Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2416 (starts 4/15/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/524983 

    This week we have an artists' set that, since it includes tracks from after the psychedelic era itself (barely), can also be considered an Advanced Psych segment. Other than that, it's (as always) a mix of singles, B sides and album tracks, with a bit of an emphasis on folk-rock in the first hour.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Nowhere Man
Source:    CD: Yellow Submarine Songtrack (originally released in UK on LP: Rubber Soul)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/CapitoI (original UK label: Parlophone)
Year:    1965
    Altough Nowhere Man had been included on the British version of the Beatles' 1965 Rubber Soul album, it was held back in the US and released as a single in 1966. Later that year the song was featured on the US-only LP Yesterday...And Today. It was remixed for the 2009 release of the Yellow Submarine Songtrack CD.

Artist:    Syndicate Of Sound
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2 (50th Anniversary edition) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Baskin/Gonzalez
Label:    Hush/Bell
Year:    1966
    San Jose California, despite being a relatively small city in the pre-silicon valley days, was home to a thriving music scene in the mid 60s that produced more than its share of hit records from 1966-68. One of the earliest and biggest of these hits was the Syndicate Of Sound hit Little Girl, which has come to be recognized as one of the top garage-rock songs of all time. Little Girl was originally released regionally in mid 1966 on the Hush label, and reissued nationally by Bell Records a couple months later.
    
Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    2000 Light Years From Home
Source:    CD: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    Nowhere was the ripple effect of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band more blatantly obvious than on the Rolling Stones fall 1967 release Their Satanic Majesties Request. The cover featured the band members in various sorcerous regalia in a seven-inch picture on the kind of holographic paper used for "magic rings" found in bubble-gum machines and pasted over regular album-cover stock, which was a simple pattern of faded white circles on a blue background (it kind of looked like dark wallpaper). Musically it was the most psychedelic Stones album ever released. Interesting enough, different songs were released as singles in different countries. In the US the single was She's A Rainbow, while in Germany and the Netherlands 2,000 Light Years From Home (the US B side of She's A Rainbow) got significant airplay, making the top 5 in both countries.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Atlantic
Source:    CD: Donovan's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Although it was included on the 1969 album Barabajagal, Donovan's Atlantis was originally issued as a single in November of 1968. The tune went into the top 10 in several nations worldwide, including the US, but only managed to peak at #23 in the UK. At nearly five minutes in length, the song was considered by the shirts at Epic Records to be too long to get top 40 airplay in the US, and was thus relegated to B side status. They were proved wrong when DJs started flipping the record over and it went to the #7 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

Artist:    Fairport Convention
Title:    Farewell, Farewell
Source:    LP: Fairport Chronicles (originally released on LP: Liege And Lief)
Writer(s):    Richard Thompson
Label:    A&M
Year:    1969
    Farewell, Farewell is the closing track of the first side of the fourth Fairport Convention album, Leige And Lief. Why it wasn't chosen as the final track on the album itself is a mystery to me. Liege And Lief is considered one of the most influential British folk albums of all time, and is considered a major influence on the development of British folk rock (not to be confused with American folk-rock, which had pretty much run its course by 1969).

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Ballad Of A Thin Man
Source:    CD: Highway 61 Revisited
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1965
    Bob Dylan himself plays piano on Ballad Of A Thin Man, from his controversial 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. Up to that point in his career, Dylan had recorded mostly acoustic material, usually accompanying himself on guitar with little or no other instrumentation. On Highway 61 Revisited, however, he was joined by a full complement of electric musicians, including guitarist Mike Bloomfield (of the Butterfield Blues Band) and Al Kooper (who would go on to be a star in his own right as a member of the Blues Project and later as the founder of Blood, Sweat And Tears). Ballad Of A Thin Man itself was, according to Dylan, based on a real person, or an amalgam of real people who had crossed Dylan's path. The subject of the song, Mr. Jones, as referred to in the song's refrain "Something is happening here/ But you don't know what it is/ Do you, Mr Jones?" was based on the various establishment types who were virtually clueless when it came to understanding the youthful counter-culture that was developing in the mid-1960s. The following year the Grass Roots scored a regional hit in Southern California with their cover of the song, retitled Mr. Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man).

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Gotta Get Away
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    Gordon/Adams
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    As was common with most 1966 LPs, the Blues Magoos debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, included a handful of cover songs, not all of which had been hits for other groups. One of the non-hits was Gotta Get Away, a fairly typical piece of garage rock that opens side two of the LP. The song was also selected as the B side for the group's second (and by far most successful) single, (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet. As the usual practice was to bring in outside songwriters for a new band's early singles and let the band write their own B side, it is possible that Gotta Get Away, which was co-written by Alan Gordon (co-writer of the Turtles' Happy Together and several other tunes) may have been the intended A side of the single.

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Six O'Clock
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    John Sebastian
Label:    Kama Sutra
Year:    1967
    The last top 20 hit for the Lovin' Spoonful was Six O'Clock, released in 1967. Shortly after the record came out John Sebastian left the group. The remaining members tried to carry on without him for a while, but were never able to duplicate the success of the Sebastian years.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Turn! Turn! Turn!
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Turn! Turn! Turn!)
Writer(s):    Pete Seeger
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1965
    After their success covering Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, the Byrds turned to an even more revered songwriter: the legendary Pete Seeger. Turn! Turn! Turn!, with lyrics adapted from the book of Ecclesiastes, was first recorded by Seeger in the early 60s, nearly three years after he wrote the song.
    
Artist:    Hollies
Title:    I Can't Let Go
Source:    LP: History Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Taylor/Gorgoni
Label:    Sire (original US label: Imperial)
Year:    1966
    Of all the early Hollies hits, it is the 1966 hit I Can't Let Go that most showcases the voice of Graham Nash, singing a high counterpoint that Paul McCartney reportedly mistook for a trumpet part the first time he heard the song.

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

Artist:    Salvation
Title:    Think Twice
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Salvation)
Writer(s):    Joe Tate
Label:    Rhino (original label: ABC)
Year:    1968
    If there is any one band that typifies the San Francisco music scene of 1968 it would have to be Salvation. Originally known as the New Salvation Army Banned, the group came to the attention of ABC Records after a series of successful gigs at Golden Gate Park. The band was often seen cruising the streets of San Francisco in a converted bus and often found themselves sharing the playbill with acts like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. After recording their debut LP, Salvation, the group did a coast to coast promotional tour "from the Golden Gate to the Village Gate", only to find themselves stranded on the east coast when their management team absconded with the band's advance money. The band's fate was sealed when they, to quote keyboardist Art Resnick, "acted so incredibly wild at the main offices of ABC Records in NYC when going there to meet all the top execs. It was totally insane! Wilder than any rock movie I've ever seen."

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    Patterns
Source:    LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    Although it was the third Simon And Garfunkel album, 1966s' Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme was actually the first to contain songs written following the duo's shift from pure folk music to a more electric sound. The album was more adventurous overall, containing such sonic experiments as Silent Night juxtaposed with the 7 O'Clock News and Patterns, which opens with a guitar string being detuned (or maybe tuned) and features an African beat throughout. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme is now generally regarded as Simon's first true classic album.

Artist:     Buffalo Springfield
Title:     Go And Say Goodbye
Source:     CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield and as 45 RPM B side)
Writer:     Stephen Stills
Label:     Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:     1966
     After failing his audition for the Monkees, Stephen Stills met up with his former bandmate Neil Young, and, along with Richie Furay, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin formed the Buffalo Springfield in 1966. Their first single was a Young tune, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing, sung by Furay. The B side of that record, Stills's Go And Say Goodbye, is one of the first modern country-rock songs ever recorded.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    What Am I Living For
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Animalization
Writer:    Jay/Harris
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    Throughout their existence the original Animals were known for their love of American Blues and R&B music. In fact, hit singles aside, almost everything they recorded was a cover of an R&B hit. Among the covers on their 1966 LP Animalism (released in the US as Animalization) was What Am I Living For, originally recorded by the legendary Chuck Willis. The original version was released shortly after Willis's death from cancer in 1958, and is considered a classic. The Animals, thanks in large part to their obvious respect and admiration for the song, actually managed to improve on the original (as was often the case with their cover songs).

Artist:    Kak
Title:    HCO 97658
Source:    British import CD: Kak-Ola (originally released on LP: Kak)
Writer(s):    Yoder/Grelecki/Damrell/Patten/Lockheed)
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    Some songs sort of float around in a songwriter's head for months, or even years, before taking their final form. Others are created spontaneously in the recording studio. The opening track on the 1969 album Kak is an example of the latter. Although the title of the tune sounds like some sort of coded message (producer and co-writer Gary Grelecki is the son of one of the founding members of the CIA, after all) HCO 97658 was actually the studio session ID number of the track itself.

Artist:    Alice Cooper
Title:    Living
Source:    European import CD: Pretties For You
Writer(s):    Cooper/Bixton/Bruce/Dunaway/Smith
Label:    Bizarre/Straight/Rhino
Year:    1969
    Alice Cooper's debut LP, Pretties For You, was an odd mixture of avant-garde psychedelia and a rudimentary form of the hard rock they would later become known for. Living is perhaps the best example of the latter.

Artist:    Alice Cooper
Title:    Dead Babies/Killer
Source:    LP: Killer
Writer(s):    Cooper/Smith/Buxon/Bruce/Dunaway
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Alice Cooper (the band) raised a lot of eyebrows when they released a song called Dead Babies on their 1971 Killer album. Because of the band's reputation for outrageousness, a lot of people assumed that the song must be about some sort of imaginary deviant behavior. Unfortunately, the truth is  far worse. Dead Babies, in fact, is about a very real form of behavior that is all too common in the modern world: child neglect, and its tragic consequences. The song was a highlight of the band's Killer and School's Out tours, where it was followed immediately (as it is on the LP itself) by the song Killer, which featured the most talked-about part of the band's stage show, in which frontman Alice Cooper (nee Vince Furnier) was led up to and hung on a gallows to close out the band's performance.

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    Afterglow (Of Your Love)/Long Agos And Worlds Apart
Source:    CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane/McLagan
Label:    Charly (original label: Immediate)
Year:    1968
    London's East End has always had a bit of an unsavory reputation, and in addition was the hardest hit area when the city was bombed during World War II. It was natural, then, that the East End's own local pop stars were just a bit rowdier than some of their counterparts. The most popular band to emerge from the area was the Small Faces, so named because every member of the group was vertically challenged. The group first hit the UK top 40 charts in 1966, and scored a huge international hit the following year with Itchycoo Park. Although they never equalled the success of that record with subsequent releases outside of the UK, they did continue to pack in the crowds locally, and generated an audience excitement equal to that of the Beatles themselves in terms of raw screaming fans (in fact, this was a factor in lead vocalist Steve Marriot's decision to leave the band and form Humble Pie in 1969). The Small Faces also continued to crank out hit records in their native land, including the critically acclaimed LP Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. The entire second side was taken up by a suite of songs based on a fairy tale, while the first side showed the band's versatility as songwriters on tunes like Ian McLagan's psychedelic Long Agos And Worlds Apart. On the original LP, Long Agos And Worlds Apart is immediately preceded by a Steve Marriott/Ronnie Lane collaboration called Afterglow, which was issued a year later without the band's permission following their breakup in 1969 as Afterglow Of Your Love, using a radically different mix than the original LP version, which segues directly into Long Agos And Worlds Apart without a break between songs. After the departure of Marriot, the group officially disbanded, eventually hooking up with Ron Wood and Rod Stewart and shortening their name to Faces, as both new members were too tall to carry on with the band's original image.

Artist:    Nazz
Title:    Open My Eyes
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Nazz)
Writer(s):    Todd Rundgren
Label:    Rhino (original label: SGC)
Year:    1968
    The Nazz was a band from Philadelphia who were basically the victims of their own bad timing. 1968 was the year that progressive FM radio began to get recognition as a viable format while top 40 radio was being dominated by bubble gum pop bands such as the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. The Nazz, on the other hand, sounded more like British bands such as the Move and Brian Augur's Trinity that were performing well on the UK charts but were unable to buy a hit in the US. The band had plenty of talent, most notably guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Todd Rundgren, who would go on to establish a successful career, both as an artist (he played all the instruments on his Something/Anything LP and led the band Utopia) and a producer (Grand Funk's We're An American Band, as well as many others). Open My Eyes was originally issued as the A side of a single, but ended up being eclipsed in popularity by its flip side, a song called Hello It's Me, that ended up getting airplay in Boston and other cities, eventually hitting the Canadian charts (a new version would become a solo hit for Rundgren five years later).

Artist:    Monks
Title:    I Can't Get Over You
Source:    Mono German import CD: Black Monk Time (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Burger/Clark/Day/Johnson/Shaw
Label:    Repertoire (original label Polydor)
Year:    1966
    The Monks were formed in Germany by five American GIs stationed in Frankfurt. Right from the start, the Monks had a look and sound that was unlike anything that had come before. With military haircuts supplemented by shaved patches at the top and wearing black gowns with a hangman's noose for a necktie, the Monks spat out angry tunes centered on the dark side of human nature. Although they were enough of a curiosity to attract live audiences, their records did not sell particularly well, and for their second single, a song called I Can't Get Over You, they toned it down a touch, although if you listen closely to the vocals you can tell they weren't particularly happy about doing so.

Artist:    Mouse And The Traps
Title:    Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Fraternity Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Henderson/Weiss
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Fraternity)
Year:    1966
    Mouse (Ronnie Weiss) was, for a time, the most popular guy in Tyler, Texas, at least among the local youth. His band, Mouse and the traps, had a series of regional hits that garnered airplay at stations all across the state (and a rather large state at that). Although Mouse's first big hit, A Public Execution, had a strong Dylan feel to it, the band's 1966 followup single Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice, has come to be considered a garage-rock classic.

Artist:    Zakary Thaks
Title:    Bad Girl
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gerniottis/Stinson/Moore/Gregory/Lopez
Label:    Rhino (originally labels: J-Beck and Mercury)
Year:    1966
    Carl Becker, owner of the J-Beck and Cee Bee record labels in Corpus Christie, Texas, discovered the Zakary Thaks blowing away the competition in early 1966 at a battle of the bands at a local hangout known as the Carousel Club. At the time the lead vocalist, Chris Gerniottis, was all of fifteen years old; in fact, the oldest member of the band was only seventeen. Becker took the band into the studio in nearby McAllen to cut a pair of sides for J-Beck: a hot cover of the Kinks' I Need You and the Thaks' own composition, Bad Girl. Bad Girl became a big enough hit around South Texas to get picked up by Mercury for national distribution, becoming the first of half a dozen singles for the band.

Artist:    Tom Northcott
Title:    Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Tom Northcott
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year:    1967
    Canadian folk singer Tom Northcott temporarily relocated to Los Angeles to record a handful of singles for Warner Brothers Records staff producer Lenny Waronker. Among those was his self-penned B side, Who Planted Thorns In Miss Alice's Garden, which appeared in 1967.

Artist:    Fantastic Zoo
Title:    Light Show
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Cameron/Karl
Label:    Double Shot
Year:    1967
    The Fantastic Zoo had its origins in Denver, Colorado, with a band called the Fogcutters. When the group disbanded in 1966, main members Don Cameron and Erik Karl relocated to Los Angeles and reformed the group with new members. After signing a deal with local label Double Shot (which had a major hit on the charts at the time with Count Five's Psychotic Reaction), the group rechristened itself Fantastic Zoo, releasing their first single that fall. Early in 1967 the band released their second and final single, Light Show. The song did not get much airplay at the time, but has since become somewhat of a cult favorite.

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

Artist:    Purple Gang
Title:    Granny Takes A Trip
Source:    British import CD: Acid Daze (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Purple Gang Strikes)
Writer(s):    Bowyer/Beard
Label:    Uncut (original label: Transatlantic, LP released in US on Sire label)
Year:    1967
    Formed in the Manchester, England area as the Young Contemporaries Jug Band, The Purple Gang took on their new identity when they relocated to London and became part of the psychedelic scene there. Their first single, Granny Takes A Trip, was banned by the BBC for 1) having the word "trip" in the song title (even though it was named for an actual gift shop that had nothing to do with acid) and 2) the lead singer's nickname was Lucifer. Sounds pretty circumstantial to me, but that was the BBC in 1967, the inaugural year of BBC-1, and I suppose they were still a bit on the timid side at that point in time.

Artist:    Parade
Title:    She Sleeps Alone
Source:    LP: Nuggets-Vol 4: Pop, Part Two (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Roberds/MacLeod/Capp
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1967
    Although most 1967 45s were only released in mono, A&M sent out a few stereo promo pressings of their pop singles to FM radio stations, which explains why the Parade's She Sleeps Alone is heard here in glorious stereo. The group itself is a classic example of Hollywood insiders getting together to make a record or two (or in this case about half a dozen), then going their separate ways. The official group consisted of Jerry Riopelle, who played keyboards on several Phil Spector-produced records; Murray MacLeod, an actor who appeared on Hawaii Five-O and Kung Fu; and Allen "Smokey" Roberds, another actor. The actual instruments, however, were played by a group of Los Angeles studio musicians known unofficially as the Wrecking Crew, which included drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Carol Kaye and saxophonist Steve Douglas. Subsequent singles by the group, including 1968's She Sleeps Alone included yet another actor, Stuart Margolin, who would go on to be a cast member of the Rockford Files.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Little Girl
Source:    LP: Your Saving Grace
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    The fourth Steve Miller Band album, Your Saving Grace, was the lowest charting of the band's first five albums (generally considered their "psychedelic" period). Despite this lack of chart success, Your Saving Grace managed to provide four solid tracks, including Little Girl, for the band's 1972 Anthology album, released while Miller was recovering from a broken neck suffered in a 1971 car accident. Miller would reboot the band with the 1973 album The Joker, which touched off a string of chart toppers for the group.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2416 (starts 4/15/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/524982 

    The first half of this week's show takes us from the late 60s into the early 70s, one year at a time. The second half is more free-form in nature. Take your choice (the correct answer being "both").

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    When The Levee Breaks
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin IV
Writer(s):    Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones/Douglas
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1971
    Although it sounds like it could have been written about Hurricane Katrina, When The Levee Breaks, the last song on the fourth Led Zeppelin LP, was actually inspired by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, that saw levees along the river break in over 145 places, leaving over 700,000 people homeless. 29-year-old Lizzie Douglas, was living with her family near Walls, Mississippi, when the levee there broke, and two years later, using her stage name of Memphis Minnie recorded the original version of When The Levee Breaks with her then-partner Kansas Joe McCoy. In 1971 Led Zeppelin used Douglas's lyrics as the basis for their own, musically different version of When The Levee Breaks. The track is instantly identifiable by John Bonham's distinctive opening drum beat, which has been heavily sampled by various hip-hop artists over the years.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Manic Depression
Source:    CD: The Ultimate Experience (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    After miraculously surviving being shot point blank in the head (and then bayoneted in the back for good measure) in the Korean War (and receiving a Silver Star), my dad became somewhat of a minor celebrity in the early 50s, appearing on a handful of TV and radio game shows as a kind of poster boy for the Air Force. One result of this series of events was that he was able to indulge his fascination with a new technology that had been developed by the Germans during WWII: magnetic recording tape. He used his prize winnings to buy a Webcor tape recorder, which in turn led to me becoming interested in recording technology at an early age (I distinctly remember being punished for playing with "Daddy's tape recorder" without permission on more than one occasion). He did not receive another overseas assignment until 1967, when he was transferred to Weisbaden, Germany. As was the usual practice at the time, he went there a month or so before the rest of the family, and during his alone time he (on a whim, apparently) went in on a Lotto ticket with a co-worker and won enough to buy an Akai X-355 stereo tape recorder from a fellow serviceman who was being transferred out and did not want to (or couldn't afford to) pay the shipping costs of the rather heavy machine.The Akai was pretty much the state of the art in home audio technology at the time. The problem was that we did not have a stereo system to hook it into, so he bought a set of Koss headphones to go with it. Of course all of his old tapes were in storage (along with the old Webcor) back in Denver, so I decided that this would be a good time to start spending my allowance money on pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes, the first of which was Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Akai had an auto-reverse system and I would lie on the couch with the headphones on to go to sleep every night listening to songs like Manic Depression. Is it any wonder I turned out like I did?

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    And The Address
Source:    LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Lord
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1968
    And The Address was, by all accounts, the very first Deep Purple song written by members of the band. In fact, the instrumental piece, which appeared as the opening track on the 1968 LP Shades Of Deep Purple, was actually written before Deep Purple itself was formed. Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore had answered an ad placed by Chris Curtis, a local musician who was trying to put together something called Roundabout, which would feature a rotating set of musicians on a circular stage, with Curtis himself fronting each group. The idea soon fell apart, but the first two people he recruited, Blackmore and Lord, decided to keep working together following Curtis's departure, eventually adding vocalist Rod Evans, bassist Nicky Simper and drummer Ian Paice to fill out the band's original lineup. After securing a record deal, the band went to work on their debut LP, with And The Address being the first song they started to record. The song became the band's set opener for much of 1968, until it was replaced by another instrumental called Wring That Neck (aka Hard Road), which appeared on the band's second LP, The Book Of Taliesyn. Since then, And The Address has hardly ever been played live.

Artist:    Ten Years After
Title:    Stoned Woman/Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Source:    LP: Ssssh!
Writer(s):    Lee/Williamson
Label:    Deram
Year:    1969
    Alvin Lee's band Ten Years After already had three albums out by the time they made a huge splash at Woodstock in 1969. Their fourth LP, Ssssh! was released that same year, and was soon climbing the album charts, despite getting little airplay on US radio stations. The best known track was a hard rocking version of the Sonny Boy Williamson blues classic Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, which had already been covered by several rock bands. Unlike previous versions, the TYA Schoolgirl was built around a driving repeated bass line and featured an extended instrumental section that stayed on the main chord rather than following the song's regular progression. The track was preceeded on the LP by a Lee composition, Stoned Woman, which leads into Schoolgirl without a break between songs.

Artist:    Illinois Speed Press
Title:    Country Dumplin'
Source:    LP: Duet
Writer(s):    Kal David
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1969
    In 1969, Columbia Records simultaneously released albums from four bands from the Chicago area, marketing them as the "Chicago Sound". The strategy was only slightly more successful than M-G-M's "Boss-Town Sound" campaign the year before, with only one of the albums, the double-LP set Chicago Transit Authority, becoming a bonifide hit record. The Illinois Speed Press, on the other hand, was only around long enough to make two albums, and the second one saw the group, led by Paul Cotton and Kal David, move away from Chicago, both physically and musically, toward a more California-oriented country-rock sound. Not long after the second LP, Duet (which was basically just Cotton and David accompanied by studio musicians), Kal David left to co-found the Fabulous Rhinestones. Meanwhile Paul Cotton accepted an invitation to join Poco, and that was it for Illinois Speed Press.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    The Master
Source:    LP: The Doobie Brothers
Writer(s):    Tom Johnston
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Some bands start off with a bang. The Doobie Brothers, however, began the recording career with a whimper. Their first album did not sell well, despite the band having built up a following among the free-spirited crowd in the San Francisco Bay area. Part of the problem is that the album itself bore little resemblance to the band's live shows. Most of the songs were a subdued mix of folk, rock and country, handicapped by muddy production, and the LP died a quick death. The Doobies themselves, however, we not finished. In fact, the Doobie Brothers eventually became one of the iconic rock bands of the 70s, thanks in no small part to the songwriting skills of Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons. Johnston's religious beliefs fuel The Master, one of the more notable tracks from that first Doobie Brothers album.

Artist:    Mahogany Rush
Title:    Makin' My Wave
Source:    LP: Child Of The Novelty
Writer(s):    Frank Marino
Label:    20th Century
Year:    1974
    The second Mahogany Rush album saw the addition of keyboardist Phil Bech (who had played on one track on the band's first LP) as an official member. Still, the band mostly functioned as a power trio in the mold of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, as can be heard on tracks like Makin' My Wave.

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:    Black Sabbath
Title:    Rat Salad
Source:    CD: Paranoid
Writer(s):    Iommi/Osborne/Butler/Ward
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    Rat Salad, the only instrumental on Black Sabbath's second album, Paranoid, has to be, with one exception, the rock track with the shortest drum solo on record. Ironically, the song was written specifically for drummer Bill Ward to do a 45 minute long solo when the band was playing eight and three-quarter hour long gigs in Europe in their early days. Nobody knows for sure where the title Rat Salad came from, but it may have been in reference to the state of Ward's hair at the end of one of those solos.

Artist:    Harvey Mandel
Title:    Long Wait
Source:    LP: Cristo Redentor
Writer(s):    Mandel/Goldberg
Label:    Philips
Year:    1968
    Harvey Mandel first came to national attention as the guitarist on Stand Back! Here Comes Charlie Musselwhite's South Side Band, one of the first blues albums to be also targeted to rock listeners. One of the standout tracks on the album was Christo Redemptor, which has come to be considered Musselwhite's signature song. Not long after the album was released, Mandel moved to San Francisco, performing regularly at the Matrix club and often jamming with fellow guitarists Elvin Bishop and Jerry Garcia. A chance meeting with local disc jockey Abe "Voco" Kesh led to Mandel's first solo LP, released in 1968. The album, made up entirely of instrumentals like the blues-based Long Wait, led to Mandel being invited to replace Henry Vestine in Canned Heat the following year.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Everything You Did
Source:    CD: The Royal Scam
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    MCA
Year:    1976
    There's a saying: "never cheat on a songwriter, because they will get even by writing a song about it". Everything You Did, from the Steely Dan album The Royal Scam, is proof that the saying is true. The song itself is actually rather creepy.

Artist:    Stealer's Wheel
Title:    Stuck In The Middle With You
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo promo copy)
Writer(s):    Egan/Rafferty
Label:    A&M
Year:    1973
    Stealer's Wheel was formed in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland by former schoolmates Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty in 1972. By the time their first album was released, however, Rafferty had already left the group for a solo career. The single Stuck In The Middle With You was such as success, however, that Rafferty was persuaded to rejoin the group. They were never able to duplicate the success of that first single, however, and by 1975 Stealer's Wheel had ceased to exist. Rafferty, once again a solo artist, would have a huge hit in 1978 with the song Baker Street.

Artist:     Janis Joplin
Title:     Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)
Source:     LP: Super Rock (originally released on LP: I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama)
Writer:     Ragavoy/Taylor
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1969
     A glance through the various playlists on this blog makes one thing abundantly clear: the psychedelic era was a time for bands, as opposed to individual stars. The music industry itself, however, tends to favor the single artist. Perhaps this is because it is easier to market (cynics would say exploit) an individual artist than a collective of musicians. In the case of Janis Joplin, people in the industry managed to convince her that her fellow members of Big Brother and the Holding Company were holding her back due to their lack of musicianship. A listen to her first album without her old bandmates puts the lie to that argument. Although the Kozmic Blues Band may indeed have had greater expertise as individual musicians than Big Brother, the energy that had electrified audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival and at various San Francisco ballrooms was just not there, and the album is generally considered somewhat limp in comparison to Cheap Thrills. The opening (and some would say best) track on the album is Try (Just A Little Bit Harder). While not a bad song, the recording just doesn't have the magic of a Piece of My Heart or Ball and Chain, despite a strong vocal performance by Joplin herself.
 

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2415 (starts 4/8/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/524153

    This week Stuck in the Psychedelic Era presents, in its entirety, what many consider to be the greatest spoken word/comedy achievement of the entire psychedelic era: The Firesign Theatre's Further Adventures Of Nick Danger. Also this week: a set from the Who and the usual mix of singles, B sides and album tracks, included two from artists we've never heard from before, one from Canada and the other from England.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Louie, Go Home
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Midnight Ride)
Writer(s):    Lindsay/Revere
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Nobody knows for sure who recorded Louie Louie first: the Kingsmen or Paul Revere And The Raiders. Both bands recorded the song in April of 1963 in the same studio in Portland, Oregon, but nobody seems to remember which band played at which session. Regardless, the Kingsmen ended up with the national hit version of the song, while Paul Revere And The Raiders went on to become one of the most successful American rock band of the mid-1960s, thanks in part to Dick Clark, who discovered them playing in Hawaii and chose them to be the house band on his new show Where The Action Is. By this time the band had been signed to Columbia Records, releasing their first single for the label, Louie-Go Home, in 1964. By 1966 they were riding high on the charts, and re-recorded Louie, Go Home (different punctuation, same song, different arrangement) in stereo for their second of three albums released that year: Midnight Ride.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    I Ain't Got You
Source:    Mono LP: The Animals On Tour
Writer(s):    Calvin Carter
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1965
    As was almost always the case with British Invasion groups, the Animals' earliest US albums bear little resemblance to what could be found on the racks in the UK. Their second US album, The Animals On Tour, contained a mixture of tunes from their first British LP that had been left off the first American Animals LP, a pair of singles not available on any British album, and a handful of songs that hadn't been released in the UK at all (but would be three months later on an album called Animal Tracks that had an almost entirely different lineup of songs than the later US album of the same name). One example of the latter was a tune called I Ain't Got You. The shirts at M-G-M who compiled The Animals On Tour were so clueless, however, that the label credited "Will Advise" as the songwriter of I Ain't Got You. In reality it was Calvin Carter, producer and A&R man for Vee Jay Records, that composed the song in 1955, with a version by Billy Boy Arnold hitting the R&B charts in early 1956.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Billy Roberts
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. The Byrds' David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Pro-Girl
Source:    Mono LP: Janis Ian
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Verve Folkways
Year:    1967
    It took guts for a fifteen-year-old to write and record a song that is basically an open letter to a prostitute. It took maturity to do it without either condoning or condemning that kind of life. Janis Ian displayed both with the song Pro-Girl on her 1967 debut LP.

The first of our "new" bands this week has rather unusual instrumentation prompted by an unfortunate incident...
    
Artist:    Third Ear Band
Title:    Cosmic Trip
Source:    Mono British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird (originally released on LP: National-Balkan Ensemble/Comedy Links And Bridges)
Writer(s):    Minns/Sweeny/Coff/Cartland
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Standard Music Library)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1970
    Although officially formed in late 1967 the Third Ear Band didn't really take form until June of 1968, when all of their instruments and amps were stolen after a gig. This prompted the group's (electric) guitarist and (electric) cellist to move on to other things, but the remaining two members, percussionist Glen Sweeney and Oboeist Paul Minns, to continue as a purely acoustic act, adding violinist Richard Coff and violist Ben Cartland, who also played (acoustic) guitar. They often crossed paths with composer Ron Geesin (who arranged the strings and horns for Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother Suite), who invited the Third Ear Band to come record three tunes at his own home studio. Geesin sold the tapes to a company that specialized in production music, which released the three tracks, including Cosmic Trip, on an album called National-Balkan Ensemble/Comedy Links And Bridges in 1970. Apparently the tracks got used in some obscure film, or maybe a radio or TV show, because, according to Sweeny, the members of the Third Ear Band did receive small royalty checks. The Third Eye Band remained active until health problems forced Sweeny to retire from music in 1993.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    Shotgun
Source:    Mono LP: Near The Beginning
Writer(s):    Autry DeWalt
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
           For their fourth LP, Vanilla Fudge returned to the formula that they found their original success with for the album Near The Beginning. Whereas their third LP, Renaissance, contained mostly original material, Near The Beginning was dominated by an extended version of the Junior Walker hit Shotgun. The single version of the song, which the group performed on the Ed Sullivan show, was the group's last song to hit the Billboard top 100, peaking at # 68. According to drummer Carmine Appice, it was the Vanilla Fudge version of Shotgun that convinced Jeff Beck to later form a band with Appice and bassist Tim Bogert.
        
Artist:    Wet Paint
Title:    Glass Road
Source:    CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Wet Paint
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Onyx)
Year:    1970
    Although most of the bands recording in the state of Massachusetts used studios in Boston, there were some exceptions. One such case was a band called Wet Paint, who recorded at Eastern Sounds Recordings in Metheun. Eastern even had its own in-house record label, Onyx, which is where Glass Road was released in 1970.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
Source:    CD: Pet Sounds
Writer(s):    Wilson/Asher
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1966
    Brian Wilson's songwriting reached its full maturity with the Pet Sounds album, released in 1966. In addition to the hits Wouldn't It Be Nice, Sloop John B and God Only Knows, the album featured several album tracks that redefined where a pop song could go. One such tune is Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder), a slow, moody song with a chord structure that goes in unexpected directions. Like most of the songs on Pet Sounds, it was co-written by Tony Asher, who would later say the ideas were all Wilson's, with Asher just helping put them into words.

Artist:     Who
Title:     Happy Jack
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Pete Townshend
Label:     Decca
Year:     1967
     Happy Jack was originally released as a single in the UK in late 1966. It did not hit the US airwaves, however, until the early months of 1967. (I heard it for the first time on KLZ-FM, a Denver station whose format was a forerunner of progressive rock. KLZ-FM didn't call themselves a rock station. They instead marketed themselves as playing the top 100, as opposed to the top 60 played on KIMN, the dominant AM station in the city.) Although the song was not intended to be on an album, Decca Records quickly rearranged the track order of the Who's second album, A Quick One, to make room for the song, changing the name of the album itself to Happy Jack in the process.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Young Man Blues
Source:    LP: Live At Leeds
Writer(s):    Mose Allison
Label:    Decca
Year:    1970
    By the end of the 1960s, the Who were considered by many to be one of the best performing bands in existence. At the same time, however, they had achieved a kind of artsy reputation for the rock opera Tommy, which had been released in 1969, and we concerned that their reputation as a live band was being overshadowed. To counterract this, the band booked gigs at Leeds University and Hull City Hall specifically to record a live album. The result was Live At Leeds, an album that has been ranked by various critics as the greatest live rock recording of all time. The album starts with Mose Allison's Young Man Blues, a tune the Who had been playing off and on since 1964 and had made a major part of their stage repertoire since 1968. Allison, upon hearing the album, declared this recording to be the "Command Performance" version of the song. Young Man's Blues remained in the Who's regular stage repertoire through 1970, with it making occasional appearances over the years since then.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Whiskey Man
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer:    John Entwhistle
Label:    Decca
Year:    1966
    Although the Who had previously issued a pair of singles in the US, the first one to make any kind of waves was Happy Jack, released in late 1966 and hitting its peak the following year. The B side of that record was the song Whiskey Man. Like all the Who songs penned by bassist John Entwhistle, this one has an unusual subject: in this case, psychotic alcohol-induced hallucinations that are more enjoyable than reality.

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:    Deep Purple
Title:    The Shield
Source:    LP: Purple Passages (originally released on LP: The Book Of Taliesyn
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Evans/Lord
Label:    Warner Brothers (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year:    1968
    The story of the original Deep Purple lineup is, in a way, two entirely different stories. At home the band was virtually ignored by audiences and press alike, and struggled to even get their records released. In the US, however, they were overnight sensations, thanks in large part to the success of the single Hush in the spring of 1968. A North American tour was set up, scheduled to begin in October of that year, but their American label, Tetragrammaton, wanted a second album from the band to be on the racks before the tour opened. This meant that the group was in the studio only two months after releasing Shades of Deep Purple, working on what would become The Book Of Taleisyn, despite the fact that Shades of Deep Purple had not even been released yet in the UK. The first song recorded for the new LP was The Shield, an imaginative piece incorporating unusual drum patterns from Ian Paice and appropriately mystical lyrics from Rod Evans, along with some nice guitar and organ work from Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord. Although The Book Of Taleisyn was not as big a seller in the US as Shades Of Deep Purple, the tour itself was a huge success. Still, the band still was not getting any respect at home. In fact, The Book Of Taleisyn did not even come out in the UK until mid-1969, by which time Evans and bassist Nicky Simper were no longer members of Deep Purple.

Artist:    Beacon Street Union
Title:    Mystic Mourning
Source:    British import CD: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s):    Ulaky/Weisberg/Rhodes
Label:    See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    If I had to choose one single recording that represents the psychedelic era, my choice would be Mystic Mourning, from the album The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Everything about the tune screams (whispers? purrs?) psychedelic, starting with a short spacy intro of electric piano over cymbals, leading into a raga beat with a solo bass line that builds up to a repeating riff that ends up getting played at various times by guitar, bass, and/or piano. The lyrics are appropriately existential, and both guitar and piano get a chance to show their stuff over the course of the nearly six-minute track.

Our second band making its Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut this week is a Canadian power trio that started off covering Hendrix and Cream, but soon carved out musical territory of their own...

Artist:    Factree
Title:    Kaleidoscope
Source:    Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released in Canada as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Weaver/Gauther
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Sparton)
Year:    1968
    Not too far from Niagara Falls lies the small city of Welland, Ontario. This city of about 50,000 people was home to the Factree, an early power trio consisting of guitarist Chris Smith, bassist Rick Gauthier and drummer Mike Weaver, all of whom provided vocals for the band. A local disc jockey playing some of their demos led to a contract with RCA, who brought the band to a studio in Toronto to record four songs, with Kaleidoscope being issued as the A side of their first single. The song got decent airplay in Toronto, and a second single from the same sessions was slated to be released, but somehow the master tapes got damaged and the band had a falling out with their producer. They did record another single (as Tree) for a smaller Canadian label before splitting up.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    You Really Got Me
Source:    Mono CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    K-Tel (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1964
    Although the Beatles touched off the British Invasion, it was the sheer in-your-face simplicity of You Really Got Me, recorded by an "upstart band of teenagers" from London's Muswell Hill district named the Kinks and released in August of 1964 that made the goal of forming your own band and recording a hit single seem to be a viable one. And sure enough, within a year garages and basements all across America were filled with guitars, amps, drums and aspiring high-school age musicians, some of whom would indeed get their own records played on the radio.

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger
Source:    CD: How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All
Writer(s):    Proctor/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1969
    The Firesign Theatre, consisting of Phil Proctor, Peter Bergman, Phil Austin and David Ossman, pioneered a type of "counter-culture comedy" that would be followed up on by such stars as Cheech and Chong, George Carlin, and the Credibility Gap (with Harry Shearer and Michael McKean), as well as the National Lampoon Radio Hour (featuring Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Christopher Guest and others). Their most famous work is The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger from the 1969 album How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All. The piece itself runs over 28 minutes, taking up the entire second side of the original LP. It is a parody of old-time radio detective dramas, done in a noir style that has itself become a standard comedy trope. The plot itself is secondary to the jokes, many of which are references to counter-cultural icons such as the Beatles. There have been several more Nick Danger pieces by the Firesign Theatre over the years, the most recent being The Bride Of Firesign, released in 2001.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Everydays
Source:    LP: Buffalo Springfield Again
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Everydays has the distinction of being both the first song recorded for the album Buffalo Springfield Again and the last one to be released as a single, albeit a B side. Such was the quality of Stephen Stills's songwriting at this point in his career that a decent song like Everydays has gone completely overlooked in the years since it was released.

Artist:    Country Joe and the Fish
Title:    Section 43
Source:    CD: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer:    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    In 1966 Country Joe and the Fish released their original mono version of an instrumental called Section 43. The song was included on a 7" EP inserted in Joe McDonald's underground arts newspaper called Rag Baby. In 1967 the group recorded an expanded stereo version of Section 43 and included it on their debut LP for Vanguard Records, Electric Music For The Mind And Body. It was this arrangement of the piece (and quite possibly this recording) that was used in D. A. Pennebacker's film chronicle of the Monterey International Pop Festival that June. 

Artist:    Oracle
Title:    Don't Say No
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single).
Writer(s):    Ruthann Friedmann
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1968
    Before the days of arena rock, with two or three bands touring together and putting on virtually the same show night after night, headliner bands often looked to local talent for their opening act, making each stop on the tour a unique event. Sometimes the local opening band made enough of an impression to create a path to stardom for themselves as well, or at least to get a record contract. Take the case of a Lake Charles, Lousiana band known locally as the Great Society. Although they had not made any records, they had developed enough of a reputation to be able to score gigs across the state line in East Texas. One of those gigs was opening for the Music Machine in mid 1967. The Music Machine, at this point, was experiencing the frustration of being unable to score a successful follow up to their 1966 hit Talk Talk and was on the verge of dissolving, with the various individual members starting to explore other options. Among those members was bassist Keith Olsen, who liked Great Society enough to convince them to come out to Los Angeles and let Olsen produce them. Things did not go exactly as planned, however, as a bad acid trip left the band in no shape to cut a record. Olsen, however, working with co-producer Curt Boettcher, did get the group to provide vocals for a studio project the two of them were working on, a Ruthann Friedmann song called Don't Say No. As there had already been a band in California called Great! Society as recently as 1966, it was decided to rename the group the Oracle for the release of Don't Say No on the Verve Forecast label in 1968. Although the record was not a hit, it did help open doors for Olsen, who would go on to discover and produce the duo known as Buckingham Nicks, along with their breakthrough album as members of Fleetwood Mac. Since then Olsen has become one of the top producers in the history of rock music, working with such well known artists as the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir, Eddie Money, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Rick Springfield, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Heart, Joe Walsh, Starship, Santana, Kim Carnes, Jethro Tull, The Babys, Ozzy Osbourne, the Scorpions, .38 Special, Bad Company, Sammy Hagar, Russ Ballard, Whitesnake, Foreigner, Sheena Easton, Journey, Loverboy, and Lou Gramm. Not bad for a bass player from a one-hit wonder band.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Barterers And Their Wives
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Brown/Feher
Label:    Smash
Year:    1967
    The Left Banke made a huge impact with their debut single, Walk Away Renee, in late 1966. All of a sudden the rock press (such as it was in 1966) was all abuzz with talk of "baroque rock" and how it was the latest, greatest thing. The band soon released a follow-up single, Pretty Ballerina, which made the top 10 as well, which led to an album entitled (naturally enough) Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, which featured several more songs in the same vein, such as Barterers And Their Wives, which was also released as a B side later that year. An unfortunate misstep by keyboardist Michael Brown, however, led to the Left Banke's early demise, and baroque rock soon went the way of other sixties fads.

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

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2415 (starts 4/8/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/524151 

    This week we have a full slate of relatively short songs. In fact, this week's show actually has more total tunes (15) than any previous edition of Rockin' in the Days of Confusion.

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.

Artist:    Love Sculpture
Title:    The Stumble
Source:    British import CD: Blues Helping
Writer(s):    King/Thompson
Label:    EMI (original US label: Rare Earth)
Year:    1968
    Most people associate the name Dave Edmunds with his hit version of I Hear You Knockin' from the early 1970s. What many don't know, however, is that Edmunds was first and foremost a smokin' hot blues guitarist, as can be heard on the opening track of the first of two albums he recorded with bassist John Williams and drummer Congo Jones as Love Sculpture. Like most of the songs on Blues Helping, The Stumble is a cover of a blues classic, in this case written and originally recorded by Freddie King in 1961 and released as a single the following year.

Artist:    It's A Beautiful Day
Title:    Wasted Union Blues
Source:    CD: It's A Beautiful Day
Writer(s):    David LaFlamme
Label:    San Francisco Sound (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    It's A Beautiful Day was founded in the mid-60s by classical violinist David LaFlamme. The group had a hard time lining up gigs at first and eventually hooked up with local impressario Matthew Katz, who had similar deals with Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape. What the members of IABD did not know at the time was that those other bands were desperately trying to sever all ties with Katz due to his heavy-handed management style. LaFlamme and company would soon find out just how bad a deal they had gotten into when Katz shipped them off to Seattle to be the resident band at his own "San Francisco Sound" club from late 1967 through most of 1968. The group was put up in the attic of a house that Katz owned and given a small allowance that barely put food on the table. To make matters worse, attendance at the club was dismal. Still, the adversity did inspire some of LaFlamme's most powerful songwriting, such as Wasted Union Blues from the group's debut LP, released in 1969.

Artist:    Derek And The Dominos
Title:    Anyday
Source:    LP: Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Writer(s):    Clapton/Whitlock
Label:    Atco
Year:    1970
    Derek And The Dominos was originally an attempt by Eric Clapton to remove himself from the solo spotlight and work in a larger group setting than he had with his previous bands, Cream and Blind Faith. Such was Clapton's stature, however, that even among talents like Jim Gordon, Carl Radle and Bobby Whitlock, Clapton was still the star. However, there was one unofficial member of the group whose own star was in ascendancy. Duane Allman, who had chosen to stick with his own group the Allman Brothers Band, nonetheless played on eleven of the fourteen tracks on Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs. His slide guitar work is especially noticeable on the title track and on the song Anyday, which remains one of the most popular songs on the album.

Artist:    J.J. Cale
Title:    Crazy Mama
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    J.J. Cale
Label:    Shelter
Year:    1971
    Oklahoma native John Weldon Cale first moved out to the west coast in 1964, where he found moderate success as a songwriter and landed a regular gig playing the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Around this time he started using the name J.J. Cale to avoid confusion with the New York songwriter/violist John Cale (later to be a founding member of the Velvet Underground). His records, however (including an early fast version of After Midnight) went nowhere and Cale returned to Tulsa in late 1967. Nearly three years later Cale was surprised to hear Eric Clapton's cover of After Midnight on the radio, and at the suggestion of a friend decided to record an entire album of his original compositions. That album, Naturally, was released on Leon Russell's Shelter label in 1971, and included a slowed-down version of After Midnight. The most popular song from Naturally, however turned out to be a song called Crazy Mama that was released as a single, peaking at #22 in 1972.

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

Artist:    Electric Light Orchestra
Title:    Queen Of The Hours
Source:    45 RPM single B side (originally released in UK on LP: The Harvest Bag)
Writer(s):    Jeff Lynne
Label:    United Artists (original UK label: Harvest)
Year:    1971
    The first Electric Light Orchestra single to make the US charts was an edited version of Chuck Berry's Roll Over Beethoven from their 1973 album Electric Light Orchestra II. For the B side, however, they went back to the very first ELO song ever released. Queen Of The Hours had originally appeared in the UK on a compilation album called The Harvest Bag, released in November of 1971, and was included on ELO's debut LP the following month.

Artist:    Joni Mitchell
Title:    Car On A Hill
Source:    LP: Court And Spark
Writer(s):    Joni Mitchell
Label:    Asylum
Year:    1974
    Following the release of the album For The Roses in 1972, singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell decided to spend an entire year working on an album that would incorporate elements of jazz into her folk-rock style. To do that she recruited some of Los Angeles's top studio musicians, including members of the Crusaders and Tom Scott's L.A. Express and Wayne Perkins, who plays guitar on Car On A Hill. Court And Spark, released in 1974, became Mitchell's most successful album, and has appeared on several "best of" lists over the years.

Artist:    Doobie Brothers
Title:    Down In The Track
Source:    CD: What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits
Writer(s):    Tom Johnston
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1974
    Down In The Track is one of the more straightforward rock 'n' roll tunes on the fourth Doobie Brothers album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits. In addition to band members Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons, Tiran Porter, John Hartman and Michael Hossack, the recording features New Orleans pianist James Booker, known as the "Black Liberace" on piano.

Artist:    Iggy And The Stooges
Title:    Search And Destroy
Source:    LP: Raw Power
Writer(s):    Pop/Williamson
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1973
    Raw Power, the third album by the Stooges, saw the addition of James Williamson on guitar, with Ron Asheton moving over to bass to replace the departing Dave Alexander. Williamson also co-wrote all the songs on Raw Power with vocalist Iggy Pop. The album's opening track, Search And Destroy, has been called "an archetype for punk rock" and has been covered by numerous bands over the ensuing years.

Artist:    Velvet Underground
Title:    Rock & Roll
Source:    LP: Loaded
Writer(s):    Lou Reed
Label:    Cotillion
Year:    1970
    Lou Reed has said that the song Rock & Roll, from his last album with the Velvet Underground, Loaded, is somewhat autobiographical. In his liner notes for the box set Peel Slowly And See, Reed says "If I hadn't heard rock and roll on the radio, I would have had no idea there was life on this planet." The song has become one of Reed's signature songs over the years, but on Loaded the bulk of the work is done by Doug Yule, who played bass, organ, piano and lead guitar parts on the track.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Rock 'n' Roll Suicide
Source:    CD: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Ryko (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1972
    The final track of David Bowie's concept album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Rock 'N' Roll Suicide finds the title character an old washed-up rock star in a song that starts off quietly, then builds to a fitting climax for one of the most influential albums in rock history. According to Bowie, the piece was conceived in the French chanson tradition, with nods to Baudelaire and Jacques Brel in the lyrics. Although the song was never intended to be released as a single, the shirts at RCA apparently thought they knew better and issued one anyway (but only in the UK) in 1974, two years after the album itself came out; the record stalled out in the #22 spot, becoming Bowie's first single in three years to miss the UK top 20.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    You Gotta Move
Source:    CD: Sticky Fingers
Writer(s):    Fred McDowell
Label:    Virgin/Rolling Stones
Year:    1971
    Throughout their peak period of 1968-1972 the Rolling Stones made sure to include a cover of a classic blues tune on every one of the albums. Their entry for the 1971 album Sticky Fingers (the first on their own label) was You Gotta Move. Credited to Mississippi Fred McDowell on the album cover, the song is thought to possibly been co-written by Reverend Gary Davis, although documentation of the song itself is sparse. The Stones version features some nice slide guitar work from new member Mick Taylor.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    There I Go Again
Source:    CD: James Gang Rides Again
Writer(s):    Joe Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
    The two sides of James Gang Rides Again sound like two entirely different albums. As it turns out, this was somewhat intentional. According to bassist Dale Peters, guitarist Joe Walsh had written a set of acoustic tunes while the band was recording what would become side one of the album. Rather than try to hastily come up with another side's worth of tunes, the band decided just to let Walsh record the songs he had already written with a minimum of accompaniment. Among those tunes on side two of James Gang Rides Again is There I Go Again, a catchy number that features Walsh on both acoustic and (overdubbed) steel guitar.

Artist:    Five Man Electrical Band
Title:    Absolutely Right
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Les Emmerson
Label:    Lionel
Year:    1971
    Formed in Ottawa in 1963, the Staccatos had a string of Canadian hits from 1963 throught 1968. After their producer, Nick Venet, told the band that the name Staccatos sounded dated, the band rechristened themselves The Five Man Electric Band, releasing their first album under that name (including several tracks originally released as Staccatos singles) in 1969. The band switched labels and released the album Good-byes and Butterflies in 1970. The following year, the opening track from Good-byes and Butterflies became an international hit. Originally issued as a B side in October of 1970, Signs was re-released in February of 1971, and by summer was in the top 5 in both the US and Canada, as well as spending two weeks at #1 in Australia. The band followed it up with a song called Absolutely Right. Although the song made the top 10 in several US and Canadian cities, it only peaked at a disappointing #26 on the Billboard charts. After two more albums and several more singles, the Five Man Electrical Band finally disbanded in 1975.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2414 (starts 4/1/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/523358 

    A battle of the bands and, for some reason, a whole lot of tunes from 1966 (including one from an artist we've never heard from before, maybe because he was using a pseudonym) are on this week's agenda, plus a handful of other tunes making their Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut as well.

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

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    Back Door Man
Source:    LP: Tommy Flanders, Danny Kalb, Steve Katz, Al Kooper, Andy Kuhlberg, Roy Blumenfeld Of The Blues Project (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Verve Forecast
Year:    1966
    By all accounts, Tommy Flanders, the original lead vocalist for the Blues Project, was quite a character. He was known to wear the latest London fashions while walking the streets of New York's Greenwich Village and would even occasionally affect a British accent. He was also the one, according to guitarist Danny Kalb, who came up with the band's name in the fall of 1965. It was around that time that the band made its first trip to the recording studio, recording a pair of tunes for Columbia that the label rejected, meeting studio keyboardist and subsequent band member Al Kooper in the process. Around that time the band landed a steady gig at a place called the Cafe-Au-Go-Go and the club owner, Howard Solomon, decided to put on a show for Thanksgiving weekend called the "Blues Bag", featuring a mix of established artists like John Lee Hooker and younger artists like Geoff Muldaur, with the Blues Project as one of the main attractions. Solomon managed to get Verve Folkways Records to record the whole thing, which led to the band getting a contract with the experimental Verve Forecast label. The band had been allowed to keep the master tapes of the Columbia session, and the two tracks, a folk song called Violets Of Dawn written by fellow Greenwich Village denizen Eric Anderson and a sped up cover of Howlin' Wolf's Back Door Man, were released as the first Blues Project single on the Verve Forecast label in January of 1966.  At around that same time, the people at Verve's parent company, M-G-M, decided that the Blues Project was America's answer to the Rolling Stones, and flew the entire band out to Los Angeles for a huge sales conference. After the conference, however, in a scene right out of Spinal Tap, Tommy Flanders's girlfriend had an all-out blowup with the rest of the band members that resulted in her announcing that Flanders was quitting the band to become a Star. The album was quickly reworked to minimize Flanders's contributions (although there were not enough non-Flanders songs available to leave him entirely off the LP) and hit the racks in March of 1966, leaving the Violets Of Dawn/Back Door Man single as the only record released by the Blues Project while Flanders was still a member of the band.

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

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released in UK on LP: Fresh Cream)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Reaction)
Year:    1966
    When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the band's original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1970 soundtrack album for the movie Homer that the studio version was finally released in the US. Unfortunately the compilers of that album left out the last 15 seconds or so from the original recording.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    The Fat Angel
Source:    Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Sundazed/Epic
Year:    1966
    There seems to be some confusion as to what Donovan's 1966 track The Fat Angel is about. Some critics assume it refers to Cass Elliott of the Mamas and the Papas, although that seems to be based entirely on the song title. Others take it as a tribute of some sort to Jefferson Airplane, whose name appears in the lyrics of the song. The problem with this theory is that The Fat Angel appeared on the Sunshine Superman album, which was released just two weeks after the first Jefferson Airplane album (although it is possible that Donovan had come across a copy of the single It's No Secret, which had been released in the US in February of 1966 at the same time that Donovan was recording the Sunshine Superman album). My own view is based on the lyrics themselves, which are about a pot dealer making his rounds. Fly Trans-Love Airlines indeed!

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, 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 debut LP.

Artist:    Creation
Title:    How Does It Feel To Feel
Source:    Mono British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Garner/Phillips
Label:    Polydor
Year:    1968
    Creation was one of a handful of British bands that were highly successful in Germany, but were unable to buy a hit in their own country. Evolving out of a band known as the Mark Four, Creation was officially formed in 1966 by vocalist Kenny Pickett, guitarist Eddie Phillips, bassist Bob Garner and drummer Jack Jones. Their first single stalled out at #49 on the British charts, but went to #5 in Germany. The gap was even wider for their second single, which topped the German charts but did not chart in Britain at all. Garner and Phillips both left the band just as How Does It Feel To Feel was issued in early 1968. The band, with a fluctuating lineup, continued on for a few months but finally threw in the towel in late 1968.

Artist:    Beau Brummels
Title:    Deep Water
Source:    LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook (originally released on LP: Bradley's Barn)
Writer(s):    Elliott/Valentino
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1968
    The Beau Brummels were one of the first San Francisco bands to hit the top 20 in the US with their 1964 single Laugh Laugh, following it up with the even more successful Just A Little in 1965. This made them the top act at Autumn Records, owned by legendary San Francisco Disc Jockey Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue. When Autumn got into financial trouble and declared bankruptcy in late 1966 they sold the Beau Brummels' contract to Warner Brothers. Because of publishing issues, the Brummels' first album for Warner was made up entirely of cover songs, but were able to eventually record two albums' worth of material before disbanding in late 1968. By this time the Beau Brummels had been reduced to the duo of guitarist Ron Elliott and vocalist Sal Valentino, who had moved to Nashville and enlisted several prominent Nashville musicians, including keyboardist David Briggs, drummer Kenny Buttrey and guitarist Jerry Reed, for their final album. Bradley's Barn (the name of both the album and the studio where it was recorded) is considered an early example of country rock. When Warner Brothers compiled their first of a series of budget-priced mail order only albums known as Loss Leaders, they included Deep Water from Bradley's Barn.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    I'm Gonna Make You Mine
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carr/D'errico/Sager
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Possibly the loudest rockin' recordings of 1966 came from the Shadows of Knight. A product of the Chicago suburbs, the Shadows (as they were originally known) quickly established a reputation as the region's resident bad boy rockers (lead vocalist Jim Sohns was reportedly banned from more than one high school campus for his attempts at increasing the local teen pregnancy rate). After signing a record deal with the local Dunwich label, the band learned that there was already a band called the Shadows and added the Knight part (after their own high school sports teams' name). Their first single was a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that changed one line ("She comes around here" in place of "She comes up to my room") and thus avoided the mass radio bannings that had derailed the original Them version of the song. I'm Gonna Make You Mine was the second follow up to Gloria, but its lack of commercial success consigned the Shadows to one-hit wonder status until years after the band's breakup, when they finally got the recognition they deserved as one of the founding bands of garage/punk, and perhaps its greatest real life practicioner.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Eight Miles High
Source:    CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s):    Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    By all rights, the Byrds' Eight Miles High should have been a huge hit. Unfortunately, the highly influential Gavin Report labelled the tune as a drug song and recommended that stations avoid playing it, despite band's insistence that it was about a transatlantic plane trip. The band's version actually makes sense, as Gene Clark had just quit the group due to his fear of flying (he is listed as a co-writer of the song), and the subject was probably a hot topic of discussion among the remaining members.

Artist:    Link Cromwell
Title:    Crazy Like A Fox
Source:    Czech import LP: Also Dug-Its (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Kusik/Adams
Label:    Elektra/Rhino (original label: Hollywood)
Year:    1966
    Imagine you're the guy who gets to compile the first-ever collection of psychedelic garage rock singles from the mid-1960s. Naturally, having recorded one yourself, you would consider including that tune on the album, but in this instance the compiler, Lenny Kaye, chose modesty instead, and the song Crazy Like A Fox (written by his uncle, Larry Kusik and co-producer Ritchie Adams and released under the name Link Cromwell) remained only available as an obscure and highly collectable single for nearly 50 years, when it finally appeared on a couple of almost as obscure CD compilations in the UK, along with a box set of punk 45s. Finally, in 2023, Kaye supervised the 50th anniversary re-release of Nuggets, the aformentioned first-ever collection of psychedelic garage rock singles from the mid-1960s. This time, however, Kaye included the 2-LP volume 2 that had been originally planned but not released, along with a bonus disc called Also Dug-Its. And Kaye finally included his own Crazy Like A Fox on that bonus disc. Enjoy!

Artist:    Outsiders
Title:    Time Won't Let Me
Source:    Mono CD: Battle Of The Bands Vol. 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    King/Kelly
Label:    Era (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    From Cleveland we have another local band signed to a major label, in this case Capitol Records, which at the time was having great success with both the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Lead vocalist Sonny Gerachi would reappear a few years later with the band Climax, singing a song called Precious and Few, which is one of the greatest juxtapositions of artist names and song titles ever released.

Artist:    Pretty Things
Title:    Midnight To Six Man
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Taylor/May
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fontana)
Year:    1965
    Once upon a time in London there was a band called Little Boy Blue And The Blue Boys. Well, it wasn't really so much a band as a bunch of schoolkids jamming in guitarist Dick Taylor's parents' garage on a semi-regular basis. In addition to Taylor, the group included classmate Mick Jagger and eventually another guitarist by the name of Keith Richards. When yet another guitarist, Brian Jones, entered the picture, the band, which was still an amateur outfit, began calling itself the Rollin' Stones. Taylor switched from guitar to bass to accomodate Jones, but when the Stones decided to add a "g" and go pro in late 1962, Taylor opted to stay in school. It wasn't long, however, before Taylor, now back on guitar, showed up on the scene with a new band called the Pretty Things. Fronted by vocalist Phil May, the Things were rock and roll bad boys like the Stones, except more so. Their fifth single, Midnight To Six Man, sums up the band's attitude and habits. Unfortunately, the song barely made the British top 50 and was totally ignored by US radio stations.           
        
Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Gimme Some Lovin'
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1966
    By mid-1966 the Spencer Davis Group had already racked up an impressive number of British hit singles, but had yet to crack the US top 40. This changed when the band released Gimme Some Lovin', an original composition that had taken the band about an hour to develop in the studio. The single, released on Oct 28, went to the #2 spot on the British charts. Although producer Jimmy Miller knew he had a hit on his hands, he decided to do a complete remix of the song, including a brand new lead vocal track, added backup vocals and percussion and plenty of reverb, for the song's US release. His strategy was successful; Gimme Some Lovin', released in December of 1966, hit the US charts in early 1967, eventually reaching the #7 spot. The US remix has since become the standard version of the song, and has appeared on countless compilations over the years.

Artist:    John Fred & His Playboy Band
Title:    Sad Story/AcHendall Riot
Source:    LP: Agnes English
Writer(s):    Fred/Bernard
Label:    Paula
Year:    1967
    Although primarily remembered as a one-hit wonder, John Fred actually had a long career in the music business, dating back to 1956 when he formed John Fred And The Playboys at the age of 15. His first charted single was Shirley, released in March of 1959. Fred, who was a high school (and later college) athletic star, actually turned down an opportunity to appear on American Bandstand to promote the song because he had to play in a basketball game. In 1967 he changed the name of the band to John Fred & His Playboy Band to avoid being confused with Gary Lewis And The Playboys and had the biggest hit of his career with Judy In Disguise (With Glasses). This led to an album called Agnes English which includes Sad Story, a track that has Fred sounding eerily like Eric Burdon and leads into the instrumental AcHendall Riot to close out the LP. Although he was never able to equal the success of the #1 Judy In Disguise, he continued to be active in his native Baton Rouge, Louisiana, both as a musician and as a high school baseball and basketball coach. He also hosted a popular radio show, The Roots Of Rock 'N' Roll, and produced records for other artists such as Irma Thomas and Fats Domino before his death in 2005 from complications following a kidney transplant. In 2007 John Fred became the first artist inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame.

Artist:    Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:    Prelude/Nightmare
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Arthur Brown
Label:    Polydor (original UK label: Track)
Year:    1968
    One of rock's first "theatrical" performers, Arthur Brown first began to get noticed in Paris, where he spent a year developing his stage show and unique vocal style with his band the Arthur Brown Set, which was formed in 1965. On his return to England he joined up with keyboardist Vincent Crane. By 1967 the Vincent Crane Combo had changed its name to The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and was becoming a major force on London's underground music scene. In late 1967 the band went to work on their self-titled debut LP, which was released in the UK on the Track label in June of 1968. Spurred by the success of the single Fire, the album was picked up for American distribution by Atlantic Records that same year. The people at Atlantic, however, felt that the drums were a bit off and insisted on adding horns and strings to cover the deficiency. The result can be heard on tracks like Prelude/Nightmare, which opens the album.

Artist:    Aretha Franklin
Title:    Chain Of Fools
Source:    Mono CD: Atlantic Rhythm & Blues (Volume 6 1966-1969) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Don Covay
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1968
    Since pretty much everyone knows who Arethat Franklin was, I'll instead focus on the guy who wrote Chain Of Fools, Donald James Randolph, who was known by the stage name Don Covay. Covay got his start as a member of the Little Richard Revue, working in the dual roles of opening act and chaffeur for Little Richard himself. Pretty much from the start he was more successful as a songwriter than as a singer. For example, his first charted single, Pony Time, only made it as far as the #60 spot on the Billboard pop chart, but later became a #1 hit for Chubby Checker. Another example was Mercy, Mercy, which is now associated with the Rolling Stones, who covered the tune on their 1965 LP Out Of Our Heads. Probably the biggest hit Covay had as a songwriter was Aretha Franklin's Chain Of Fools, which went to the #2 spot on the pop charts and all the way to the top of the R&B charts in 1968. Ironically, Chain Of Fools was one of Covay's earliest compositions, written in 1953 while he was a teenager singing in a gospel group with his brothers and sisters.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)
Source:    LP: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Most people associate the name Buffalo Springfield with the song For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound). And for good reason. The song is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, and to this day is in regular rotation on both oldies and classic rock radio stations. The song was written and recorded in November of 1966 and released in January of 1967. By then the first Buffalo Springfield LP was already on the racks, but until that point had not sold particularly well. When it became clear that For What It's Worth was turning into a major hit, Atco Records quickly recalled the album and added the song to it (as the opening track). All subsequent pressings of the LP (and later the CD) contain For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound), making earlier copies of the album somewhat of a rarity and quite collectable.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Strawberry Fields Forever
Source:    CD: Magical Mystery Tour (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year:    1967
    The first song recorded for the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, John Lennon's Strawberry Fields Forever was instead issued as a single (along with Paul McCartney's Penny Lane) a few months before the album came out. The song went into the top 10, but was not released on an album until December of 1967, when it was included on the US version of Magical Mystery Tour.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    The first Neil Young song I ever heard was Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, which was issued as the B side of For What It's Worth in 1967. I had bought the single and, as always, after my first listen flipped the record over to hear what was on the other side. (Years later I was shocked to learn that there were actually people who never listened to the B side of records they bought. I've never been able to understand that.) Anyway, at the time I didn't know who Neil Young was, or the fact that although Young was a member of Buffalo Springfield it was actually Richie Furay singing the song on the record. Now I realize that may seem a bit naive on my part, but I was 14 at the time, so what do you expect? At least I had the good taste to buy a copy of For What It's Worth in the first place (along with the Doors' Light My Fire and the Spencer Davis Group's I'm A Man if I remember correctly). Where I got the money to buy three current records at the same time is beyond me, though.

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     Here Comes The Sun
Source:     CD: Abbey Road
Writer:     George Harrison
Label:     Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:     1969
     In a way, George Harrison's career as a songwriter parallels the Beatles' recording career as a band. His first song to get any attention was If I Needed Someone on the Rubber Soul album, the LP that marked the beginning of the group's transition from performers to studio artists. As the Beatles' skills in the studio increased, so did Harrison's writing skills, reaching a peak with the Abbey Road album. As usual, Harrison wrote two songs for the LP, but this time one of them (Something) became the first single released from the album and the first Harrison song to hit the #1 spot on the charts. The other Harrison composition on Abbey Road was Here Comes The Sun. Although never released as a single, the song has gone on to become Harrison's most enduring masterpiece.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Rock And Roll Woman
Source:    LP: Retrospective (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth). 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: Neil Young, Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Stephen Stills. 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 40 years after it was recorded.

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

Artist:     Van Dyke Parks
Title:     Donovan's Colours
Source:     LP: Superecord Contemporary (originally released on LP: Song Cycle)
Writer:     Donovan Leitch
Label:     Warner Brothers
Year:     1967
     Van Dyke Parks is probably best known for being Brian Wilson's collaborator of choice for the legendary (but unreleased) Smile album. When Wilson's deteriorating mental health brought about the demise of the Smile project, Parks got to work on his own debut solo LP. Song Cycle, released in 1967, was a critical success, but did not sell particularly well, due to being out of step with the then-current emphasis on psychedelic rock. The lead single from Song Cycle, released several months in advance of the album itself, was an instrumental adaptation of Donovan's early single Colours. Although credited to the fictitious George Washington Brown on the label of the single, the song was correctly credited to Donovan himself on the LP. Following the release of Song Cycle Parks shifted his attention to working behind the scenes with artists like Ry Cooder, Randy Newman and the Esso Trinidad String Band. He was also instrumental in getting the Beach Boys signed to Reprise in the early 70s, and since then has had a long and productive career as a songwriter, arranger and producer, releasing several more solo albums as well.

OK, so I can see why Van Dyke Parks would spell colors the British way, since that's the way Donovan's original version was spelled, but what is the deal with the original album title that the next tune is taken from? I bet Lord Tim (see below) was responsible.

Artist:    Lollipop Shoppe
Title:    Sin
Source:    German import CD: The Weeds aka The Lollipop Shoppe (originally released on LP: Just Colour)
Writer(s):    Fred Cole
Label:    Way Back (original label: Uni)
Year:    1968
    The Weeds were originally from Las Vegas, but by 1967 had relocated to Portland, Oregon, becoming a fixture on the local music scene. Their manager, Whitey Davis, decided that the band would be better off living in Sausalito, California. After about six months the Weeds dispensed with Davis's services and struck out on their own, moving to Los Angeles and eventually hooking up with Lord Tim, manager of the Seeds. When their first single, You Must Be A Witch came out in early 1968 the group was appalled to learn that Lord Tim had arbitrarily, without the band's knowledge or permission, changed their name to the Lollipop Shoppe. The single did well enough to allow the band to record an entire LP, which was titled Just Colour. Sin, written by the band's leader Fred Cole, is fairly typical of the Weeds' (excuse me, the Lollipop Shoppe's) sound.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sad Day
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richard
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    Several Rolling Stones singles released in the 1960s had different B sides in the UK and the US. As a result, songs like Sad Day, which was the B side of 19th Nervous Breakdown in the US, remained unreleased in the UK for several years. Sad Day finally appeared in the UK on a compilation album called No Stone Unturned, and was even released as the only single from that LP. Neither the single nor the LP itself was authorized by the band, who had lost control of their own pre-1971 catalog to Allan Klein when they terminated their contract with the British Decca label.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Outside Chance
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Zevon/Crocker
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1966
    The Turtles' Outside Chance is distinctive for several reasons. First, it was the last single released before Happy Together, the song that would become the band's signature song. It was also their first single since It Ain't Me Babe not to hit the charts, which is kind of hard to understand, as it really is a well-crafted record with a catchy hook. Outside Chance is also notable for being co-written by Warren Zevon, making the record's lack of success even more unfathomable.

Artist:    Mockingbirds
Title:    How To Find A Lover
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):    Peter Couad
Label:    Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    In addition to being one of the most successful songwriters in British beat music, Graham Gouldman was one of the most unsuccessful bandleaders in British beat music. His group, the Mockingbirds, released three singles in 1965, all of which were written or co-written by Gouldman. None of them charted, despite the fact that they were released on high-profile labels (Columbia and Immediate). The following year the band signed with yet another major label, Decca, and released two more singles. Neither of these, however, were written by Gouldman, who by then was holding back his best songs to be sold to proven hitmakers like the Hollies and Herman's Hermits. The final Mockingbirds single was How To Find A Lover, written by Peter Couad (or Cowap, according to one source). It too bombed, despite being a well-crafted pop song. Gouldman and bandmate Kevin Godley would eventually be reunited in the 1970 with the band 10cc.

Artist:      Opus 1
Title:     Back Seat '38 Dodge
Source:      Mono CD: Where the Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Christensen/Becker/Becker/Parker
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mustang)
Year:     1966
     Long Beach, California was home to Opus 1, who released the high-powered surf-tinged Back Seat '38 Dodge on L.A.'s Mustang label in 1966. The title refers to a controversial sculpture that suburbanites were talking about at the time.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    See See Rider
Source:    LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals Vol. II (originally released on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s):    Ma Rainey
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    One of the last singles released by the original incarnation of the Animals, See See Rider traces its roots back to the 1920s, when it was first recorded by Ma Rainey. The Animals version is considerably faster than most other recordings of the song, and includes a signature opening rift by organist Dave Rowberry (who had replaced founder Alan Price prior to the recording of the Animalization album where the song first appeared) that is unique to the Animals' take on the tune. The record label itself credits Rowberry as the songwriter, rather than Rainey, perhaps because the Animals' arrangement was so radically different from various earlier recordings of the song, such as the #1 R&B hit by Chuck Willis and LaVerne Baker's early 60s version.
    
Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    World Of Darkness
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    Sundazed/Reprise
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2015
    Electric Prunes vocalist James Lowe recalls that he and bassist Mark Tulin wrote World Of Darkness after seeing the Beatles on TV. The song was recorded in 1966 as a demo, but the band never returned to the recording to fix what he calls "timing" errors. The tune was released "as is" as a B side for Record Store Day 2015.

Artist:        Doors
Title:        End Of The Night
Source:    European import CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine (originally released on LP: The Doors)
Writer:        The Doors
Label:        Elektra/Rhino
Year:        1967
        Sometimes you run across a song that seems to encapsulate what a band is all about. End Of The Night, from the first Doors album, is one of those songs. Apparently the band members felt the same way, as it was included on the anthology album Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine, despite never being released as a single.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    The Wind Blows Your Hair
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Saxon/Bigelow
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1967
    The Wind Blows Your Hair is actually one of the Seeds' better tracks. Unfortunately, by the time it was released as a single in October of 1967 the whole idea of Flower Power (which the Seeds were intimately tied to) had become yesterday's news (at least in ultra-hip L.A.) and the single went nowhere.

Artist:     Moby Grape
Title:     Omaha
Source:     Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Moby Grape)
Writer:     Skip Spence
Label:     Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:     1967
     As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently from the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.