1950s had squelched virtually all non-conformist voices in the US, and it wasn't until late 1961, when the clean-cut Kingston Trio recorded their own version of Seeger's Where Have All The Flowers Gone, that a protest song received enough national exposure to become a genuine hit, going to the #21 spot on the top 40 charts in early 1962. Peter, Paul And Mary included their own version of the song on their chart-topping (five weeks at #1) debut LP later that year. Perhaps the most surprising cover of Where Of All The Flowers Gone came in 1966, when the Lennon Sisters, regulars on the Lawrence Welk TV show, included it on an EP released in Australia that year.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title:    Lover Man
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year:    1970
    When the original Jimi Hendrix Experience made its US debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967, they opened with a fast-paced high-energy version of the Muddy Waters classic Killing Floor. In fact, except for the lyrics, Hendrix's arrangement of the song was essentially a brand-new song. Hendrix must have realized at some point that all he had to do is write new lyrics for the tune to create an entirely new composition, because he made not one, but two recordings of what came to be called Lover Man. The first was made prior to the recording of the Band Of Gypsys live album in late 1969, while the later version heard here features his final power trio, consisting of Hendrix, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell, who were already being billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience when they recorded the song in 1970.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix (Band Of Gypsys)
Title:    Power Of Soul
Source:    LP: Band Of Gypsys
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    1969 was a strange year for Jimi Hendrix. For one thing, he did not release any new recordings that year, yet he remained the top money maker in rock music. One reason for the lack of new material was an ongoing dispute with Capitol Records over a contract he had signed in 1965 when he was working as a sideman for Curtis Knight. By the end of the year an agreement was reached for Hendrix to provide Capitol with one album's worth of new material. At this point Hendrix had not released any live albums, so it was decided to tape his New Year's performances at the Fillmore East with his new Band Of Gypsys (with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox), playing songs that had never been released in studio form. One of those songs is Power Of Soul, which includes an impromptu vocal ad-lib from drummer Buddy Miles toward the end of the track.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience (II)
Title:    Stone Free (1969 version)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy/Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2010
    The 1969 version of Stone Free actually exists in many forms. The song was originally recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966 and issued as the B side of Hey Joe in Europe and the UK, but not in the Western hemisphere. As Hendrix always felt that this original version was rushed, due to financial restraints, he resolved to record a new version following the release of Electric Ladyland. The band went into the studio in April of 1969 and recorded a new, much cleaner sounding stereo version of Stone Free, which eventually appeared on the Jimi Hendrix box set. This was not the last version of the song to be recorded, however. In May of 1969 Hendrix, working with drummer Mitch Mitchell and his old friend Billy Cox on bass, created an entirely new arrangement of the song. These new tracks were then juxtaposed with the lead guitar and vocal tracks from the April recording to make the version heard on the 2010 CD Valleys Of Neptune.
    
Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in November of 1966. The record, initially released without much promotion on Reprise Records, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on Lenny Kaye's original Nuggets compilation, released on the Elektra label in 1972.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ellner/Atkinson/Byrne/Chaney/Michalski
Label:    Double Shot
Year:    1966
    In late 1966 five guys from San Jose California managed to sound more like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds that the Yardbirds themselves (a task probably made easier by the fact that by late 1966 Jeff Beck was no longer a member of the Yardbirds). One interesting note about this record is that as late as the mid-1980s the 45 RPM single on the original label was still available in record stores, complete with the original B side. Normally (in the US at least) songs more than a year or two old were only available on anthology LPs or on reissue singles with "back-to-back hits" on them. The complete takeover of the record racks by CDs in the late 1980s changed all that, as all 45s (except for indy releases) soon went the way of the 78 RPM record. The resurgence of vinyl in the 2010s has been almost exclusively limited to LP releases, making it look increasingly unlikely that we'll ever see (with the exception of Record Store Day special releases) 45 RPM singles on the racks ever again.

Artist:    New Colony Six
Title:    At The River's Edge
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Walter Kemp
Label:    Rhino (original label: Centaur)
Year:    1966
    The New Colony Six are best known for their soft pop-rock song Things I Like To Say, released on the Mercury label in 1969. In their earlier years, however, the Six were a prime example of the blues-tinged garage rock coming out of the Chicago area in the mid-1960s. At The River's Edge, released in 1966 on the band's own Centaur (later Sentar) label, is a classic example of the Six's early Yardbirds-influenced sound.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Taxman
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    1966
    The Beatles' 1966 LP Revolver was a major step forward, particularly for guitarist George Harrison, who for the first time had three of his own compositions on an album. Making it even sweeter was the fact that one of these, Taxman, was chosen to lead off the album itself. Although Harrison is usually considered the band's lead guitarist, the solo in Taxman is actually performed by Paul McCartney, who also played bass on the track.
     
Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    The World's On Fire
Source:    LP: Incense And Peppermints
Writer(s):    King/Bunnell/Freeman/Weitz/Seal
Label:    Sundazed/Uni
Year:    1967
    So you think because you've heard Incense And Peppermints (the song, not the album) about a million times, you have a pretty good grip on what the Strawberry Alarm Clock was all about? Well, a listen to the opening track of their first LP (also titled Incense And Peppermints) will disabuse you of that notion in a hurry. Running well over eight minutes in length, The World's On Fire is essentially an extended jam showcasing the talents of the band itself, including guitarist Ed King, who would later become a member of Lynyrd Skynryd . The piece was also included in the 1968 film Psych-Out. 

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Rock Me Baby
Source:    Dutch import LP: Vincebus Eruptum
Writer(s):    King/Josea
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    The first Blue Cheer LP, Vincebus Eruptum, is cited by some as the first heavy metal album, while others refer to it as proto metal. However you want to look at it, the album is dominated by the feedback-laden guitar of Leigh Stephens, as can be plainly heard on their version of B.B. King's classic Rock Me Baby. Although there seem to be very few people still around who actually heard Blue Cheer perform live, the power trio has the reputation of being one of the loudest bands in the history of rock music.  

Artist:    Donovan/Jeff Beck Group
Title:    Barabajabal (Love Is Hot)
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Barabajagal)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1969
    Donovan Leitch enlisted the Jeff Beck Group as collaborators for Barabajabal (Love Is Hot), a track from his 1969 Barabajal album. Sometimes the song is referred to as Goo Goo Barabajabal, but I'm going with what's on the original 45 RPM label. 
    
Artist:            Flock
Title:        Crabfoot
Source:    British Import CD: The Flock/Dinosaur Swamps (originally released on LP: Dinosaur Swamps)
Writer(s):    the Flock
Label:     BGO (original US label: Columbia)
Year:        1970
        Chicago is a town known for its horn players, and the Flock had one of the best horn sections ever to come out of the windy city. On top of that they had Jerry Goodman playing a mean electric violin. Nonetheless, they never seemed to be able to connect up with a large audience, and after a couple critically well-received but poor selling albums, the members moved on, with Goodman in particular gaining fame as a founding member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. The Flock had a flair for (almost an obsession with, really) doing things differently than anyone else. Crabfoot, from the band's second LP, Dinosaur Swamps, starts off sounding like a high-powered jazz-rock tune along the lines of Chase's Get It On, leading into an equally high-energy drum solo that all of a sudden, right in the middle, turns into...well, I really don't know how to describe it.
    
Artist:    John Mayall
Title:    Another Man
Source:    Mono LP: Blues Breakers
Writer(s):    trad., arr. John Mayall
Label:    Sundazed/London
Year:    1967
    The origins of Another Man Done Gone are somewhat vague. It was first recorded by Vera Ward Hall in 1948. Hall had been invited by Alan Lomax to perform in the Fourth Annual Festival of Contemporary American Music at Columbia University and had stayed in New York long enough to record Another Man Done Gone before returning to her native Alabama. A 1974 recording by Jorma Kaukonen attibutes the song to both Hall and Lomax, along with Ruby Pickens Tartt and John Lomax (Alan's father). In all liklihood, however, the prison work song probably dates back to the 19th century. John Mayall's solo version, from the 1967 LP Blues Breakers, is actually only a snippet of the actual song, credited simply to Mayall on the original release and corrected to "arr. Mayall" on the Sundazed reissue of the album.


 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2536 (starts 9/1/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/586427

    Just about everyone is familiar with the opening notes of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, as used in the film The Exorcist. The rest of the album side is almost as well-known, but this week we are instead presenting the seldom-heard second side of Tubular Bells, along with tracks from Jeff Beck, Gentle Giant and more. We finish with a pair of tunes never heard on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion before, both from the debut albums of their respective artists.

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

Artist:    Jeff Beck
Title:    AIR Blower/Scatterbrain
Source:    CD: Blow By Blow
Writer(s):    Beck/Middleton/Bailey/Chen
Label:    Epic
Year:    1975
    After dissolving the group Beck, Bogert and Appice in 1973, guitarist Jeff Beck spent the next year supporting various other musicians both on stage and in the studio before going to work on what would his first official solo album since Truth was released in 1968. Produced by George Martin, Blow By Blow is Beck's first album made up entirely of instrumentals, with Beck being joined by keyboardist Max Middleton (a veteran of the earlier Jeff Beck Group), bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey. The album features several tracks that cross-fade into the next song, such as AIR Blower (the only track on the album that credits all four band members as songwriters) and Scatterbrain (written by Beck and Middleton). Blow By Blow turned out to be Beck's most commercially successful album, leading to more instrumental LPs over the next several years. 

Artist:    Gentle Giant
Title:    The Face
Source:    CD: The Power And The Glory
Writer(s):    Shulman/Minnear/Shulman
Label:    Alucard (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1974
    The Power And The Glory is a 1974 album by Gentle Giant that focuses on an individual that chooses politics as a means to make the world a better place. Like his predecessors, however, he becomes corrupted by power and ultimately becomes that which he originally fought against. The piece called The Face is the climax of the album itself, in which the protagonist declares himself to be the ultimate authority and demands total loyalty and obedience from his subjects (kind of like certain current political leaders). As of 2014, The Power And The Glory is available on Blu-Ray, with each song fully animated with various abstract patterns and all the lyrics displayed prominently on the screen. The latter makes a huge difference in the ability to enjoy the album, as Gentle Giant's vocals are often hard to decipher. 

Artist:    Mike Oldfield
Title:    Tubular Bells (side two)
Source:    LP: Tubular Bells
Writer(s):    Mike Oldfield
Label:    Virgin
Year:    1973
    After shopping demos of his compositions to various record labels, multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield was almost out of money when he was invited to have dinner with Richard Branson, who was in the process of forming his own record label. Branson liked Oldfield's demos and invited him to spend a week recording at The Manor, Branson's recording studio in the outbuildings of an 18th century manor house north of the city of Oxford, England. Oldfield was able to complete the first half of what would eventually become Tubular Bells in November of 1972, but would not re-enter the studio until the following February. During the hiatus Oldfield mapped out the entire structure of what would become side two of Tubular Bells, spending the better part of two months recording it. Starting more quietly than the first side of the album, Tubular Bells part two eventually includes drums (played by Steve Broughton) and the album's only vocal segment, sometimes known as the "caveman" section. Oldfield actually screamed out the vocal segment while the tape was running at high speed, giving the vocals a gutteral quality when played at normal running speed. The album cover refers to them as Piltdown Man vocals. The entire piece ends with an increasingly fast rendition of The Sailor's Hornpipe, a piece familiar to fans of old Popeye cartoons. Tubular Bells was the first LP to be released on Branson's Virgin Records label, and after a slow start, the album eventually reached the top of the British, Canadian and Australian charts, peaking at #3 in the US. 

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Casey Jones
Source:    CD: Skeletons From The Closet (originally released on LP: Workingman's Dead)
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970 
    After three albums worth of studio material that the band was not entirely happy with, the Grateful Dead finally achieved their goal with the 1969 release of the double-LP Live Dead. So where do you go when you've finally accomplished your original mission? For the Dead the answer was to concentrate on their songwriting skills. The results of this new direction were heard on their next two studio LP's, Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, both released in 1970. One of the highlights of Workingman's Dead was Casey Jones, a song based on an old folk tale (albeit updated a bit for a 1970 audience). Casey Jones was just one of many classic songs written by the team of guitarist Jerry Garcia and poet/lyricist Robert Hunter. 

Artist:    Leslie West
Title:    Storyteller Man
Source:    LP: Mountain
Writer(s):    West/Pappalardi/Ventura/Landsberg
Label:    Windfall
Year:    1969
    After spending several years as lead guitarist for the Vagrants, Leslie West released his first solo LP, Mountain, in 1969, working with producer Felix Pappalardi, who also played bass and keyboards on the album. Pappalardi, in fact, had more writing credits on the album than West, including Storyteller Man, co-written by the two of them with Norman Landsberg, who played Hammond organ on the track and the mysterious John Ventura, who I can't seem to find any information on whatsoever, despite the fact that he is listed as co-writer on six of the album's eleven tunes. 

Artist:    Nazareth
Title:    Witchdoctor Woman
Source:    German import CD: Nazareth 
Writer(s):    Charlton/McCafferty
Label:    Eagle (original UK label: Pegasus, original US label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1971 (US release: 1975)
    Formed in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland in 1968, Nazareth moved to London in 1970 and released their debut album the following year. The opening track of that album, Witchdoctor Woman, was written by lead vocalist Dan McCafferty and guitarist Manny Charlton. Initially only successful in the UK, they broke out internationally in 1975 with the release of the album Hair Of The Dog. Nazareth continues to perform regularly, although only bassist Pete Agnew remains from the group's original lineup.


 

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2535 (starts 8/25/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/585543

    This week I came up with a battle of the band's scenario that was too strange even for me, so instead we have two separate artists' sets in the same half hour. Of course there's more to this week's show than just that. Much more, starting with a classic Stones track.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Get Off My Cloud
Source:    Mono CD: Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1965
    Early British Invasion bands generally fell into one of two camps. On the one hand there were the relatively clean-cut Merseybeat bands such as Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits and of course the Beatles themselves, who were the overwhelming favorites of teenage girls all across America. Then there were the so-called "bad boy" bands such as Them and the Animals who tended to favor a raunchier interpretation of rock and roll than their Merseybeat counterparts and had more male than female fans. Chief among these were London's Rolling Stones. While the Beatles were successfully cranking out love songs throughout 1965, the Stones were shouting their defiance at the world with songs like Get Off My Cloud.  

Artist:    Human Beingz
Title:    My Generation
Source:    Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    BFD (original label: Elysian)
Year:    1966
    Regular listeners of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era are probably familiar with a song called Nobody But Me by the Human Beinz (it holds the record for the most iterations of the word no on a top 40 hit song). What most people aren't aware of, however, is the fact that the band had actually been spelling its name Human Beingz for over a year before signing with Capitol Records, who accidently left the 'g' out on the label of Nobody But Me in 1968. One of the earliest regional hits for the Youngstown, Ohio based Human Beingz was this cover of the Who's I Can't Explain, released on the local Elysian label in 1966.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Somebody To Love
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Darby Slick
Label:    RCA
Year:    1967
    The monster hit that put the San Francisco Bay area on the musical map in early 1967, Somebody To Love was actually the second single released from the Jefferson Airplane's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow; the first being the Skip Spence tune My Best Friend.

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

Artist:    Family
Title:    Second Generation Woman 
Source:    LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook (originally released on LP: Family Entertainment)
Writer(s):    Rick Grech
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Family's original lineup of Roger Chapman, Rick Grech, Jim King, Rob Townsend and John Whitney was still intact for the recording of the band's second LP, Family Entertainment, although Grech soon left to join Blind Faith. Their debut LP had been well-received, but they had already dropped much of their early material from their live sets in favor of newer composition even before Family Entertainment was released. As a result, many of the songs on the new album, including Grech's Second Generation Woman, were already familiar to the band's fans by the time the LP was made available to the public. Grech's departure, though, was only the first in a series of personnel changes throughout Family's existence, and by 1973, when the group officially disbanded, only Chapman, Townsend and Whitney remained from the lineup that had recorded the first two LPs. 

Artist:    It's A Beautiful Day
Title:    White Bird
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: It's A Beautiful Day)
Writer(s):    David & Linda LaFlamme
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    San Francisco's It's A Beautiful Day is a good illustration of how a band can be a part of a trend without intending to be or even realizing that they are. In their case, they were actually tied to two different trends. The first one was a positive thing: it was now possible for a band to be considered successful without a top 40 hit, as long as their album sales were healthy. The second trend was not such a good thing; as was true for way too many bands, It's A Beautiful Day was sorely mistreated by its own management, in this case one Matthew Katz. Katz already represented both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when he signed up It's A Beautiful Day in 1967. What the members of It's A Beautiful Day did not know at the time was that both of the aforementioned bands were desperately trying to get out of their contracts with Katz. The first thing Katz did after signing It's A Beautiful Day was to ship the band off to Seattle to become house band at a club Katz owned called the San Francisco Sound. Unfortunately for the band, Seattle already had a sound of its own and attendance at their gigs was sparse. Feeling downtrodden and caged (and having no means of transportation to boot) classically-trained 5-string violinist and lead vocalist David LaFlamme and his keyboardist wife Linda LaFlamme translated those feelings into a song that is at once sad and beautiful: the classic White Bird. As an aside, Linda LaFlamme was not the female vocalist heard on White Bird. Credit for those goes to one Pattie Santos, the other female band member. To this day Katz owns the rights to It's A Beautiful Day's recordings, which have been reissued on CD on Katz's San Francisco Sound label.

Artist:    Gong
Title:    Radio Gnome/You Can't Kill Me
Source:    European import CD: Camembert Electrique (originally released on LP in France)
Writer(s):    Daevid Allen
Label:    Charly/Snapper (original label: BYG Actuel)
Year:    1971
    It's almost impossible to describe Gong. They had their roots in British psychedelia, founder Daevid Allen having been a member of Soft Machine, but are also known as pioneers of space-rock. The Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy, from 1973-74, is considered a landmark of the genre, telling the story of such characters as Zero the Hero and the Pot Head Pixies from Planet Gong. The groundwork for the trilogy was actually laid in 1971, when the album Camembert Electrique was recorded (and released) in France on the BYG Actuel label. The album opens with Radio Gnome, a pastiche of electronic effects that leads into the album's first proper song, You Can't Kill Me.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less)
Source:    CD: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) (original album title: The Electric Prunes)
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    For a follow-up to the hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), producer Dave Hassinger chose another Annette Tucker song (co-written by Jill Jones) called Get Me To The World On Time. This was probably the best choice from the album tracks available, but Hassinger may have made a mistake by choosing Are You Lovin' Me More (But Enjoying It Less) as the B side. That song, written by the same Tucker/Mantz team that wrote I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) could quite possibly been a hit single in its own right if it had been issued as an A side. I guess we'll never know for sure. 

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    At The Zoo
Source:    LP: Bookends (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1967
    Simon and Garfunkel did not release any new albums in 1967, instead concentrating on their live performances. They did, however, issue several singles over the course of the year, most of which ended up being included on 1968's Bookends LP. At The Zoo was one of the first of those 1967 singles. It's B side ended up being a hit as well, but by Harper's Bizarre, which took The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) to the top 10 early in the year.

Artist:    Young Rascals
Title:    It's Love
Source:    CD: Groovin'
Writer(s):    Cavaliere/Brigati
Label:    Warner Special Products (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1967
    The Young Rascals, still riding high as the kings of "blue-eyed soul", gave us the first hint of their future, more jazz-influenced sound on the last track of the 1967 album Groovin'. It's Love, which was also released as the B side of A Girl Like You, features jazz flautist Hubert Laws, who would  contribute to nearly every new Rascals album over the next five years. 

Artist:    Love
Title:    Can't Explain
Source:    German import CD: Love
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols/Fleckenstein
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Love's original lineup consisted of bandleader Arthur Lee on vocals, Johnny Echols on lead guitar, John Fleckenstein on bass and Don Conka on drums, with Lee, a prolific songwriter, providing the band's original material. They were soon joined by singer/songwriter/guitarist Bryan MacLean, who gave up his traveling gig as a roadie for the Byrds. Before they completed their first album, however, Fleckenstein and Conka had been replaced by Ken Forssi and Snoopy Pfisterer, although Lee himself provided most of the drums and some of the bass tracks on the LP. Two of the tracks on the album, however, are rumored to have been performed by the original five members, although this has never been verified. One of those tracks is Can't Explain, on which Fleckenstein has a writing credit. The song is certainly one of the band's earliest recordings and captures Love's hard-edged "L.A.-in" take on folk-rock.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    I Won't Hurt You
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Part One)
Writer:    Harris/Lloyd/Markley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Unlike more famous L.A. groups like Love and the Doors, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was not a Sunset Strip club band. In fact, the WCPAEB really didn't play that many live performances in their career, although those they did tended to be at high profile venues such as the Hollywood Bowl. The band was formed when the Harris brothers, sons of an accomplished classical musician, decided to record their own album and release it on the small Fifa label. Only a few copies of that album, Volume One, were made and finding one now is next to impossible. That might have been the end of the story except for the fact that they were acquaintances of Kim Fowley, the Zelig-like record producer and all-around Hollywood (and sometimes London) hustler. Fowley invited them to a party where the Yardbirds were playing; a party also attended by one Bob Markley. Markley, who was nearly ten years older than the Harris brothers, was a former TV show host from the midwest who had moved out to the coast to try his luck in Hollywood. Impressed by the flock of young girls surrounding the Yardbirds, Markley expressed to Fowley his desire to be a rock and roll star and have the young girls flock around him, too. Fowley, ever the deal-maker, responded by introducing Markley to the Harris Brothers and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was born. With the addition of guitarist Michael Lloyd and the influence of Markley's not-inconsiderable family money, the group soon landed a contract with Reprise Records, where they proceeded to record the album Part One, which includes the tune I Won't Hurt You, which uses a simulated heartbeat to keep the...umm, beat.
    
Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Living In The U.S.A.
Source:    LP: Anthology (originally released on LP: Sailor)
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    Although generally considered a San Francisco act, the Steve Miller Band, in truth, was never really confined to a single geographical area. Miller himself was originally from Chicago, and had cut his musical teeth in Texas. The first Steve Miller Band album was recorded in London, while their second effort, Sailor, was made in Los Angeles. Appropriately enough, the best-known track from Sailor, and the first Steve Miller Band song to get significant national radio exposure, was Living In The U.S.A., a song that is still heard fairly often on classic rock radio stations.

Artist:    Kaleidoscope (US)
Title:    Lie To Me
Source:    British import CD: Pulsating Dreams (originally released in US on LP: Incredible!)
Writer(s):    David Lindley
Label:    Floating World (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1970
    The American band known as Kaleidoscope was not really a rock band. If you had to define them, you might go with terms like "roots" or even "world" music, but not rock. While still in high school, Kaleidoscope's multi-instrumentalist founder David Lindley formed his first band, the Mad Mountain Ramblers in Pasadena, California, where he met Chris Darrow, Kaleidoscope's co-founder. At age 20 (more or less) the two, who had been in rival bands, formed a new group the Dry City Scat Band, but Darrow soon left to form his own rock band. The two, along with multi-instrumentalists Solomon Feldthouse and Chester Crill (aka all sorts of odd names such as Fenrus Epp and Max Budda) along with drummer John Vidican formed Kaleidoscope in 1966. By the time they had released their third, and highest charting album Incredible!, both Darrow and Vidican had left the band, with Stuart Brotman now playing bass and Paul Lagos handling the drums. Darrow had been the band's primary songwriter on the first two Kaleidoscope albums, resulting in more group compositions on the third LP, including Lie To Me, the album's opening track.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Bass Strings
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on EP)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Rag Baby)
Year:    1966
    One of the more original ways to get one's music heard is to publish an underground arts-oriented newspaper and include a record in it. Country Joe and the Fish did just that; not once, but twice. The first one was split with another artist and featured the original recording of the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag. The second Rag Baby EP, released in 1966, was all Fish, and featured two tracks that would be re-recorded for their debut LP the following year. In addition to the instrumental Section 43, the EP included a four-minute version of Bass Strings, a track with decidedly psychedelic lyrics.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I'm Looking Through You
Source:    CD: Rubber Soul
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1965
    Although John Lennon is generally thought of as the Beatle who wore his heart on his sleeve, it was Paul McCartney who came up with the song I'm Looking Through You for the Rubber Soul album. The lyrics refer to Jane Asher, who McCartney had been dating for about five years when he wrote the song. They split up soon afterward. 

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

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Crossroads
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer:    Robert Johnson
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Robert Johnson's Crossroads has come to be regarded as a signature song for Eric Clapton, who's live version (recorded at the Fillmore East) was first released on the Cream album Wheels Of Fire, and later became one of the group's highest charting singles.   

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

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    You're Gonna Miss Me
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer:    Roky Erickson
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    If anyplace outside of California has a legitimate claim to being the birthplace of the psychedelic era, it's Austin, Texas. That's mainly due to the presence of the 13th Floor Elevators, a local band led by Roky Erickson that had the audacity to use an electric jug onstage. Their debut album was the first to actually use the word psychedelic (predating the Blues Magoos' Psychedelic Lollipop by mere weeks). Musically, their leanings were more toward garage-rock than acid-rock, at least on their first album (they got more metaphysical with their follow-up album, Easter Everywhere).

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Chicken Little Was Right
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer:    The Turtles
Label:    White Whale
Year:    1967
    Like many of the bands of the time, the Turtles usually recorded songs from professional songwriters for their A sides and provided their own material for the B sides. In the Turtles' case, however, these B sides were often psychedelic masterpieces that contrasted strongly with their hits. Chicken Little Was Right, the B side of She's My Girl, at first sounds like something you'd hear at a hootenanny, but then switches keys for a chorus featuring the Turtles' trademark harmonies, with a little bit of Peter And The Wolf thrown in for good measure. This capacity for self-parody would come to serve band members Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan well a few years later, first as members of the Mothers (performing Happy Together live at the Fillmore East) and then as the Phorescent Leach and Eddie (later shortened to Flo And Eddie).

Artist:    American Breed
Title:    It's Getting Harder
Source:    Mono CD: If You're Ready-The Best Of Dunwich Records...Volume Two 
Writer(s):    Larry Weiss
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    Recorded c. 1967, released 1993
    One of the bands that Bill Traut, head on Dunwich Records, was most enthusiastic about was a group originally known as Gary & The Knight Lites, a Chicago area cover band that Traut found "very malleable". Sometime around 1966 or '67 they changed their name to the American Breed and, with Traut producing, cut a tune called It's Getting Harder. The song (written by Larry Weiss, who would go on to write Rhinestone Cowboy for Glen Campbell) remained unreleased until 1993. Ironically, the American Breed ended up literally living up to Traut's description in 1968, when they scored their biggest hit with a song called Bend Me, Shape Me. Malleable indeed!

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Circle Sky
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Michael Nesmith
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1968
    A total departure from anything the Monkees had done before, Head, the group's first and only movie, was a commercial flop. The soundtrack album was equally ignored, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that it featured some of the group's most innovative and experimental recordings, such as Michael Nesmith's Circle Sky, a song that defies easy categorization (psychedelic bluegrass???). 

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Zilch
Source:    CD: Headquarters
Writer(s):    Jones/Nesmith/Tork/Dolenz
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1967
    From a creative standpoint, the highpoint of the Monkees' career as a band was the Headquarters album, which topped the album charts for one week in late spring of 1967 before being toppled by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Unlike the previous and subsequent Monkees albums, Headquarters featured a minimum of outside musicians, and was under the total creative control of the Monkees themselves, even to the hiring of Chip Douglas as producer. Although most of the tracks on Headquarters were penned by professional songwriters, a few were written by the band itself, including Zilch, which is sort of a spoken word version of a Round (except everyone is saying something different).

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Supplicio/Can You Dig It
Source:    LP: Head
Writer(s):    Peter Tork
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1968
    Peter Tork only received two solo writing credits for Monkees recordings. The first, and most familiar, was For Pete's Sake, which was released on the Headquarters album in 1967 and used as the closing theme for the second season of their TV series. The second Tork solo piece was the more experimental Can You Dig It used in the movie Head and included on the 1968 movie soundtrack album. Not long after Head was completed, Tork left the group, not to return until the 1980s, when MTV ran a Monkees TV series marathon, introducing the band to a whole new generation and prompting a reunion tour and album. Supplicio, which precedes Can You Dig It on the LP, is a short bit of uncredited electronics and vocal effects that lead into the Tork tune. 

Artist:    Audience
Title:    Banquet
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Audience)
Writer(s):    Werth/Williams
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1969
    By 1969 the British blues-rock craze was beginning to subside, and many of the musicians that had made up the core of the movement were moving off in different directions. Black Sabbath was going for a heavier sound, while Ian Anderson was finding ways of incorporating traditional English folk music into Jethro Tull's mixture. The members of the Lloyd Alexander Blues Band, like their better known counterparts from the Yardbirds, took an interest in the new progressive rock movement pioneered by bands like Procol Harum, and in 1969 some of those members formed Audience. Led by lead vocalist/acoustic guitarist Howard Werth and bassist/keyboardist Trevor Williams, Audience was unique in that they had no electric guitarist in the band, a direction that would be followed by Emerson, Lake and Palmer a couple of years later. The band also took a page from Traffic's book and included one member, Keith Gemmell, who played only wood instruments such as flute, clarinet and saxophone. The band, completed by drummer Tony Connor, made such an impression that Polydor records offered them a deal shortly after their first major gig. Banquet, from that 1969 debut LP, is a fairly representative example of what Audience was all about.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    All Along The Watchtower
Source:    CD: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them have become better known than the original Dylan versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself. 

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
Label:    Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year:    LP released 1967, single edit released 1968
    Time Has Come Today has one of the most convoluted histories of any song of the psychedelic era. First recorded in 1966 and released as a two-and-a-half minute single the song flopped. The following year an entirely new eleven minute version of the song was recorded for the album The Time Has Come, featuring an extended pyschedelic section filled with various studio effects. In late 1967 a three minute edited version of the song was released that left out virtually the entire psychedelic section of the recording. Soon after that, the single was pulled from the shelf and replaced by a longer edited version that included part of the psychedelic section. That version became a hit record in 1968, peaking just outside the top 10. This is actually a stereo recreation of that mono second edited version.

Artist:    Downliners Sect
Title:    Why Don't You Smile Now
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: The Rock Sect's In)
Writer(s):    Philips/Vance/Reed/Cale
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia UK)
Year:    1966
    The Downliners Sect was one of the more unusual British bands of the mid-sixties, with a penchant for choosing unconventional material to record. Their second LP, for instance, was made up of covers of songs originally recorded by US Country and Western artists. Their third LP, The Rock Sect's In, was (as the title implies) more of a straight rock album than their previous efforts. Still, they managed to find unique material to record, such as Why Don't You Smile Now, a song chosen from a stack of producers' demos from the US. Although nobody seems to know who Philips or Vance were, the Reed and Cale in the songwriting credits were none other than Lou and John, in a pre-Velvet Underground incarnation. 

Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    I'm Not Talking
Source:    British simulated stereo CD: Before The Dream Faded
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Cherry Red
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 1982
    The story of the legendary band the Misunderstood actually started in 1963 when three teenagers from Riverside, California decided to form a band called the Blue Notes. Like most of the bands at the time, the group played a mixture of surf and 50s rock and roll cover songs, slowly developing a sound of their own as they went through a series of personnel changes. In 1965 the band changed their name to the Misunderstood and recorded six songs at a local recording studio. Among those was I'm Not Talking, a blues tune in much the same style as the early Yardbirds recordings. Although the recordings were not released, the band caught the attention of a San Bernardino disc jockey named John Ravencroft, an Englishman with an extensive knowledge of the British music scene. In June of 1966 the band, with Ravencroft's help, relocated to London, where they were eventually joined by Ravencroft himself, who changed his name to John Peel and became perhaps the most well-known, and certainly the most influential, DJ in British radio history. The Misunderstood recorded six more songs in the UK, releasing a single in late 1966 before being deported back to the US (where one of the members was immediately drafted into military service) because of problems with their work visas.

Artist:    Nashville Teens
Title:    Tobacco Road
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    John D. Loudermilk
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:    Bob Dylan
Title:    It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Source:    Mono LP: Bringing It All Back Home
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1965
    One of the most covered of Bob Dylan's tunes, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue originally appeared on the LP: Bringing It All Back Home in March of 1965. There has been much speculation over the years as to the identity of the titular Baby Blue, with guesses ranging from Joan Baez to Dylan's own folk music phase. The album Bringing It All Back Home is known for Dylan's first use of electric instruments on his recordings, although the song It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, features only Dylan himself on vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonica, accompanied by bassist William E. Lee.