Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2603 (starts 1/12/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/603037 

    We're keeping it simple this week. First we rock out, then it gets mellow. When all is said and done it really is an Amazing Journey, even if it does start with a bit of Madness.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Madness/Kick Back Man
Source:    LP: Straight Shooter
Writer(s):    Troiano/Kenner
Label:    ABC
Year:    1972
    With the departure of Joe Walsh in 1971 the remaining members of the James Gang, drummer Jim Fox and bassist Dale Peters, were in a bit of a bind. Walsh had been the band's primary songwriter and vocalist, as well as lead guitarist, and the James Gang still had a record contract to fulfill. Meanwhile, in Toronto, a band called Bush (that had evolved from an earlier band called Mandala), found itself falling apart after releasing one album in 1970. As the two groups were kind of label mates (James Gang on ABC and Bush on ABC/Dunhill) it made sense for the primary songwriters of Bush, vocalist Roy Kenner and guitarist Dominic Troiano, to join Peters and Fox, keeping the better-known James Gang name. The first album released by the quartet was Straight Shooter, which came out in 1972. The LP opened with two songs that ran together as a single piece, Madness and Kick Back Man, both by Kenner and Troiano. This incarnation of the James Gang would release one more LP before Troiano left the group, eventually ending up back in Canada as a member of the Guess Who. The James Gang then recruited Tommy Bolin (formerly of Zephyr) as lead guitarist for their next two albums, with Kenner still on lead vocals for most of the songs. After even more personnel changes, the James Gang disbanded in 1977.

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

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Highway 61 Revisited
Source:    LP: Second Winter
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    As good as the original Bob Dylan version of Highway 61 Revisited is, most would agree that Johnny Winter has managed to do it even better, to the point of making it his own signature song. His first recorded version of the song was on his 1969 album Second Winter, which was actually his third LP, but his second for Columbia. About a third of the tracks on the three-sided album were cover tunes, but Highway 61 Revisited blows the rest of them out of the water.

Artist:    Wishbone Ash
Title:    Queen Of Torture
Source:    45 RPM single B side (originally released on LP: Wishbone Ash)
Writer:    Upton/Turner/Turner/Powell
Label:    Decca
Year:    1970
    One of the first bands to use dual lead guitars was Wishbone Ash. When the original guitarist of the band known as the Empty Vessels had to leave auditions were held, but the two remaining members, bassist Martin Turner and drummer Steve Upton, couldn't decide between the two finalists so they kept both of them, or so the story goes. Queen Of Torture, from their 1969 debut album, shows just how well the styles of guitarists Andy Powell and Ted Turner meshed.

Artist:    Zephyr
Title:    Going Back To Colorado
Source:    LP: Going Back To Colorado
Writer(s):    Bolin/Tesar/Givens
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Zephyr's second album, Going Back To Colorado, was different in several ways from their debut LP. The most obvious change was that the band was no longer on the ABC/Probe label, which had been shut down in 1970, and was now signed to Warner Brothers Records. Gone was original drummer Robbie Chamberlin, replaced by Bobby Berge. Additionally, a change from Wally Heider Studios in Los Angeles to Electric Lady Studios in New York gave the band the opportunity to work with engineer Eddie Kramer, but unfortunately for the band, Kramer was still in shock over the death of studio founder Jimi Hendrix at the time and was not at his best. Still, the album had its good points, such as the title track, but was a commercial disappointment. Guitarist Tommy Bolin left Zephyr shortly after the released of Going Back To Colorado, and the band went though several personnel changes of the next dozen years or so, finally disbanding following the death of lead vocalist Candy Givens in 1984.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Reeling In The Years
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
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. As such he 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, Little Feat and once even Deep Purple from the aformentioned Warner Brothers singles).

Artist:     Grand Funk
Title:     We're An American Band
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Don Brewer
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1973
     In 1972 I was the bass player/vocalist in a power trio that played a lot of Grand Funk Railroad, Black Sabbath and the like. Shortly after that band split up I started taking broadcasting classes from Tim Daniels, an Air Force Sergeant who had previously worked for the Armed Forces Vietnam Network (the same station that Adrian Cronauer worked at, although at that time nobody outside the military had ever heard of him). That led to my first regular airshift on the "Voice of Holloman", a closed-circuit station that was piped into the gym and bowling alley and some of the barracks at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico for about four hours a day. One of the hot new records that the station got promo copies of was We're An American Band, pressed on bright yellow translucent vinyl with the stereo version on one side and the mono mix on the other. I snagged one of the extra copies Capitol sent and have somehow managed to hang onto it over the years. 

Artist:    Frank Zappa
Title:    Don't Eat Yellow Snow/Nanook Rubs It/St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast/Father Oblivion
Source:    CD: Apostrophe (')
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Zappa (original label: Discreet)
Year:    1974
    Despite being one of the most prolific composer/performers of the 20th century, Frank Zappa only put three songs on the top 100 charts in his career. The first of these was an abbreviated version of Don't Eat Yellow Snow, the opening track on his 1974 LP Apostrophe ('). On the album itself the song segues directly into the next three tracks, Nanook Rubs It, St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast and the instrumental Father Oblivion to form the suite heard here. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Little Wing
Source:    LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Although it didn't have any hit singles on it, Axis: Bold As Love, the second album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was full of memorable tunes, including one of Hendrix's most covered songs, Little Wing. The album itself is a showcase for Hendrix's rapidly developing skills, both as a songwriter and in the studio. The actual production of the album was a true collaborative effort, combining Hendrix's creativity, engineer Eddie Kramer's expertise and producer Chas Chandler's strong sense of how a record should sound, acquired through years of recording experience as a member of the Animals. The result was nothing short of a masterpiece.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Serenade To A Cuckoo
Source:    CD: This Was
Writer(s):    Roland Kirk
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull did not, as a general rule, record cover tunes. The most notable exception is Roland Kirk's classic jazz piece Serenade To A Cuckoo, which was included on their first LP, This Was. For years, the Kirk version was out of print, making Jethro Tull's cover the only available version of this classic tune throughout the 1970s.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Amazing Journey
Source:    British Import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Tommy)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Polydor UK (original US label: Decca)
Year:    1969
    After achieving major success in their native England with a series of hit singles in 1965-67, the Who began to concentrate more on their albums from 1968 on. The first of these concept albums was The Who Sell Out, released in December of 1967. The Who Sell Out was a collection of songs connected by faux radio spots and actual jingles from England's most popular pirate radio station, Radio London. After releasing a few more singles in 1968, the Who began work on their most ambitious project yet: the world's first rock opera. Tommy, released in 1969, was a double LP telling the story of a boy who, after being tramautized into becoming a blind deaf-mute, eventually emerges as a kind of messiah, only to have his followers ultimately abandon him. One of the early tracks on the album is Amazing Journey, describing Tommy's voyage into the recesses of his own mind in response to the traumatic event that results in his "deaf, dumb and blind" condition.



 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2602 (starts 1/5/26)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/602033 

    This week we go Up In Her Room with the Seeds, and find a set of Byrds (none of which were written by Bob Dylan), along with an even longer set from Big Brother And The Holding Company. Also on the bill: our first taste of Art, and Rod Stewart sings an original blues tune, with Jeff Beck on guitar and Ronnie Wood on bass (move over Led Zeppelin). Oh yes, we have a Led Zeppelin song that's never been played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era thrown in as well. Plus lots of other goodies, starting with a Big Hit Single from the Monkees.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Pleasant Valley Sunday
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s (originally released on LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.)
Writer:    Goffin/King
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1967
    After making it a point to play their own instruments on their third LP, Headquarters, the Monkees decided to once again use studio musicians for their next album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD. The difference was that this time the studio musicians would be recording under the supervision of the Monkees themselves rather than Don Kirschner and the array of producers he had lined up for the first two Monkees LPs. The result was an album that many critics consider the group's best effort. The only single released from the album was Pleasant Valley Sunday, a song penned by the husband and wife team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and backed by the band's remake of the Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart song Words, which had been recorded the previous year by the Leaves. Although both songs ended up making the charts, it was Pleasant Valley Sunday that got the most airplay and is considered by many to be Monkees' greatest achievement.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Foxy Lady (live in studio)
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2018
    In November of 1967 the Jimi Hendrix Experience was still very much an underground phenomenon in the US. Their June appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival had introduced the band to an audience that numbered in the thousands, and their records were being played heavily on college radio, but for the most part mainstream America was still unaware of them. In Europe, however, it was an entirely different story. Jimi Hendrix was the hottest thing on the London scene by the time 1967 started; it wasn't long before the word spread to the continent about the outrageously talented guitarist with an equally outrageous stage presence. Most of that year was spent touring Europe, including stops at various TV and radio studios in several countries. One of these was in the Netherlands, where the Experience performed Foxy Lady live in the studio in November of 1967. The recording of this performance has surfaced as the non-album B side of the Lover Man single released (in limited quantity) for Record Store Day 2018. 

Artist:    Art
Title:    I Think I'm Going Weird
Source:    Mono British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird (box set) (originally released on LP: Supernatural Fairy Tales)
Writer(s):    Ridley/Grosvenor/Harrison/Kellie
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Island)
Year:    1967
    The V.I.P.'s were a popular British R&B band that, like many of their contemporaries, spent some time as the house band at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany. Upon their return to England in fall of 1966 they participated in a jam session that also included a newly-arrived American guitarist named Jimi Hendrix. It wasn't until the following spring, however that, precipitated by the departure of their keyboardist Keith Emerson to form the Nice, the remaining members of the V.I.P.s decided to change musical direction and embrace psychedelia, changing their name to Art in the process. The band, consisting of Mike Harrison, Greg Ridley, Luther Grosvenor and Mike Kellie, recorded one album in 1967 called Supernatural Fairy Tales before disbanding. Although the only single from that album was a cover of Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth (retitled What's That Sound), the opening track, I Think I'm Going Weird, is probably more representative of Art's sound. Later that year the four members of Art would form Spooky Tooth with American keyboardist/vocalist Gary Wright.

Artist:    Mike Stuart Span
Title:    Second Production
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution 
Writer(s):    Murphy/Bennett
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2013
    Like many British psychedelic bands, the Mike Stuart Span started off as part of the Mod scene, cutting a couple of British R&B flavored singles before changing directions in 1967. In October of that year, they recorded a demo of a tune called Second Production for the British Decca label, but the song went unreleased until the next century, when it was included on a CD collection called Love, Poetry And Revolution. The group ended up releasing a couple more singles before changing their name to Leviathan.

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

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label:    Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1965
    San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small (at the time) city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities were then, as now, considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was Count Five, a group of five individuals who chose to dress up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, capes and all. Musically, they idolized the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck era), and for slightly more than three minutes managed to sound more like their idols than the Yardbirds themselves (who by then had replaced Beck with Jimmy Page and had shifted musical gears).

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Am The Walrus
Source:    CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    I once ranked over 5000 recordings from the 1920s through the 1990s based on how many times I could listen to each track without getting sick of hearing it. My original intention was to continue the project until I had ranked every recording in my collection, but after about ten years of near-continuous listening to 90-minute cassette tapes that I would update weekly I finally decided that I needed a break, and never went back to it. As a result, many of my favorite recordings (especially album tracks) never got ranked. Of those that did, every song on the top 10 was from the years 1966-69, with the top five all being from 1967. Although I never returned to the project itself, the results I did get convinced me that I was indeed stuck in the psychedelic era, and within five years I had created a radio show inspired by the project. Not surprisingly, the number one recording on my list was I Am The Walrus, a track from the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour that is often considered the apex of British psychedelia.

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

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Eight Miles High
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s):    Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    Sony Music (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    Gene Clark's final contribution to the Byrds was his collaboration with David Crosby and Roger McGuinn, Eight Miles High. Despite a newsletter from the influential Gavin Report advising stations not to play this "drug song", Eight Miles High managed to hit the top 20 in 1966. The band members themselves claimed that Eight Miles High was not a drug song at all, but was instead referring to the experience of travelling by air. In fact, it was Gene Clark's fear of flying, especially long intercontinental trips, that in part led to his leaving the Byrds.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Mind Gardens
Source:    European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Younger Than Yesterday)
Writer:    David Crosby
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Mind Gardens is a perfect example of what songwriter David Crosby refers to as "one of those weird David Crosby songs". The song is a deliberate attempt at abandoning Western concepts such as chord progressions in favor of a more modal approach favored in Eastern composing. Roger McGuinn's guitar perfectly compliments Crosby's esoteric lyrics and melody on this track from the Younger Than Yesterday album, the last LP to be completed with Crosby as a full member of the Byrds. 

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

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Cheating
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Burdon/Chandler
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    As a general rule, the original Animals wrote very little of their own material, preferring to record covers of their favorite blues songs to supplement the songs from professional songwriters that producer Mickie Most picked for single release. One notable exception is Cheating, a strong effort from vocalist Eric Burdon and bassist Chas Chandler that appeared on the Animalization album. The hard-driving song was also chosen for release as a B side in 1966.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Rock And Roll Woman
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth) while they were together. Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock And Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 50 years after it was recorded.

Artist:    Jeff Beck
Title:    Blues De Luxe
Source:    LP: Truth
Writer(s):    Beck/Stewart
Label:    Epic
Year:    1968
    Although credited to guitarist Jeff Beck and vocalist Rod Stewart, B.B. King fans will recognize Blues De Luxe as a reworking of King's best-known tunes, Rock Me Baby, which had originally been released in 1966. After recording the song, which also features Ronnie Wood on bass and Micky Waller on drums, Beck overdubbed applause and other audience sounds from a sound effects disc. He later said it had been a bad decision. Nonetheless, when the first Led Zeppelin album came out the following year, at least one British critic was heard to say that the two slow blues tunes on that album paled by comparison to tracks like Blues De Luxe.

Artist:    Rainy Daze
Title:    Fe Fi Fo Fum (also issued as Blood Of Oblivion)
Source:    Mono LP: Highs In The Sixties Volume 18- Colorado (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Carter
Label:    AIP (original label: Uni)
Year:    1967
    Formed in Denver, Colorado in 1965, the Rainy Daze are best known for two things: the first was a single called  That Acapulco Gold that stalled out at the #70 spot on the Hot 100 when certain influential people realized it was a pro-marijuana song; the second is for being the origin of the songwriting team of Tim Gilbert and John Carter, who co-wrote all but one of the band's original compositions (although Carter was not a member of the band itself) and then went on to write for other bands such as the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Fe Fi Fo Fum was sent out to radio stations as a promo in July of 1967 and almost immediately withdrawn and retitled Blood Of Oblivion, retaining the same catalog number. Nobody seems to know why this was done.

Artist:     Led Zeppelin
Title:     Bron Y-Aur Stomp
Source:     German import LP: Led Zeppelin III
Writer:     Page/Plant/Jones
Label:     Atlantic
Year:     1970
     Although often regarded as the fathers of Heavy Metal, Led Zeppelin was actually capable of playing in a variety of styles. Evolving out of the standard-bearing band of the London blues scene (the Yardbirds), Led Zeppelin soon moved into uncharted territory, recording music that incorporated elements of both American and British folk music as well as rock. Much of the group's third LP (Bron Y-Aur Stomp in particular) sounds like it could have been written and performed in the heart of Appalachia.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Up In Her Room
Source:    LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer:    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    One of the first extended jams released on a rock album, Up In Her Room, from the Seeds' second LP, A Web Of Sound, is a sort of sequel to Van Morrison's Gloria (but only the original Them version; the secret of the Shadows Of Knight's success with the song was to replace the line "she comes up to my room" with "she comes around here").

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Mother's Little Helper
Source:    Mono CD: Flowers 
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in Spring of '66, is a scathing criticism of the abuse of legal prescription drugs by the parents of the Stones' fans. Perhaps more than any other song of the time, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    My Mind's Eye
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):    Marriott/Lane
Label:    Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year:    1965
    One of the biggest British hits of 1965 was All Or Nothing, a tune by the Small Faces that topped the charts that fall. In an effort to keep the band's chart momentum going in time for the Christmas rush, the shirts at Decca decided to release a rough demo of a Steve Marriott/Ronnie Lane composition called My Mind's Eye as a follow up. It turns out the band's manager, Don Arden, had given the label to go-ahead to release the song without the band's knowledge or permission, leading to the band's decision to leave both Arden and the Decca label early in 1966 to sign with Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham's new Immediate label. 

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Come On In
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Original Sound
Year:    1966
    It only cost a total of $150 for the Music Machine to record both sides of their debut single at RCA Studios in Los Angeles, thanks to the band having been performing the songs live for several months. The band then took the tapes to Original Sound, who issued Talk Talk and Come On In on their own label. It may seem odd now, but original promo copies of the record show Come On In, a song that in many ways anticipated bands like the Doors and Iron Butterfly, as the "plug side" of the record, rather than Talk Talk, which of course went on to become the Music Machine's only major hit. 

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

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Coo Coo
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Peter Albin
Label:    Mainstream
Year:    1968
    Like most of the bands in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s, Big Brother And The Holding Company had members who had already been part of the local folk music scene when they decided to go electric. Peter Albin, in particular, had established himself as a solo artist before joining the band, and, naturally, brought some of his repertoire with him. Perhaps the most popular of these tunes was a song called Coo Coo (aka The Cuckoo), an old British folk tune that had also been in circulation under the title Jack Of Diamonds. Although there are existing recordings of the song prior to the Big Brother version, Albin took full credit for the tune, possibly due to his providing almost all new lyrics for the track. Coo Coo, recorded in Chicago in 1966, was not included on the group's first LP for Mainstream, instead being issued as a single in early 1968, around the same time Columbia Records was negotiating a buyout of Big Brother's contract with Mainstream. A reworked version of the tune with yet another set of new lyrics and a new musical bridge appeared later the same year on the band's Columbia debut LP, Cheap Thrills,  under the title Oh, Sweet Mary. Coo Coo itself was later included on Columbia's reissue of the band's Mainstream LP.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Ball And Chain
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Willie Mae Thornton
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    Big Brother And The Holding Company electrified the crowd at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 with their performance of Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Ball And Chain. The rest of the world, however, would have to wait until the following year to hear Janis Joplin's version of the old blues tune, when a live performance recorded at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium was included on the LP Cheap Thrills.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Colors For Susan
Source:    LP: I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die
Writer:    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    The second Country Joe And The Fish album, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die, was, like the band's debut LP, made up of equal parts acid-rock, jug band and what would come to be known as "rock and soul" music. The most acid-rock sounding track on the album is the instrumental Colors For Susan, which is kind of like Bass Strings minus the lyrics. Like many of McDonald's songs from that period, Colors For Susan was inspired by someone he knew personally, in this case flautist Susan Graubard of Pat Kilroy's group The New Age.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Let Me In (original uncensored version)
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Balin/Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1966
    Not long after the first copies of Jefferson Airplane Takes Off hit the streets of San Francisco, the Shirts at RCA Victor told the band to go back to the studio and change the lyrics on two of the album's songs. The biggest changes were made to Let Me In, the first song that featured Paul Kantner rather than Marty Balin on lead vocals. Arguing that the original lyrics were too sexually suggestive for a teen-oriented audience, Balin and Kantner changed the line " I gotta get in, you know where" to "You shut your door, now it ain't fair". In addition, the line "Don't tell me you want money" was changed to  "Don't tell me it's so funny" because, according to the Shirts, the original version could be interpreted as a reference to prostitution. As an aside, I did a search for both sets of lyrics on the internet, but the only ones that showed up were billed as the "original uncensored" lyrics, yet in every case were actually the revised ones. Explain that one to me!

 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2602 (starts 1/5/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/602032

    This time around we start in 1976, the year it all began to break down, and slowly make our way back to 1967, where we discover it was just castles made of sand all along. For our last few minutes we shift gears and check out some singles from artists we don't often hear from on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, followed by an instrumental from the band that created arena rock.

Artist:    Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
Title:    Breakdown
Source:    LP: Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
Writer(s):    Tom Petty
Label:    MCA (original label: Shelter)
Year:    1976
    Just about everyone knows thatTom Petty was one of the most popular rock stars of the 1980s and beyond, but few realize that he released his debut single, Breakdown, in November of 1976, and was considered part of the punk/new wave movement at the time. It took over a year for his debut LP with the Heartbreakers to catch on in the US, but once it did it became obvious that Petty actually had little in common with bands like the Ramones or Sex Pistols. In fact, he was often compared to the Byrds, as well as early Rolling Stones. Breakdown itself is a bit of a departure from the rest of the album, but nonetheless has become a staple of classic rock radio.

Artist:    Tommy Bolin
Title:    Homeward Strut
Source:    Japanese import CD: Teaser
Writer(s):    Bolin/Cook/Sheldon/Tesar
Label:    Sony (original US label: Nemperor)
Year:    1975
    Although Tommy Bolin, as a new member of Deep Purple in 1975, did not have the opportunity to properly promote his new album, Teaser, the album itself contains many fine tracks such as the instrumental Homeward Strut. Unfortunately, my copy of Teaser is a Japanese import, with liner notes entirely in Japanese, which of course I don't read or speak. So, even though I'm sure there's some interesting stuff in there, I can't share it with you. 

Artist:    Rick Derringer
Title:    Rock And Roll, Hoochie Coo
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Rick Derringer
Label:    Blue Sky
Year:    1974
    In the summer of 1965, 17-year-old Rick Derringer and his band the McCoys were hired to open for the Strangeloves, a group of New York songwriting record producers who were passing themselves off as the sons of Australian sheepherders and had a hit single out called I Want Candy. Not wanting to be the Strangeloves forever, they were already looking for an actual band to perform a new song they had written called My Girl Sloopy. After the show they asked Derringer if he might be interested in providing vocals and guitar parts for My Girl Sloopy. After convincing them to change the title to Hang On Sloopy, Derringer agreed, and the record was credited to the McCoys, despite the fact that the backing tracks had already been recorded by studio musicians. Although the song was a #1 hit worldwide (and is still a standard on oldies stations) it became a bit of an albatross for the band later in the decade, when the McCoys were trying to establish themselves as a serious rock band. In 1970, minus their keyboardist, they teamed up with blues guitarist Johnny Winter to become Johnny Winter And (originally intended to be Johnny Winter And The McCoys). The album, released in September, included four songs written by Derringer. According to Derringer, "The first song I wrote for Johnny was 'Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo'. 'Rock and Roll' to satisfy the rock 'n' roll that I was supposed to be bringing into the picture, and 'Hoochie Koo' to satisfy the king of blues sensibility that Johnny was supposed to maintain." The song was later re-recorded for Derringer's 1973 debut solo LP All American Boy and became Derringer's only top 40 hit in early 1974, peaking at #23.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Natural Thing
Source:    CD: The Captain And Me
Writer(s):    Tom Johnston
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    The Doobie Brothers' producer, Ted Templeman, brought in synth programmers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff to engineer Natural Thing, the opening track of the band's third LP, The Captain And Me. Synthesizer technology being what it was in 1973, the two overdubbed individual notes to create chords for the Tom Johnston tune.

Artist:    Yes
Title:    Yours Is No Disgrace
Source:    CD: The Yes Album
Writer(s):    Anderson/Squire/Howe/Kaye/Bruford
Label:    Elektra/Rhino (original label: Atlantic)
Year:    1971
    1970 was a transition year for the progressive rock band known as Yes. Their first two albums, Yes and Time And A Word, had not sold well, and their label, Atlantic, was considering dropping them from their roster. Internally, creative differences between guitarist Peter Banks and the rest of the band led to Banks leaving the group, eventually forming his own band, Flash. The remaining members quickly recruited Steve Howe, who was making a name for himself as a studio musician following the breakup of Tomorrow a couple of years earlier. Howe proved to be a more than suitable replacement, as his versatility served the band's experimental style well. With Howe firmly in place, the group got to work on their third LP, The Yes Album. Unlike Yes's previous albums, which had each included a pair of highly rearranged cover songs (following a pattern set by such bands as Vanilla Fudge and Deep Purple), The Yes Album was made up entirely of original material, mostly written by vocalist Jon Anderson and bassist Chris Squire. Yours Is No Disgrace, however, which opens the album, is credited to the entire band, and gives each member a chance to shine without detracting from the band as a whole. The membership of Yes would continue to fluctuate, however, with keyboardist Tony Kaye, who did not share the rest of the band's enthusiam for the new synthesizers hitting the market, leaving shortly after the album was released, and drummer Bill Bruford following suit following the release of the band's fifth album, Close To The Edge. Eventually even Anderson and Squire would depart the group, leaving Steve Howe currently at the helm of a band containing none of its original members.     

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Working On The Road
Source:    CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:    1970
    Following their successful appearance at Woodstock, Ten Years After returned to the studio to record their fifth LP, Cricklewood Green. The album itself is considered by many critics to be their finest effort, with songs like Working On The Road showing how far Alvin Lee's songwriting had come in the three years since the band's 1967 debut LP.

Artist:    Neil Young
Title:    Sugar Mountain
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968,1970,1971,1972,1976,1977,1978
    Neil Young must have been pretty fond of Sugar Mountain. Written on his 19th birthday, Young first recorded the song as a demo in December of 1965. He recorded a live performance of the song in Ann Arbor, Michigan on November 10, 1968 and released it as the B side of the Loner, his first single as a solo artist, the following month. And again as the B side of Cinnamon Girl in 1970. And the B side of When You Dance I Can Really Love in 1971. And the B side of Heart Of Gold in 1972. And as the B side of Lookin' For A Love in 1976. Sugar Mountain was not made available as an LP track until 1977, when it was included on Young's compilation album, Decade. It was subsequently released on a single for the sixth and final time in January of 1978, this time (finally) as the A side of a single promoting the Decade album itself.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Sandy's Blues
Source:    British import CD: Living The Blues
Writer(s):    Bob Hite
Label:    BGO (original US label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Generally considered the high point of Canned Heat's career, the 1968 double-LP Living The Blues is best known for the inclusion of Refried Boogie, the centerpiece of the band's live performances. In addition to the 41-minute track that takes up two entire sides of the album, there were several studio tracks as well, such as Sandy's Blues, a traditional slow blues progression, complete with spoken word section, written by vocalist Robert (the Bear) Hite. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Castles Made Of Sand
Source:    LP: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/MCA
Year:    1967
    When I was a junior in high school I used to fall asleep on the living room couch with the headphones on, usually listening to pre-recorded tapes of either the Beatles' Revolver album or one of the first two albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One song in particular from the second Hendrix album, Axis: Bold As Love, always gave me a chill when I heard it: Castles Made Of Sand. The song serves as a warning not to put too much faith in your dreams, either good or bad.

Artist:    Roxy Music
Title:    Love Is The Drug
Source:    45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s):    Ferry/Mackay
Label:    Atco
Year:    1975
    Roxy Music is considered one of the most influential bands in British rock history, racking up no less than 10 singles in the UK top 10 over the 10 year period from 1972 to 1982. All of their albums made the top 10 in the UK as well. In the US, however, they were far less successful, getting most of their airplay from college radio rather than commercial rock stations. They did manage to break into the US top 40 with the 1975 song Love Is The Drug, which peaked at #30 in early 1976.

Artist:    Curtis Mayfield
Title:    Superfly
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Curtis Mayfield
Label:    Curtom
Year:    1972
    Although his original group, The Impressions, made some inroads on the top 40 charts (in addition to being a strong presence on the R&B charts) throughout the 1960s, it was as a solo artist in the early 1970s that Curtis Mayfield had his greatest commercial success. His soundtrack for the film Superfly is considered some of the finest music to come out of the funk era. The album produced two top 10 singles, Freddie's Dead and the film's title track, which peaked at #8. 

Artist:    Wet Willie
Title:    Soul Jones
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Hall/Hall/Hirsch/Anthony/Ross
Label:    Capricorn
Year:    1974
    Wet Willie has always been a bit of an outlier among Southern rock bands. Consisting of the Hall brothers Jimmy (vocals, saxophone, harmonica) and Jack (bass), John David Anthony (keyboards), Ricky Hirsch (guitar) and Lesis Ross (drums), Wet Willie has always incorporated elements of R&B into their music, which can plainly be heard on songs like Soul Jones, the B side of their 1974 top 10 single Keep On Smilin'. Originally known as Fox, Wet Willie was formed in Mobile, Alabama in 1969, and relocated to Macon, Georgia in 1971 where they signed with Phil Walden's Capricorn label, releasing several singles and albums over the next few years. The group still performs occasionally as either Wet Willie or the Wet Willie Band, depending on whether Jimmy Hall is onstage. 

Artist:    Grand Funk Railroad
Title:    Footstompin' Music
Source:    45 RPM single (taken from LP: E Pluribus Funk)
Writer(s):    Mark Farner
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1971
    By late 1971 tensions between the members of Grand Funk Railroad and their manager/producer Terry Knight were coming to a head. Somehow, though, they managed to put together one last album before the band fired Knight, leading to a protracted legal battle that ultimately saw Knight getting exclusive rights to all Grand Funk Railroad recordings made before 1972. The album itself, E Pluribus Funk, only took a week to record, and is best known for the fact that the album cover itself was round rather than square, and was designed to look like a huge silver coin, with the faces of the three band members on the front cover and Shea Stadium, where the band had recently broken the Beatles' record by selling out all the seats in just 72 hours, on the flip side.
Even though Grand Funk Railroad was known primarily as a live act first and album-oriented rock band second, all but one of the songs on E Plurubus Funk were released on 45 RPM vinyl as well, although only the album's opening track, Footstompin' Music, was able to crack the top 40.
 

 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2601 (starts 12/29/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/601228

    After two weeks of, shall we say, unusual programming, we get back to basics this time around with an all-new Advanced Psych segment and a mixture of old favorites with a handful of tunes that haven't been heard on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era before.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Rain
Source:    CD: Past Masters-volume two (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    The Beatles' B side to their 1966 hit Paperback Writer was innovative in more than one way. First off, the original instrumental tracks were actually recorded at a faster speed (and higher key) than is heard on the finished recording. Also, it is the first Beatles record to feature backwards masking (John Lennon's overdubbed vocals toward the end of the song were recorded with the tape playing in reverse). Needless to say, both techniques were soon copied and expanded upon by other artists.

Artist:      Richard And The Young Lions
Title:     Open Up Your Door
Source:      Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Brown/Abounader/Bloodworth
Label:    Rhino (original label: Philips)
Year:     1966
     Open Up Your Door, despite sounding like a garage band from New Jersey, was actually a studio creation produced by Bob Crewe, who was the guiding force behind the highly successful 4 Seasons vocal group. Howie Tepp was the lead vocalist of a Newark, NJ band called the Original Counts, who had a chance encounter with Larry Brown, one of Crewe's staff songwriters. Brown saw potential in Tepp, but felt that his band was too young and inexperienced to go into the studio, so he had Tepp record Open Up Your Door backed by studio musicians. The record was released under the name Richard And The Young Lions. Although it failed to make an impression locally, it did hit the top 10 in Detroit and other places, which in turn led to gigs in the midwest opening for the Yardbirds, among others. Subsequent records failed to chart, however, and Richard And The Young Lions joined the ranks of one almost-hit wonders. 

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Fire Engine
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s):    Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    In the summer of 1971 the band I was in, Sunn, did a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs as part of our regular repertoire. For the siren effect at the beginning of the song we used our voices, which always elicited smiles from some of the more perceptive members of the audience. Listening to Fire Engine, from The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators, has the same effect on me, for pretty much the same reason. The main difference is that the Elevators actually did it with the tape rolling on one of their own original songs, something Sunn never got the opportunity to do. 

Artist:    John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    Mono British import 45 RPM EP: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
Writer(s):    John Mayall
Label:    R&B
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2016
    John Mayall's Bluesbreakers included several talented musicians over the years, many of whom went on to become stars in their own right. Not every Bluesbreakers lineup saw the inside of a recording studio, however. In fact, the only known recording of Mayall's Little Girl, which includes Eric Clapton on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass and Hughie Flint on drums, is from a live radio broadcast in 1966 (possibly on one of the many pirate radio stations operating off the coast of England at the time). The recording sat on the shelf for 50 years, suffering some degradation before finally being released on a four song EP in the UK in 2016. 

Artist:    Aretha Franklin
Title:    Respect
Source:    Mono CD: Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947-1974 Volume 6: 1966-1969 (orginally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Otis Redding
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1967
    So much has been written about Aretha Franklin's version of Respect, I really have nothing to add. Well, except to repeat the story that Otis Redding supposedly stole the song from Speedo Sims, who in turn had stolen it from an unnamed guitarist at Bobby Smith's recording studio in Macon, Georgia. 

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     No Expectations
Source:     CD: Beggar's Banquet
Writer:     Jagger/Richards
Label:     Abkco (original label: London)
Year:     1968
     After the heavy dose of studio effects on Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones took a back-to-basics approach for their next album, Beggar's Banquet, the first to be produced by Jimmy Miller (who had previously worked with Steve Winwood in Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group). No Expectations, the second track on the album, uses minimal instrumentation and places a greater emphasis on Mick Jagger's vocals and Brian Jones's slide guitar work. Sadly, it was to be Jones's last album as a member of the Rolling Stones, as heavy drug use was already taking its toll (and would soon take his life as well).

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:    1969
    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:    Full Tilt Boogie Band
Title:    Pearl
Source:    CD: The Pearl Sessions (originally released on CD: Pearl-Legacy Edition)
Writer(s):    Full Tilt Boogie Band
Label:    Columbia
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 2005
    The Full Tillt Boogie Band was formed in the late 60s as a side project by New York studio guitarist John Till. All the members, including Till, pianist Richard Bell, bassist Brad Campbell, drummer Clark Pierson, and organist Ken Pearson were Canadian citizens, mostly hailing from the province of Ontario. In 1969, Till, along with several other studio musicians, were tapped to become Janis Joplin's Kozmic Blues Band, backing up the vocalist on her solo debut album. Joplin, however, was not entirely comfortable with all the members of this new band, and after the album itself got mostly negative reviews from critics and fans alike, Joplin decided to disband the group, keeping only Till. Till then convinced her to use the Full Tilt Boogie Band (dropped the second "L" in Tillt) for her next album. The new combo started touring in the spring of 1970, beginning work on the album itself that September. On October 4, 1970, the band recorded the backing track for the final song to be recorded for the album, A Nick Gravenites tune called Buried Alive In The Blues. That night Janis Joplin died from a lethal dose of heroin and alcohol. Six days later the band reconvened to put the finishing touches on the existing tracks, but soon found themselves breaking into a slow, somber jam that lasted close to fifteen minutes. They called the piece Pearl, after the nickname they had given her, and after editing it down to four and a half minutes assigned it a matrix number for potential release. Ultimately, the piece was shelved indefinitely, and the name Pearl was given to the album itself. The song was finally released in 2005 on the Legacy Edition of the Pearl album.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village. It was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 and went all the way to the # 3 spot on the British top 40. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. Although Rose always claimed that Hey Joe was a traditional folk song, the song was actually copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts. By the time Hendrix recorded Hey Joe several American bands had recorded a fast version of the song, with the Leaves hitting the US top 40 with it in early 1966.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label:    Elektra (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1966
    San Jose, California, was home to one of the most vibrant local music scenes in the late 60s, despite its relatively  small, pre-silicon valley population. One of the most popular bands on that scene was Count Five, a group of five guys who dressed like Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sounded like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds. Fortunately for Count Five, Jeff Beck had just left the Yardbirds when Psychotic Reaction came out, leaving a hole that the boys from San Jose were more than happy to fill.
    
Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    I Can Take You To The Sun
Source:    British import CD: Before The Dream Faded (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hill/Brown
Label:    Cherry Red (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1966
    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. 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 arguably the most famous DJ in the history of British rock radio. Ravencroft's brother Alan got the band a deal with Fontana Records, resulting in a single in late 1966, I Can Take You To The Sun, that took the British pop scene by storm. Problems having nothing to do with music soon derailed the Misunderstood, who found themselves being deported back to the US, and in one case, drafted into the US Army. 

Artist:    Easybeats
Title:        Friday On My Mind
Source:    Mono CD: Battle Of The Bands-Vol. Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Era (original label: United Artists)
Year:        1966
       Considered by many to be the "greatest Australian song" ever recorded, the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, released in late 1966, certainly was the first (and for many years only) major international hit by a band from the island continent. Technically, however, Friday On My Mind is not an Australian song at all, since it was recorded after the band had relocated to London. The group continued to release records for the next year or two, but were never able to duplicate the success of Friday On My Mind. Ultimately vocalist Stevie Wright returned to Australia, where he had a successful solo career. Guitarists Harry Vanda and George Young, who had written Friday On My Mind, also returned home to form a band called Flash And The Pan in the early 1970s. Later in the decade Young would help launch the careers of his two younger brothers, Angus and Malcolm, in their own band, AC/DC. 

Artist:     Troggs
Title:     Wild Thing
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Chip Taylor
Label:     Atco
Year:     1966
    Due to a bit of confusion about distribution rights, the Troggs' Wild Thing came out on two different competing labels in the US, but with different B sides. How that came about is beyond me.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Gloria
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Gloria)
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    For some reason I don't quite understand, I never paid much attention to current trends in popular entertainment other than as an outside observer. For example, when everyone else in my generation was tuned into the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, I was happily watching Car 54 Where Are You on a rival network. The same applies to the radio stations I listened to. KIMN was, by far, Denver's most popular top 40 station, yet I always managed to find myself listening to their rivals: first KDAB (until a flood took them off the air permanently), and then KBTR. For a short time in late 1966, however, KIMN had no rivals (KBTR had switched to an all-news format and KLZ-FM was still spending most of its broadcast day simulcasting the programming of its middle-of-the-road AM station). As a result, I found myself following KIMN's New Year's countdown of the year's top songs, which included a handful of tunes that I had never heard before. The highest ranked of these unfamiliar songs was one that immediately grabbed me: Gloria, as recorded by a Chicago area band called the Shadows Of Knight. It would be years before I even knew that this was actually a cover version of a song that had been released by Van Morrison's band, Them, but that had been banned in most US markets the previous year. All I knew is that it was a cool tune that would be one of the first songs I learned to play when I switched from violin to guitar the following summer.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Take It As It Comes
Source:    LP: The Doors
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's hottest bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing songs like Take It As It Comes. One evening in early August Jack Holzman, president of Elektra Records, and producer Paul Rothchild were among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who with his band Love was already recording for Elektra). After hearing two sets Holzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors only the second rock band to record for Elektra (although the Butterfield Blues Band is considered by some to be the first, predating Love by several months). By the end of the month the Doors were in the studio recording songs like Take It As It Comes for their debut LP, which was released in January of 1967.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    I Can Hear The Grass Grow
Source:    LP: Nuggets vol. 11- Pop part four (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s):    Roy Wood
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1968
    After their second LP, Electric Comic Book, made the top 10 on the Billboard albums chart the Blues Magoos had enough clout to start producing their own music. Their original producers, Art Polhemus and Bob Wyld, were not giving up their most successful clients without a fight, however, and ended up producing four of the 13 tracks on the 1968 album Basic Blues Magoos. It was probably not a coincidence that these included all three singles released from the album, including a cover version of the Move's I Can Hear The Grass Grow. All three singles, as well as the album itself, failed to chart, leading to the band changing membership, record labels and musical direction within a year.

Artist:    Tales Of Justine
Title:    Monday Morning
Source:    Mono British import CD: Psychedelia At Abbey Road (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    David Daltrey
Label:    EMI (original label: His Master's Voice)
Year:    1967
    Tales Of Justine started off in 1965 as the Court Jesters, an instrumental trio consisting of Paul Myerson on guitar, Chris Woodisse on bass, and Paul Hurford on drums. The lineup was completed with the addition of multi-instrumentalist David Daltrey, a cousin of the Who's Roger Daltrey, on lead vocals. Two years later the band signed with EMI, largely due to support from trainee producer Tim Rice and arranger Andrew Lloyd Webber, who helped the band with their debut single. Rice soon departed company with EMI and the band did not release any more records. Rice and Webber, however, went on to greater fame with their rock musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph And The AmazingTechnicolor Dreamcoat, the second of which starred Daltrey himself.

Artist:     Barry McGuire
Title:     Eve of Destruction
Source:     45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer:     P.F. Sloan
Label:     MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1965
     P.F. Sloan had already established a reputation for writing songs that captured the anger of youth by the time he wrote Eve Of Destruction, which Barry McGuire took into the top 10 in 1965. It would be McGuire's only major hit, and represented folk-rock at the peak of its popularity. Sloan, on the other hand, would tone it down a bit after forming a songwriting/producing partnership with Steve Barri. The two came up with the idea for a band called the Grass Roots to record their songs and then set about finding musicians pliable enough to make that idea a reality. After a false start or two they succeeded. 

Artist:    Petals
Title:    Dreamtime
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Kern/Wolf
Label:    November Rain
Year:    1989
    A few weeks ago I received a package from Cary Wolf of the Petals containing all of that band's early singles, most of which preceded the release of their first LP in 1992. The earliest of these was Just Another Flower Song, released in 1989. The flip side of that single was Dreamtime, a tune co-written by keyboardist Laurie Kern, who also sings on the tune.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    49 Songs
Source:    CD: California
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    PruneTwang
Year:    2004
    Having finally had the opportunity to record "the third album we never got to make", the members of the reunited Electric Prunes got to work on an album built around the members' own memories of the Summer of Love, "a time when people still believed you could find gold in California". I usually don't pay all that much attention to lyrics, but it's hard not to smile when you hear 49 Songs, with its story of a musician who lost his pants in France. 

Artist:    Chesterfield Kings
Title:    Next One In Line
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Babiuk/Prevost
Label:    Mirror
Year:    1987
    Formed in the late 1970s in Rochester, NY, the Chesterfield Kings (named for an old brand of unfiltered cigarettes that my grandfather used to smoke) were instrumental in setting off the garage band revival of the 1980s. Their earliest records were basically a recreation of the mid-60s garage sound, although by the time their 1987 album, Don't Open Til Doomsday, was released they had gone through some personnel changes that resulted in a harder-edged sound on songs like Look Around. Between 1982 and 1997 the Kings released seven LPs on the Mirror label affiliated with the House Of Guitars, along with several singles. The last of these had an original tune, Next One In Line, on the A side backed by two cover songs, Talk Talk and You Drive Me Nervous, making it almost an EP.  

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1966
     If ever a song could be considered a garage-punk anthem, it's Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, the follow-up single to the classic Dirty Water. Both songs were written by Standells' manager/producer Ed Cobb, who might be considered the record industry's answer to Ed Wood.

Artist:    What's Left
Title:    Girl Said No
Source:    Mono German import LP: Sixties Rebellion Vol. 5: The Cave (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Tony Montalbano
Label:    Way Back (original US label: Capri)
Year:    1966
    When it comes to obscurity, What's Left may well be the all-time champion. From what I can tell, they were from the Houston area, since their only single was recorded in Pasadena, Texas, a Houston suburb, and released on a label located in Conroe, about 15 miles north of Houston. Both sides of the single were written by a Tony Montalbano. At first I thought this might be the drummer from San Jose, California,, as the song starts with thundering tom-toms, but am now convinced it was Tony A. Montalbano, whose obituary appeared in the Houston Chronicle in May of 2005. This Tony Montalbano had been a member of a group called the Saints in the mid-1950s and was credited with writing both gospel and pop songs for a variety of artists. Whether someone who wrote gospel songs could have also penned the punkish Girl Said No is subject for speculation.

Artist:     Knickerbockers
Title:     One Track Mind
Source:     Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Linda and Keith Colley
Label:     Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year:     1966
     After successfully fooling many people into thinking that they were the Beatles recording under a different name with their 1965 hit Lies, the Los Angeles-based Knickerbockers went with a more R&B flavored rocker, One Track Mind, for their 1966 follow up single. 
    
Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Uncle John's Band
Source:    CD: Skeletons From The Closet (originally released on LP: Workingman's Dead)
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    For many people who only got their music from commercial radio, Uncle John's Band was the first Grateful Dead song they ever heard. The tune, from the 1970 LP Workingman's Dead, was the first Dead song to crack the top 100, peaking at #69, and got significant airplay on FM rock radio stations as well. The close harmonies on the track were reportedly inspired by Crosby, Stills and Nash, whose debut album had come out the previous year. 

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young
Title:    Woodstock
Source:    LP: So Far (originally released on LP: déjà vu)
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    It's somewhat ironic that the most famous song about the Woodstock Music and Art Festival was written by someone who was not even at the event. Joni Mitchell had been advised by her manager that she would be better off appearing on the Dick Cavett show that weekend, so she stayed in her New York City hotel room and watched televised reports of what was going on up at Max Yasgur's farm. Further inspiration came from her then-boyfried Graham Nash, who shared his firsthand experiences of the festival with Mitchell. The song was first released on the 1970 album Ladies Of The Canyon, and was made famous the same year when it was chosen to be the first single released from the Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young album déjà vu. The CSNY version peaked just outside of the Billboard top 10.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Hippo Stomp
Source:    LP: Rest In Peace (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf 7)
Writer(s):    Kay/Byrom
Label:    Dunhill/ABC
Year:    1970
    Steppenwolf had gone through a series of lineup changes by the time they released the album Steppenwolf 7 in November of 1970. Bassist Rushton Moreve, who co-wrote one of their biggest hits, Magic Carpet Ride, had been fired for not showing up for gigs in Los Angeles after his girlfriend convinced him that California was about the experience "the big one". His replacement, Nick St. Nicholas, was in turn fired for his outrageous stage attire (including one legendary gig in which he appeared wearing only rabbit ears and a jock strap). Michael Monarch, the band's lead guitarist, had left because of personality conflicts with John Kay. His replacement, Larry Byrom, would leave before work began on the band's next album due to conflicts with keyboardist Goldy McJohn, but not before co-writing several tunes for Steppenwolf 7, including the album's final track, Hippo Stomp. Steppenwolf's next album, For Ladies Only, would be their last before the group disbanded, temporarily as it turned out.

Artist:    Blood, Sweat & Tears
Title:    The Battle
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Katz/Halligan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    One of the more overlooked vocalist/guitarists in rock history is Steve Katz. Already an established member of the Greenwich Village folk community in 1965, Katz was working as a guitar teacher when he auditioned to become a temporary fill-in rhythm guitarist for the Danny Kalb Group. The position became permanent before the band changed its name to the Blues Project, making Katz a founding member of that legendary group. When the Blues Project broke up following a sub-par performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival, Katz, along with Al Kooper (who had left the group prior to that performance), bassist Jim Fielder and drummer Bobby Colomby, worked up a set of tunes for a benefit concert to raise money for Kooper to move to London. When the concert failed to raise enough cash for even a single plane ticket, the group, which had added Fred Lisius on alto sax, decided to stay together and form a new band called Blood, Sweat & Tears. Kooper would leave the band after their first album, but Katz remained a member of the group for the next five years. Katz's tenure as lead guitarist in Blood, Sweat & Tears was much like George Harrison's in the Beatles. He generally got to write and sing on one song per album, such as The Battle, from Blood, Sweat & Tears 3, which was also issued as the B side of the hit single Hi-De-Ho. In 1972 Katz met Lou Reed, and ended up producing his two most successful albums, Sally Can't Dance and Rock 'n' Roll Animal. Katz would go on to become a record company executive, including a stint as managing director of Green Linnet Records, producing traditional Irish music for an American audience. Katz eventually left the music business to become a professional photographer.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Bald Headed Woman
Source:    LP: You Really Got Me
Writer(s):    Shel Talmy
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1964
    Although it was a traditional American blues song dating back at least to the earliest part of the 20th century, British record producer Shel Talmy took advantage of copyright laws (the song being in the public domain) to claim writing credit for Bald Headed Woman not once, but twice, in order to collect royalties on the song. The first time was in 1964, when he persuaded the Kinks to include the song on their debut LP. Later that same year Talmy did the same thing with the Who, with the song appearing as the B side of their first top 10 single, I Can't Explain.

Artist:    Hysterics
Title:    Everything's There
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    David Donaghue
Label:    Rhino (original label: Bing)
Year:    1965
    Much as San Jose, California had its own thriving teen-oriented music scene within the greater San Francisco media market, the San Bernardino/Riverside area of Southern California, sometimes called the Inland Empire, was home to several local bands that were able to score recording contracts with various small labels in the area. Among those were the Hysterics, who recorded four songs for two separate labels in 1965. The best of those was Everything's There, which appeared as the B side of the second single issued by the band. At some point, Everything's There was reissued (along with the A side of the first record, That's All She Wrote) on yet a third label, but this time credited to the Love Ins. According to lead vocalist Don Dismukes, this was done without the knowledge or permission of the band itself. Such was the state of the indy record business in 1965.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Signed D.C.
Source:    German import CD: Love
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Warner Strategic Marketing
Year:    1966
    The only acoustic track on the first Love album was Signed D.C., a slow ballad in the tradition of House of the Rising Sun. The song takes the form of a letter penned by a heroin addict, and the imagery is both stark and disturbing. Although Lee was known to occasionally say otherwise, the song title probably refers to Love's original drummer Don Conka, who left the band before their first recording sessions due to (you guessed it) heroin addiction.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Janis
Source:    LP: The Life And Times Of Country Joe And The Fish (originally released on LP: I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die)
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967 
    It is not well-known (yet hardly a secret, either) that in early 1967, Country Joe McDonald and Janis Joplin had a live-in relationship. As might be expected given the strong personalities involved, the affair didn't last long, but apparently had a profound enough effect on McDonald that he wrote a song about it. That song, Janis, appears on the second Country Joe And The Fish LP, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    If You Feel
Source:    CD: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s):    Blackman/Balin
Label:    BMG/RCA
Year:    1968
    Although Marty Balin's contributions as a songwriter to Jefferson Airplane's third album, After Bathing At Baxter's, were minimal (he co-wrote one song), he was back in full force on the band's next LP, Crown Of Creation. One of his lesser-known songs on the album is If You Feel, co-written with non-member Gary Blackman, which opened side two of the LP.
 

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2601 (starts 12/29/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/601223

    Although on first glance it may seem that     all the song titles in the first set (and part of the second) have some sort of subliminal messaging going on, really it's just a lot of good music.

Artist:    Three Dog Night
Title:    Liar
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Russ Ballard
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1971
    Before the Beatles came along a typical pop group consisted of three or more vocalists backed by studio musicians and performing material provided by professional songwriters. In a sense Three Dog Night was a throwback to that earlier model, as the group was formed around a nucleus of three vocalists: Chuck Negron, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton. Unlike the early 60s groups, however, Three Dog Night chose to hire a fixed set of instrumentalists to both play on their records and perform live material (most of which did indeed come from professional songwriters). One of their many hit singles was Liar, a song written by Argent's lead vocalist Russ Ballard and originally released on that group's 1970 debut LP. The Three Dog Night version went into the US top 10 in 1971.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Student Demonstration Time
Source:    LP: Surf's Up
Writer(s):    Lieber/Stoller/Love
Label:    Brother/Reprise
Year:    1971
    The 1970 album Sunflower was the worst-selling album in Beach Boys history. To rectify their falling popularity the group brought in a new manager, Jack Riely, aka KPFK DJ John Frank. Riely immediately set about making changes, including the appointment of Carl Wilson as the band's official leader and the abandonment of the group's long-standing practice of dressing alike on stage. He also worked with the band creatively, encouraging them to write more relevant songs. Mike Love responded by adapting Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller's Riot In Cell Block 9, originally released by the Robins in 1954, updating the lyrics to reflect the political activism taking place on many US college campuses in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    Back In NYC/Hairless Heart/Counting Out Time
Source:    CD: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Atco)
Year:    1974
    The 1974 album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway marked the beginning of the many changes Genesis would undergo as the band evolved from an art-rock band with a loyal cult following to one of the most popular mainstream bands of the 1980s. It was the band's first double-LP studio album and the first to appear on the Atco label in the US, becoming the band's highest charting album up to that point in time, both in the US and Britain. There were two singles released from the album, the second of which was actually the final part of a three song sequence that begins with one of the group's hardest rocking pieces to date, Back In NYC, proceeds to a quiet instrumental featuring acoustic guitar from Steve Hackett intertwined with Tony Banks's keyboards and concludes with Counting Out Time, the aforementioned single. Not long after the release of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, lead vocalist Peter Gabriel announced his departure from the group, a move that eventually resulted in drummer Phil Collins becoming the band's front man. The rest is history.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Gonna Run
Source:    CD: Watt
Writer(s):    Alvin Lee
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year:    1970
    The fifth Ten Years After album, Watt, was somewhat unfairly criticized by the rock press for being "more of the same" from the British blues-rock band. When "the same" refers to an album of the calibur of Cricklewood Green, however, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, some tracks, such as Gonna Run, are at least the equal of any song on the previous album, and show a growing awareness on the part of the band of how to use the recording studio creatively. 

Artist:    Mahogany Rush
Title:    IV...(The Emperor)
Source:    LP: Mahogany Rush IV
Writer(s):    Frank Marino
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1976
    Although still a power trio, Mahogany Rush began to incorporate other instruments such as synth bass, and on the title track of their fourth album, mellotron. All these were played by Frank Marino, who also played guitars, sang and wrote all the band's material.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    Simon The Bullet Freak
Source:    British import CD: Salisbury (bonus track originally released only on US version of LP)
Writer(s):    Ken Hensley
Label:    Sanctuary (original US label: Mercury)
Year:    1971
    Uriah Heep combined elements of progressive rock and heavy metal to create a sound that was uniquely their own. The band had two main songwriting sources: the team of vocalist David Byron and guitarist Mick Box, who wrote most of the band's early material, and keyboardist Ken Hensley, whose writing dominated the band's most popular period. The group' second LP, Salisbury, was in many senses a transition album, with the songwriting split about evenly between the two. One of Hensley's compositions, Simon The Bullet Freak, was released in Germany as a B side and included on the US version of the Salisbury album in early 1971. The song made its first UK appearance as the B side of the single version of the title track of the band's third LP, Look At Yourself.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    No One To Depend On
Source:    Mexican import LP: Los Grandes Exitos de Santana (originally released on LP: Santana)
Writer(s):    Carabella/Escobida/Rolie
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1971
    Santana's third LP (which like their debut LP was called simply Santana), was the last by the band's original lineup. Among the better-known tracks on the LP was No One To Depend On, featuring a guitar solo by teen phenom Neal Schon (who would go on to co-found Journey). The song was left off the band's first Greatest Hits album in most countries, but was included on the Mexican version of the LP, Los Grandes Exitos de Santana. It was, at the time, the only time the single version of the song was issued in stereo without the fade in from Batuka, which precedes it on the original LP.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    A Song For Jeffrey
Source:    LP: This Was
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull's second single (and first European hit) was A Song For Jeffrey from their debut LP, This Was. The Jeffrey in the song title is Jeffrey Hammond, who, according to the liner notes, was "one of us, though he doesn't play anything". The notes go on to say he "makes bombs and stuff". In fact, Hammond would replace bassist Glen Cornick a few albums later and remain with the group for several years. The song itself proved popular enough that when the band compiled their first Anthology album, Living In The Past, A Song For Jeffrey was chosen to open the album.

Artist:    Triumvirat
Title:    Dimplicity
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Fritz/Batherlt
Label:    Harvest
Year:    1974
    Formed by keyboardist  Hans-Jürgen Fritz in Cologne, Germany in 1969, Triumvirat started off doing mostly cover songs in a style heavily influenced by that of Keith Emerson's bands the Nice and later, Emerson, Lake & Palmer. By the early 1970s Triumvirat was doing original material, but still heavily influenced by Emerson. They released their first LP, Mediterranean Tales, in 1972, following it up with Illusions On A Double Dimple in 1974, the same year they did their first US tour, opening for Fleetwood Mac. Dimplicity was the only single from the album released in the US.

Artist:     Neil Young
Title:     Heart Of Gold
Source:     CD: Decade (originally released on LP: Harvest)
Writer:     Neil Young
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1972
     In the liner notes of his 1977 compilation album Decade, Neil Young had this to say about his hit single Heart Of Gold from the 1972 LP Harvest: "This song put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there." As a longtime resident of the ditch myself, I say thankya, Neil.
    
Artist:    Paul Simon
Title:    Kodachrome
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    Paul Simon's Kodachrome was actually banned on some stations, but not for copyright infringement (Kodachrome being a registered trademark of Kodak). Rather, it was banned for the first line of the song: "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all." Apparently "crap" offended some programmers, to the point that one station (New York's WABC) even edited the offending line to "When I think back it's a wonder I can think at all" when they played the song. Not only does that line not make any sense, I can only imagine how that must have sounded with almost four measures edited out (but with one beat left in, just to totally throw off the rhythm of the song). Apparently, though, this kind of censorship is what used to make America great, if current political thought is to be believed.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2552 (starts 12/22/25)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/600434

    Bob Dylan probably had an even more profound effect on the psychedelic era as a songwriter than he did as a performer, and this week we feature an entire hour of Bob Dylan songs performed by artists who were not named Bob Dylan. There are the obvious ones like the Byrds, who had multiple hit singles with Dylan songs, but also some you may not immediately think of, such as the Chocolate Watchband and blues legend Taj Mahal. For our second hour we lighten things up a bit by focusing on the instrumentalists who laid the groundwork for countless garage bands to build on, including a set of alternating tracks from the three most influential guitarists of the pre-psychedelic era. 

Artist:    Peter, Paul And Mary
Title:    Blowin' In The Wind
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1963
    Just as knowing the chords for Van Morrison's Gloria was pretty much a prerequisite for being in a garage band, being able to play Bob Dylan's Blowing In The Wind was a must for anyone attempting to play folk music at a party in the mid-1960s. If there was more than one of you singing, you most likely used the Peter, Paul and Mary arrangement of the tune, with its three-part harmony. Their version was by far the most popular recording of the song, going all the way to the # 2 spot on the top 40 charts in the summer of '63.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Mr. Tambourine Man
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Mr. Tambourine Man)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1965
           The term "folk-rock" was coined by the music press to describe the debut single by the Byrds. Mr. Tambourine Man had been written and originally recorded by Bob Dylan, but it was the Byrds version that went to the top of the charts in 1965. Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark and David Crosby had begun work on the song in 1964, when their manager got his hands on an acetate of Dylan performing the song with Ramblin' Jack Elliott. The trio, calling themselves the Jet Set, were trying to develop a sound that combined folk-based melodies and lyrics with arrangements inspired by the British Invasion, and felt that Mr. Tambourine Man might be a good candidate for that kind of treatment. Although the group soon added bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke, producer Terry Melcher opted to use the group of Los Angeles studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew for the instrumental track of the recording, along with McGuinn's 12-string guitar. Following the success of the single, the Byrds entered the studio to record their debut LP, this time playing their own instruments.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    All I Really Want To Do
Source:    LP: Mr. Tambourine Man
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    The Byrds scored a huge international hit with their interpretation of Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, which made it to the top of the charts in 1965. The group's next single was another Dylan cover, All I Really Want To Do. Although it did well in the UK, making it all the way to the # 4 spot, the song was not a major hit in the US, where it stalled out at # 40. Ironically, the Byrds' next single, Pete Seeger's Turn Turn Turn, bombed in the UK while hitting # 1 in the US.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    My Back Pages
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the items of contention between David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the latter's insistence on continuing to record covers of Bob Dylan songs when the band members themselves had a wealth of their own material available. Indeed, it was reportedly an argument over whether or not to include Crosby's Triad on the next album that resulted in Crosby being fired from the band in October of 1967 (although other factors certainly played into it as well). Nonetheless, the last Dylan cover with Crosby still in the band was perhaps their best as well. Although not as big a hit as Mr. Tambourine Man, My Back Pages from the Younger Than Yesterday album did respectably well on the charts, becoming one of the Byrds' last top 40 hits.
 
Artist:    Turtles
Title:    It Ain't Me Babe
Source:    Nuggets Vol. 10-Folk Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1965
    The Turtles started out as a local high school surf band called the Crossfires. In 1965 they were signed to a record label that technically didn't exist yet. That did not deter the people at the label (which would come to be known as White Whale) from convincing the band to change its name and direction. Realizing that surf music was indeed on the way out, the band, now called the Turtles, went into the studio and recorded four songs. One of those was Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe. The Byrds had just scored big with their version of Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and the Turtles took a similar approach with It Ain't Me Babe. The song was a solid hit, going to the #8 spot on the national charts and leading to the first of many Turtles albums (not to mention hit singles) on the White Whale label. 

Artist:    Association
Title:    One Too Many Mornings
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Valiant)
Year:    1965
    The Association is a name that will always be associated (sorry) with soft-pop hits like Cherish, Never My Love and Windy. Originally, though, they had a hard time getting a record deal, due to their somewhat unconventional approach to pop music (co-founder Terry Kirkman had played in a band with Frank Zappa prior to forming the Association, for instance). Eventually they got a deal with Jubilee Records but were unable to get decent promotion from the label. Finally producer Curt Boettcher took an interest in the group, convincing Valiant Records (which had a distribution deal with Warner Brothers) to buy out the Association's contract. The first record the group recorded for Valiant was a single version of Bob Dylan's One Too Many Mornings. Unlike many of their later records, which used studio musicians extensively, One Too Many Mornings featured the band members playing all their own instruments. Boettcher would go on to produce the Association's debut LP in 1966, which included the hits Along Comes Mary and Cherish, before moving on to other projects. 

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Love Minus Zero
Source:    Mono CD: Hey Joe (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    One Way (original label: Mira)
Year:    1965
    Of all the various covers of Bob Dylan songs over the years, one of the most obscure has to be the Leaves' version of Love Minus Zero, released as a B side in 1965. It is suggested that the song may have been intended to be the A side of the band's debut single, since folk-rock was the hot thing in Los Angeles in 1965, but even before the record was officially released local radio stations were instead playing Too Many People, a Leaves original on the other side of the record that is now recognized as a garage-rock classic. This set the stage for the national success of their 1966 fuzztone-drenched fast version of Hey Joe, which has since appeared on several anthology albums.
        
Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1965
    In late 1965 songwriters/producers P.F. Sloan (Eve of Destruction) and Steve Barri decided to create a series of records by a band called the Grass Roots. The problem was that the existing L.A. band calling itself the Grass Roots had no interest in recording for Sloan and Barri. Angered by being treated rudely by one of the band members, Sloan and Barri did a little research and came to the realization that the existing Grass Roots had not legally copyrighted the name, so Sloan and Barri did so themselves and then found another band to record as the Grass Roots. This of course forced the existing band to come up with a new name, but that's a story for another time. Meanwhile, the band Sloan and Barri recruited was the Bedouins, one of the early San Francisco bands. As the rush to sign SF bands was still months away, the Bedouins were more than happy to record the songs Sloan and Barri picked out for them. The first single by the newly-named Grass Roots was a cover of Bob Dylan's Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man). The band soon got to work promoting the single to Southern California radio stations, but with both the Byrds and the Turtles already on the charts with Dylan covers it soon became obvious that the market was becoming saturated with folk-rock. After a period of months the band, who wanted more freedom to write and record their own material, had a falling out with Sloan and Barri and it wasn't long before they moved back to San Francisco, leaving drummer Joel Larson in L.A. The group, with another drummer, continued to perform as the Grass Roots until Dunhill Records ordered them to stop. Eventually Dunhill would hire a local L.A. band called the 13th Floor (not to be confused with Austin, Texas's 13th Floor Elevators) to be the final incarnation of the Grass Roots; that group would crank out a series of top 40 hits in the early 70s. The Bedouins never had the opportunity to record again.

Artist:    Joan Baez
Title:    Daddy You Been On My Mind
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1965
    Although I had heard songs like Where Have All The Flowers Gone and Blowin' In The Wind on the radio and around campfires, I did not actually own a folk record until early 1966, when I picked up a brown paper "grab bag" of four singles at a discount price at the Post Exchange at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. Among the records in the bag was a single by Joan Baez that featured a cover of Phil Ochs's There But For Fortune on one side and a Bob Dylan song called Daddy You Been On My Mind on the other. Being a twelve-year-old kid, I had never heard of Baez or Ochs, although the name Bob Dylan was vaguely familiar to me. Still, I was intrigued by this new kind of music, that was a bit similar to songs I had heard on the radio like Where Have All The Flowers Gone, but yet had a kind of exotic strangeness that set it apart. Although the Baez single had been released in 1965, Dylan's own original version of Mama, You Been On My Mind, recorded in 1964, was not made available to the public until 1991, when it appeared as part of The Bootleg Series.

Artist:    Rising Sons
Title:    Walkin' Down The Line
Source:    CD: Rising Sons featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 1993
    The Rising Sons had their roots in both the East and West Coast underground music scenes. The genesis of the band can be traced to a 1964 hootenanny in Cambridge, Mass.organized by a young bluesman named Taj Mahal. One of the performers was a 12-string guitarist named Jesse Lee Kincaid, who had learned his technique from his uncle Fred Gerlach, a West Coast based recording artist for Folkways Records. Kincaid persuaded Mahal to relocate to Los Angeles, where they hooked up with another Gerlach student, Ryland Cooder to form the Rising Sons. With the addition of bassist Jeff Marker and drummer Ed Cassidy the group began to hit the local club scene, making enough of a name for themselves to get signed to Columbia Records in 1965. Before they can actually get into the studio, however, Cassidy hurt his wrist, forcing the band to find another drummer, Kevin Kelley (Cassidy, by the way, would go on to become a founding member of Spirit with his stepson Randy California). Although the Rising Sons did write some of their own songs, much of what they recorded was their own arrangements of blues classics, and even a Bob Dylan tune, Walkin' Down The Line. Columbia never really had a handle on how to market an inter-racial underground folk-rock-blues band like the Rising Sons, and, with the exception of one single, the band's recordings ended up on the shelf until 1993. 

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Baby Blue
Source:    British import CD: Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist (originally released in US as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Tower)
Year:    1966
    The Chocolate Watchband originally released their version of Bob Dylan's (It's All Over Now) Baby Blue as a B side in 1966. The recording was remixed in stereo for the band's 1968 album The Inner Mystique. So many overdubs were added to the album version of the song that it has to be considered an entirely different track (and a far more psychedelic one at that). This time around we're presenting the original mono B side version, to contrast with the next track...

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    (It's All Over Now) Baby Blue
Source:    CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer:    Bob Dylan
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1967
    When the 13th Floor Elevators left their native Texas to do a series of gigs on the West Coast, the local media's reaction was basically "good riddance". After the band's successful California appearances (and a hit record with You're Gonna Miss Me), they returned to a hero's welcome by that same media that had derided the Elevators as a bunch of degenerate drug addicts just weeks before. Buoyed by this new celebrity, the band set out to record its masterpiece, Easter Everywhere. Although much of the album featured original material, there were a couple of cover tunes. Most notable was the inclusion of (It's All Over Now) Baby Blue, a Bob Dylan tune that had been recently recorded by both the Byrds and the Chocolate Watchband. 

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:     Like A Rolling Stone
Source:     LP: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival
Writer:     Bob Dylan
Label:     Reprise
Year:     1967
     The first great rock festival was held in Monterey, California, in June of 1967. Headlined by the biggest names in the folk-rock world (the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel), the festival also served to showcase the talent coming out of the nearby San Francisco Bay area and introduced an eager US audience to several up and coming international artists, such as Ravi Shankar, Hugh Masakela, the Who, and Eric Burdon's new Animals lineup. Two acts in particular stole the show: the soulful Otis Redding, who was just starting to cross over from a successful R&B career to the mainstream charts, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, formed in England in late 1966 by a former member of the US Army and two British natives. The recordings sat on the shelf for three years and were finally released less than a month before Hendrix's untimely death in 1970. Because of time limitations only portions of each performance were included on the album Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival, with the Hendrix side of the album opening with a live version of Like A Rolling Stone that actually exceeded the Dylan orginal's six-minute running time. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    All Along The Watchtower
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Electric Ladyland)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (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 of these 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:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Highway 61 Revisited
Source:    LP: Second Winter
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    As good as the original Bob Dylan version of Highway 61 Revisited is, most would agree that Johnny Winter has managed to do it even better, to the point of making it his own signature song. His first recorded version of the song was on his 1969 album Second Winter, which was actually his third LP, but his second for Columbia. About a third of the tracks on the three-sided album were cover tunes, but Highway 61 Revisited blows the rest of them out of the water.

Artist:    Surfaris
Title:    Wipe Out
Source:    Mono CD: Surfin' Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Berryhill/Connolly/Fuller/Wilson
Label:    Rhino (original label: DFS/Princess/Dot)
Year:    1963
    Wipe Out is generally considered one of the all-time greatest rock and roll instrumentals, having hit the top 20 on more than one occasion. Ironically, the track was originally considered a throwaway, recorded quickly as a B side to the Surfaris 1962 recording of Surfer Joe. Although Surfer Joe eventually charted, it was Wipe Out that got the most airplay, going all the way to the #2 spot in 1963 and then recharting in 1966, hitting the #16 spot (it also bubbled under the Hot 100 in 1970). The song was originally released on the tiny DFS label in January of 1963 and the reissued on the Princess label the following month. In April, Dot Records picked up the record for national distribution. Surfer Joe was still considered the A side for the DFS and Princess releases, but by the time Dot got ahold of the rights it was obvious that Wipe Out was the real hit. To this day, Wipe Out is the song of choice for tabletop (or countertop or just about any flat surface) drummers all over the world. 

    The next nine songs feature three of the most influential guitarists of the pre-Beatles era. Duane Eddy is the top-selling rock 'n' roll guitar instrumentalist of all time, selling 12 million records in the period covering 1958 through 1963. Link Wray has the distinction of recording the only instrumental ever to be banned on top 40 radio stations, and pioneered the use of distortion and tremelo effects on his records. Dick Dale was rightly hailed as the King of the Surf Guitar, and is credited with releasing the very first surf record, Let's Go Trippin', in 1961. And now, let the battle begin!

Artist:    Duane Eddy
Title:    Peter Gunn
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Henry Mancini
Label:    Jamie
Year:    1963
    Duane Eddy and producer Lee Hazlewood went out to a junkyard and bought a 2000 gallon steel water tank to get the deep reverb effect used on Eddy's hit single cover of Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme. A year later musical instrument and amplifier manufacturer introduced the Fender Reverb Unit to do the same thing electronically.

Artist:    Link Wray And The Wray Men
Title:    Rumble
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Grant/Wray
Label:    Cadence
Year:    1958
    Once upon a time there was a band called the Ray Men that featured brothers Link (guitar), Doug (drums) and Vernon (vocals) Wray, along with bassist Shorty Horton. One night, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the Ray Men were asked by local DJ Milton Grant, who had sponsored the gig, to play The Stroll, a current hit that Link Wray was unfamiliar with. Drummer Doug, who Link later described as " the loudest drummer in the world" started pounding out the song's basic beat and Link started playing a series of chords on his guitar as loudly as he possibly could, creating the "power chord" in the process. The audience loved it so much that they ended up playing it four more times before the night was over. Grant, who had connections in the record industry, paid to have the song, originally called Oddball. recorded in return for a co-writing credit. The recording got picked up by Cadence Records, home of the Everly Brothers. In fact, it was Phil Everly that came up with the song's final title, Rumble, saying the recording sounded like a street fight. Apparently he wasn't the only one, as disc jockeys and New York and Boston refused to play the song, worried that's its gutteral grungy sound would inspire violence (keep in mind this was around the same time West Side Story was one of the hottest shows on Broadway and the entire nation was going through a period of paranoia about gang violence). Despite not being heard in two of the nation's largest markets, the song made the top 20 nationally.

Artist:    Dick Dale And His Del-Tones
Title:    Banzai Washout
Source:    CD: The Best Of Dick Dale And His Del-Tones (originally released on LP: Summer Surf)
Writer(s):    Steve Douglas
Label:    Rhino (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1964
    Instrumental surf music had already gone underground by 1964, eclipsed in popularity first by vocal surf groups like the Beach Boys and then by the British Invasion. Still, the talented Dick Dale, who had created the genre with his song Let's Go Trippin', was still warming up the beaches on the US west coast with tracks like Banzai Washout from his Summer Surf LP. Dale finally left the music business when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1966, but resurfaced in the 1980s in the film Back To The Beach and, thanks in part to filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, has finally gotten the recognition he deserves for his role as "King of the surf guitar" in recent years. 

Artist:    Duane Eddy
Title:    Rebel-'Rouser
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Eddy/Hazelwood
Label:    Jamie
Year:    1958
    Duane Eddy's first top 40 hit was Rebel-'Rouser, a tune that also featured overdubbed saxophone by L.A. session man Gil Bernal and background yells (and handclaps) from the Rivingtons, who would eventually go on to have a hit of their own with Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow.

Artist:    Link Wray And His Wray Men
Title:    Jack The Ripper
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Wray/Cooper
Label:    Swan (original label: Rumble)
Year:    1961
    In 1961 guitarist Link Wray decided to start his own record label, calling it Rumble, after his first major hit single. The first record released on the Rumble label was Jack The Ripper, which managed to chart in places like Syracuse, NY and Worcester, Mass, but due to a lack of a distribution deal was not heard elsewhere until the song was reissued on the Swan label in 1963. Jack The Ripper ended up peaking in the #5 slot nationally.

Artist:    Dick Dale And His Del-Tones
Title:    Miserlou
Source:    Mono CD: Surfin' Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nick Rubanis
Label:    Rhino (original label: Del-Tone)
Year:    1962
    When the term "surf music" comes up, most people think of vocal groups such as the Beach Boys or Jan & Dean. Some even mention the Ventures, who released well over a hundred instrumental LPs in their existence, most of which are considered surf records. Those truly in the know, however, will tell you that Dick Dale, the man who was asked by Fender Instruments to road test their new Reverb guitar amplifiers in the early 60s, was the true King Of The Surf Guitar. Although he did record a few vocal singles, Dale is mostly known for his high-energy instrumental tracks such as Miserlou, a 1962 recording that released locally on Dale's own Del-tone label then picked up for national distribution by Capitol Records. The song was given new life in 1994 when Quentin Tarantino included it in the film Pulp Fiction, leading to a new generation's interest in Dale's music. 

Artist:    Link Wray
Title:    Slinky
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Grant/Wray
Label:    Epic
Year:    1959
    The head of Cadence Records was never particularly fond of Link Wray's music, so it wasn't long before Wray changed labels to Epic, a CBS-owned label that was more friendly to rock 'n' roll music than the parent Columbia label. One of Wray's many hits on Epic was Slinky, which was reissued on Record Store Day 2014.

Artist:    Dick Dale And His Del-Tones
Title:    Hava Nagila
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Traditional, arr. Dale
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1963
    Dick Dale, whose father was owner of Deltone Records, signed with Capitol Records in early 1963. His first single for the label was the appropriately labeled King Of The Surf Guitars. Unfortunately, King Of The Surf Guitars is an absolutely horrid song by someone named Alonzo B. Willis (or possibly two people named Alonzo and Willis), with vocals that sound like they were sung by a junior high school girls' glee club. Luckily, the B side of the single is classic Dale, doing his own version of Hava Nagila. The label itself contains several mistakes. In addition to the questionable writing credits on the A side, Dale is given full writing credit for Hava Nagila, which I'm sure raised a few eyebrows among the Jewish community. Also, the song title of the A side appears as King Of The Surf Guitars (plural) on the original picture sleeve and some copies of the single, and King Of The Surf Guitar (singular) on others. Poor quality control on someone's part.

Artist:    Duane Eddy
Title:    Rebel Walk
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Eddy/Hazelwood
Label:    Jamie
Year:    1960
    Sometime around 1960 guitarist Duane Eddy made a cameo appearance in a film called Because They're Young. He also co-wrote and played guitar on the theme song from the film and it became his biggest hit. Because They're Young is one of those songs you either love or hate, depending on your feelings about using lush strings on a rock 'n' roll record. Personally I identify with the second group, which is why I'm playing the B side of that single, Rebel Walk.

Artist:    Dick Dale
Title:    Grudge Run
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Paxton/Nuckles
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1964
    For reasons that escape me, some of Dick Dale's Capitol singles are credited solely to Dale, without any mention of the Del-Tones, a practice that continued beyond his Capitol years. Some of those are instrumentals, but a few are vocals by Dale himself. Probably the coolest of these is Grudge Run, a track taken from the first of Dale's two "hot rod" oriented albums, Checkered Flag. The song itself is built on a classic blues rift that is instantly recognizable.

Artist:    Jørgen Ingmann
Title:    Apache (excerpt)/Echo Boogie
Source:    45 RPM single (A&B sides)
Writer(s):    Lorean/Ingman
Label:    Atco
Year:    1961
    Inspired by Les Paul, Danish guitarist Jørgen Ingmann set up his own studio in Copenhagen in the mid-1950s to further his interest in multi-tracking, distortion and other effects that he could apply to his recordings. Using those techniques, he had an international hit in 1961 under the name Jørgen Ingmann & His Guitar with the song Apache, which had been originally released the previous year by the Shadows, a British instrumental group. The B side of Apache was an Ingmann original called Echo Boogie that better demonstrates his accomplishments with a technology that was still in its infancy. 

Artist:    Chantays
Title:    Pipeline
Source:    CD: Surfin' Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Spickard/Carman
Label:    Rhino (original label: Downey)
Year:    1962
    Bob Spickard, Brian Carman, Bob Welch, Warren Waters and Rob Marshall were all students at Santa Ana High School in California who were inspired by a local group called the Rhythm Rockers to form their own rock and roll band. The surf craze was just getting under way on the California coast, and the new group, calling themselves the Chantays, soon found themselves recording for the local Downey label, which was actually owned by a music publishing company. In December of 1962 they recorded and released what would become one of the most popular instrumental surf songs ever committed to vinyl: the classic Pipeline. The song was quickly picked up an re-released on the Dot label in early 1963, eventually going all the way to the #4 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. The Chantays have the distinction of being the only rock 'n' roll band to ever perform on TV's Lawrence Welk Show.

Artist:    Pyramids
Title:    Penetration
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Steve Leonard
Label:    Best
Year:    1964
    The last instrumental surf record to hit the top 20 charts was a tune called Penetration from a Long Beach, California band called the Pyramids. Other than that, the group is notable for appearing in the 1964 film Bikini Beach wearing Beatle wigs, removing them during their performance to reveal shaved heads underneath. Well, I guess there are worse things to be remembered for.

Artist:    Trashmen
Title:    Bad News
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Church Key
Label:    Garrett
Year:    1963
    The Trashmen were a group from Minneapolis that came up with the idea of taking two Rivingtons hits from the 1950s, Papa Oom Mow Mow and Bird Is The Word, and combining them, speeding up the tempo to insane levels in the process. The result was a huge hit in 1963 called Surfin' Bird. They weren't done yet, however. In 1964 they followed it up with Bad News, a song that isn't quite as outrageous as Surfin' Bird, but is still decidedly over-the-top. Songwriting credit on the label went to Church Key, which I'm guessing is one of those fictional entities created to obscure just who would be getting royalties for the song.

Artist:    Ventures
Title:    Walk-Don't Run
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Johnny Smith
Label:    Silver Spotlight (original labels: Blue Horizon/Dolton)
Year:    1960
    The Ventures first released their cover of jazz guitarist Johnny Smith's Walk-Don't Run in May of 1960 as their second single for the Seattle-based Blue Horizon label. It was picked up a month later and reissued by Dolton Records, then an independent label, also out of Seattle. In July Dolton issued the single yet again, this time with a different B side. 

Artist:    Johnny And The Hurricanes
Title:    Sheba
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    King/Mack/Kelly/Emerson
Label:    Big Top
Year:    1959
    Similar in style to the Ventures, Johnny And The Hurricanes, from Toledo, Ohio, specialized in doing modernized versions of old standards such as Red River Valley (which they retitled Red River Rock), Down Yonder (with Way and In New Orleans dropped from the title) and You Are My Sunshine. Overall, they were kinda cheesy and don't hold up too well these days, but their B sides, such as Sheba, are another story. Sheba was, in fact, taken from their first album for the Big Top label (their third overall), The Big Sound of Johnny and the Hurricanes, released in 1959.

Artist:    Ramrods
Title:    Ghost Riders In The Sky
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Stan Jones
Label:    Amy
Year:    1960
    The Ramrods hailed from Stamford, Connecticut. Formed in 1956 by vocalist/drummer/arranger Claire Lane and her brother, saxophonist Rich Litke, the band also included guitarists Vinny Lee and Gene Morro. Their first single, a rocked out version of Vaughan Monroe's 1948 hit Ghost Riders In The Sky, was released in 1960 and peaked out in the #30 spot in the US while hitting the top 10 in the UK. There was no doubt that Lane was the Ramrods' main attraction, as the drum set had her name, rather than the band's, on the face of the bass drum.

Artist:    Viscounts
Title:    Night Train
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jimmy Forrest
Label:    Madison
Year:    1960
    Formed in New Jersey in 1958, the Viscounts, led by saxophonist Harry Haller, first hit the charts with their 1959 update of Earle Hagen's Harlem Nocturne. Their next charted single was an updated version of Jimmy Forrest's Night Train, released in 1960. Both songs, originally released on the Madison label, were re-released in 1965 on the Amy label after Madison's owner, Larry Uttal, bought Amy's parent label, Bell Records. Trivia fact that has absolutely nothing to do with the Viscounts: Uttal left Bell in 1974 and was replaced by Clive Davis, who changed the label's name to Arista Records.

Artist:    Bill Justis
Title:    Raunchy
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Justis/Manker
Label:    Phillips International
Year:    1957
    Ever wonder what was the first rock 'n' roll instrumental to hit the top 10? Well, wonder no more, as it was Raunchy, released in September of 1957 by saxophonist Bill Justis. The song went all the way to the #2 spot on the charts. Justis never hit the top 40 again. 

Artist:    Royaltones
Title:    Poor Boy
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    David Sanderson
Label:    Virgo (original label: Jubilee)
Year:    1958
    The Royaltones were an instrumental rock 'n' roll band from Dearborn, Michigan. Any other information I was able to dig up on them is suspect, including anything credited to them after their first three singles, all of which were written by David Sanderson, whose name doesn't appear anywhere on later releases.

Artist:    Virtues
Title:    Guitar Boogie Shuffle
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Arthur Smith
Label:    Hunt
Year:    1959
    Guitar Boogie, released in 1945 by The Rambler Trio Featuring Arthur Smith was one of the first boogie-woogie records to feature a guitar as lead instrument rather than the usual piano. The song first appeared on the country charts and was the first guitar instrumental of its type to also become a mainstream hit, eventually selling nearly three million copies. Smith's original version is now considered a link between Western Swing and Rockabilly. In the 1950s the song was updated with a rock 'n' roll beat and renamed the Guitar Boogie Shuffle by the Virtues, a Philadelphia band that took the song into the top 5 in 1959.

Artist:    Surfaris
Title:    Scatter Shield
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    The Surfaris
Label:    Decca
Year:    1963
    Instrumental surf music was only popular in the US for a relatively short time, from around 1961 until vocal groups like Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys eclipsed it just a few months later. In Japan, however, instrumental surf records remained popular, and in some cases such as the Surfaris' Scatter Shield, a song that was originally issued in the US as a B side would end up being a Japanese hit. In fact, the Surfaris released over 20 singles (and several EPs) in Japan from 1964 to 1966. Personally I consider Scatter Shield to be one of the best instrumental surf songs ever recorded.