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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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With Love A Pot of Flowers - Various Artists

This release was compiled for and issued on producer Bob Shads’ Mainstream Records, a Chicago-based label. Four bands representing the rising garage and psychedelic music scene were brought together on one disc, San Francisco Bay Area groups, The Wildflower, Harbinger Complex, and The Other Side, plus Euphoria, a band out of Los Angeles with a brief stay in Texas. While none of these bands recordings reached a high success level, some of them are of memorable quality with some reaching a cult status among garage and psychedelic music enthusiasts. This record encapsulated the amazing things that were happening invthe Bay Area just before the major labels showed up. With Love A Pot of Flowers was released on October 21, 1967. I picked up on this album while perusing my favorite record store in the shopping center across from my high school. Besides my curiosity about this rather unique collection, I had heard of a couple of the bands. Harbinger Complex and Wildflower, that were held in some esteem by one of my respected friends. I decided to make the purchase after giving it a spin on the store platter. I found most of the songs to be very enjoyable, with some of them sounding quite unique to my developing musical ear. In doing my research on this album I immediately discovered that it had been later reissued on another label with twelve additional tracks, eight of them by six other bands that were on either the Mainstream or Brent labels, and four being mono versions of some of the original cuts. Bob Shad, the producer, A&R, and record label owner, was responsible for this and a number of other records released from the 1940s through the rest of the 1960s. Starting in the ‘40s he started producing blues, R&B and jazz albums and also began traveling to locations in the south to do location recording of blues and R&B acts that he found. He created several record labels starting with Sittin’ In With, followed by EmArcy and Time. He started the Brent label which focused mostly on West Coast acts,, and finally in 1964 he founded Mainstream Records. He again went on a location recording journey, this time heading west and managed to land in San Francisco and Los Angeles at a golden moment. After producing several unsuccessful singles, including ones by both SF Bay Area and L.A. bands, he made the decision to gather some of the best of what he had and release them on With Love A Pot of Flowers. It was one of the earliest of several rock albums on his label through the rest of the ‘60s, including the first Big Brother and the Holding Company record, and the first three Amboy Dukes albums, which introduced Ted Nugent to the world, for better or worse.

Side One

The Wildflower - Baby Dear

recorded 1966 Mainstream Records * origin San Francisco CA

The Wildflower - Wind Dream

recorded 1966 Mainstream Records * origin San Francisco CA

Euphoria - Hungry Woman

recorded 1966 Mainstream Records

The Other Side - Streetcar

recorded 1966 Brent Records * origin Fremont CA

The Wildflower - Coffee Cup

recorded 1966 Mainstream Records * origin San Francisco CA

Harbinger Complex - I Think I’m Down

recorded 1966 Brent Records * origin Fremont CA

Side Two

The Wildflower - Jump In

recorded 1966 Mainstream Records * origin San Francisco CA

The Other Side - Walking Down the Road

recorded 1966 Brent Records * origin Fremont CA

Harbinger Complex - When You Know You’re in Love recorded 1966 Amber Records * origin Fremont CA

Euphoria - No Me Tomorrow

recorded 1966 Mainstream Records

Harbinger Complex - Time to Kill * origin Fremont CA

recorded 1966 Amber Records

Harbinger Complex - My Dear and Kind Sir

recorded 1966 Brent Records * origin Fremont CA

The Wildflower - Stephen Ehret - Rhythm Guitar, Lead Vocals, Tom Ellis - Drums, Teddy Schneider - Percussions Vocals John Jennings - Bass Michael Brown - Guitar * past member Lee Chandler - Guitar

The beginnings of Wildflower occurred at California College of Arts and Crafts in 1965 with band members Ehret, Ellis, Schneider, Jennings and Chandler. Ehret was the primary songwriter and at times collaborated with poets Michael McClure and Michael “Spike” McCausland as well as other band members. After Chandler left the band found Michael Brown to play lead guitar. The group was in the first wave of bands to mature as the psychedelic era swept in with the Summer of Love.

Up in Virginia City, Nevada restoration had been completed on a building that became the Red Dog Saloon, famous as the beginnings for the seminal Charlatans. After they had played there for one summer the owners decided to audition more bands to play the next summer. In 1966 The Wildflower and Big Brother and the Holding Company joined The Charlatans in rotation throughout that summer at the saloon. The Red Dog Saloon connection to the San Francisco music scene soon led to some of the folks involved in the Red Dog coming down to the city and establishing The Family Dog at The Avalon Ballroom. Wildflower played that Ballroom, The Fillmore, The Matrix, The Tripps Festival as well as touring extensively. The four Wildflower cuts on A Pot of Flowers were recorded in 1966. Baby Dear and Wind Dream were on the band’s only single. The band continued on in one form or another until 1972.

In 2008 Ehret, Ellis, Jennings and Brown, together with guitarist Bannon and keyboardist Robert South reunited. This lead to the recording of several new songs that Stephen Ehret had composed over time. The result was the album Wildflower - 40 Years in a Blink of an Eye which was released in September of that year on Wildflower Records. Wind Dream and Coffee Cup were included on it along with newer songs. Stephen Ehret is still performing regularly in the SF Bay Area (except for the current COVID-19 shelter in place order) as of this writing.

Euphoria - Hamilton Wesley Watt Jr. - Vocals. Guitar William “Bill” D. Lincoln - Guitar, Bass David Potter - Drums Peter Black - Bass James Harrell - Guitar

Euphoria evolved from a band called The Bushmen, which was formed in Cleveland, Ohio by Wesley Watt. He had enlisted drummer David Potter (from who’s biography much of this information is obtained) after seeing Potter play with another band in a local club, The Clinton Bar. Not long after, in May 1965, Watt, the then 16-year old Potter plus Paul Armstrong, and Carl Johnson moved to Los Angeles where they quickly became the house band at the club, Guys and Dolls. Eight weeks later they had signed with Colpix Records, along with Platters manager Buck Ram as their manager. While it is not clear what happened with Armstrong and Johnson, by the time they recorded their only single, Bill Lincoln seemed to have become part of the band. Their only single was released in June, “Baby” backed by What I Have I’ll Give to You”, the latter being co-written by Lincoln. Bill had relocated from Seattle by at least 1963 as he co-wrote the song Walk on the Surf Side b/w lost Love by The Nova-Tones. Presumedly the same Bill Lincoln.

The Bushmen were getting a lot of attention and notoriety. This caught the attention of director David L. Wolper, who was looking for bands to be in a TV documentary he was going to film, Teenage Revolution, enlisted the band along with four others, including The Lovin’ Spoonful. Footage of the The Bushman playing a gig ended up being shot for the film in Lancaster CA. Over the next few months Watt, Lincoln (and likely Potter) recorded four more songs. In August they released a single as The War-Babies containing Jeanie’s Pub b/w Love is Love on Highland Records, followed by Now It’s Over b/w So Little Time under the moniker The WordD on Brent Records.

It was soon after those recordings that the group became Euphoria and they started touring under that name. During a successful tour in Texas they picked up two new members from the band The Misfits, Peter Black on bass and James Harrell on guitar, and ended up staying there for awhile. While in Houston in 1966 new tracks were recorded, none of them released at the time. Four of those tracks surfaced in1982 when Texas Archive Records released them on the Houston Hallucinations record. According to the Opulent Conceptions blog, “The band had other unreleased Texas recordings which await reissue”. There was no indication whether that has ever happened. Returning to Los Angeles, Bob Shad of Mainstream (and Brent) Records recorded four songs with Euphoria at a session in December 1966 at United Studios in Hollywood. A single was released containing two of them, Hungry Woman and No Me Tomorrow, both of which ended up on the collection, With Love A Pot of Flowers. In the extended version of the album released later the two songs by The WordD also appeared. The other two unreleased tracks that were recorded in Dec. ’66 were lost.

Around this time Bill Lincoln got married and moved to England and Euphoria basically dissolved once the single failed to have any impact. Black and Harrell rejoined The Misfits back in Texas, and the band became Lost and Found. Watt and Potter joined the Lee Michaels band and toured and ended up playing on his album Carnival of Life. After friction with Michaels during the recording came to a head, Watt ended up playing on an album by East Side Kids. Bill Lincoln returned to LA and he and Wesley Watt created their masterpiece album under the name Euphoria, A Gift From Euphoria, released on Capitol Records in 1968. David Potter was also credited along with guitarist Doug Delain. While it was not a big seller it has become a much sought after collectors album and has been re-released twice as a CD on two other labels.

Watt, Potter and Lincoln all continued in music into the early ‘70s through various projects. together or separately with other artists. For a time Potter, after becoming a sought after session drummer, moved to Houston and ended up on an album with Endle St. Cloud (Alan Mellinger), in which Black and Harrell were also involved. Per the article in Garage Hangover “Bill Lincoln recorded an album with his wife Lynda and friends as Addie Pray. Late for the Dance went unreleased for years”. It was then made available on CD Baby, which has since retired its’ music store in March 2020. It appears they live in Western Washington. After marrying his wife David Potter moved to her home state of Wisconsin, passing away of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 2011. Wesley Watt left LA in the ‘70s, moving to Northern Minnesota and worked in logging. He built his own recording studio and helped produce an album with a successful single for the band Whiskey River. After serving in the military for about three years he returned to LA for a while. He then moved to Sheboygan WI by invitation of his sister and had a few businesses there before passing away in 2015 after a three year battle with cancer.

-While researching the subject of Euphoria it became apparent that there was a certain amount of conflicting information as well as some conjecture in regards to the factualness of some of that information. At first it was difficult to find out much at all, but over a period of three days much more presented itself. The goal was to gather the information that seemed to have veracity while attempting to use as little of my own conjecture as possible. I think I have done a reasonable job of pulling the story of Euphoria into a cohesive and fulfilled description.

The Other Side (Otherside, Topsiders) -, Vocals Ken Matthew - Drums Tom Antone - Bass Ned Torney - Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals Martin Van Slyke Battey - Harmonica, Guitar, vocals Alan Graham - Guitar * past members Jim Sawyers - Guitar David Tolby - Guitar Skip Spence - Rhythm Guitar Danny Phay - Vocals, Jo Kemling - Keyboards The Other Side, or Otherside as some sources refer to it, was originally formed in Fremont CA as a surf band called The Topsiders by Sawyers, Matthew, Antoine and Tolby. Skip Spence was with them briefly and as he was leaving to play drums for Jefferson Airplane, gave the band the idea for what became their new name and which had been rejected by the Airplane. Many ongoing personal changes occurred after this beginning with Jim Sawyers departing for The Vegitables and ultimately The Syndicate of Sound.

The band became forever linked with Chocolate Watchband when lead guitarist and keyboardist Ned Torney opted to leave the Watchband and join The Other Side along with lead vocalist Danny Phay and shortly thereafter, keyboardist Jo Kemling. After placing runner-up at a Battle of the Bands sponsored by KEWB 91 in November 1965 the band got an endorsement from DJ Johnny G. and started drawing large crowds during a heavy performance schedule. Ned Torney got drafted but was stationed for nearly five months at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco and was only available on weekends. Enter Marty Battey to help fill in. Torney returned full time in May, making it necessary to drop one person which turned out to be Kemling. His departure was soon followed by Phay. Guitarist Alan Graham was then pulled out Lord Jim Quintet and assisted on vocals. This ended up being the line up that went into the studio and made the band’s only recordings, Walking Down The Road and Streetcar. After Antoine had received a draft notice and Battey departed, a new bass player, Wayne Paulson, came on and the band changed their name to Bogus Thunder.

The Harbinger Complex - Robert Hoyle III - Guitar Ron Rotarius - Lead Guitar James Hockstaff - Vocals Gary Clarke - Bass Jim Redding - Drums * past member Chuck Tedford - Organ

The band began as The Norseman in 1963 in Fremont CA. Robert Hoyle and Rob Rotarius had played guitar together in the 8th grade and then in high school formed the band. Hoyle, a naval reservist, served in Vietnam from ’65-‘’’66 and upon return found the band had been performing, lead by Rotarius and now named Harbinger Complex. Jim Hockstaff had come aboard as lead vocalist and frontman. Hockstaff had a reputation as what has been called “Dionysian exploits” by Stansted Montfichet in his Allmusic band biography, alluding to his expulsion from Washington Township High School after “siring several love children”. Once Hoyle returned to the fold he and Hockstaff were the songwriting team. In response to a question posed several years later in a blog interview with Jim Hockstaff regarding how the songwriting partnership played out, Hockstaff wrote this, “Bob had just returned from Nam and he possessed a smoldering fire that reflected in the lyrics (“Time to Kill”). Yes we collaborated together and separately, giving each other equal credit as the songs emerged. The energy of our group was never captured on the records we made with the possible exception of 'I Think I’m Down'. Lysergic Acid played a role as well in our thinking and playing!!!” (from Opulent Conceptions blog The Harbinger Complex-Interview With Jim Hockstaff Feb. 19, 2013)

In April 1966 the band released their first single Time to Kill with B-side When You Know You’re in Love. Bob Hoyle III penned Time to Kill after his time spent in Vietnam. About this time Harbinger Complex, along with The Baytovens, opened for Paul Revere and the Raiders at Oakland Auditorium. Those two local bands also co-headlined a KFRC sponsored show at College of San Mateo later in October. Their second single, the garage psychedelic punk cult favorite, I Think I’m Down b/w My Dear and Kind Sir was released in August ’66. All those songs are included in With Love A Pot of Flowers while two other songs recorded on a third single Sometimes I Wonder and Tomorrow’s Soul Sound were not nearly as strong and never went anywhere. Jim Hockstaff left the band in early 1967 with Gary Clark taking over lead vocals, followed by the band breaking up by the end of the year. In the Comments section of the Opulent Conceptions blog someone said that Harbinger Complex continued into the ‘70s with some new members and eventually changed their name to Helix. There is no actual confirmation of this, neither should it be confused with the Canadien band with the name Helix.

http://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2017/02/various-artists-with-love-pot-of.html

https://www.allmusic.com/album/with-love-a-pot-of-flowers-mw0002002491

https://www.allmusic.com/album/release/with-love-a-pot-of-flowers-mr0002415435

https://www.discogs.com/Various-With-Love-A-Pot-Of-Flowers/master/380119

http://www.thewildflower-sf.com/bio.htm

http://www.thewildflower-sf.com/beginning.htm

http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com/Wildflower.htm https://garagehangover.com/the-bushmen-war-babies-and-euphoria/

Internet Archive Wayback Machine-David Potter Bio https://web.archive.org/web/20131221220822/http://www.davidpottermusician.com/?page_id=179

Euphoria About https://www.facebook.com/pg/EUPHORIA-104995562883217/about/?ref=page_internal

Hamilton Wesley Watt obituaryhttps://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sheboyganpress/obituary.aspx?n=hamilton-w-watt&pid=174260541&fhid=14115

Euphoria Home https://www.facebook.com/EUPHORIA-104995562883217/

David Wolper’s Teenage Revolution documentary https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0857409/ https://www.thevideobeat.com/music-documentaries/teenage-revolution.html

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-otherside-mn0000475534

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbinger_Complex

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-harbinger-complex-mn0000554526

2010 release of enhanced album with tracks from other bands as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f34fV5MU6Y

LP34

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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Cream - Fresh Cream

Cream came about in the summer of 1966, recording their first album, Fresh Cream, from August to November, which was then released in the U.K in December. An altered version of it was released on Atco Records in the U.S. in January 1967. The difference in the versions was that the American version included I Feel Free as opposed to Spoonful on the UK record. In the U.K. the album topped out on the charts at No.6 while in the U.S. Billboard Top 200 it reached No.39. I Feel Free was released in the UK at the same time as the album, hitting No. 11 on the Album Top 40. Prior to this, another non-album song, Wrapping Paper, was the actual first single for the band. It was backed by Cat’s Squirrel, which did end up on the Fresh Cream album. The single, only released in the U.K., reached No.34 on their Top 40. Spoonful was a single off the album in the U.K., with the song split on two sides, failing to make the charts. I Feel Free was the only single released in the U.S. It came later, but failed to reach the Billboard Hot 100, cresting at No,116.

The idea to develop a new band belonged to drummer Ginger Baker. He had grown tired of playing drums with the Graham Bond Organisation. After going to see Eric Clapton play blues guitar with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Baker ended up giving Clapton a ride home. Ginger proposed that Eric join him in forming a band to which he readily agreed with but with one condition, that they include bassist Jack Bruce. According to Clapton, “Baker was so surprised at the suggestion that he almost crashed the car”. Eric had played with Bruce on a few occasions. They met when Bruce played with The Bluesbreakers in late 1965. They had played a live gig and John Mayall had it recorded and hoped it could be his second album which didn’t happen due to poor recording quality, They had also briefly been a part of a band of studio musicians called Powerhouse and did some recording. Steve Winwood and Paul Jones rounded out that group. During that period Jack Bruce was in the band Manfred Mann and was bassist on their hit single, Pretty Flamingo. Clapton wanted to do something ongoing with Jack after they had played together. Baker and Bruce had also played together when they were two of the co-founders of the Graham Bond Organisation. That had not gone well as they were notorious for quarreling and finally Baker had fired Bruce from the band. Bruce kept showing up until he “was driven away from the band after Baker threatened him at knifepoint”, according to Jack’s interview with John Tobler and Peter Frame. In forming Cream Baker envisioned a collaborative effort with everyone contributing to the music. He and Bruce did try to put their differences aside. As they were organizing and preparing for their first performances, which took place at the end of July ’66, they decided that Jack Bruce would be the lead vocalist with Eric Clapton, who was timid about singing at that time, doing occasional harmonizing. Clapton eventually came around to doing lead vocal on some songs, beginning with Four Until Late on Fresh Cream.

Cream was “the first top group to truly exploit the power trio format” per Richie Unterberger, and also wrote that they “could be viewed as the first rock supergroup to become superstars, although none of the three members were that well-known when the band formed in mid-1966”. The name Cream arose because Baker, Clapton and Bruce were considered the “cream of the crop’” of blues and jazz musicians in the British music scene. They were all considered to be incredible virtuoso instrumentalists. Baker and Bruce were relatively unknown in the wider music arena while “Clapton had the biggest reputation in England. He was all but unknown in the US, having left the Yardbirds before For Your Love hit the American Top Ten”, according to Richie Unterberger in his AllMusic biography of Cream. At first referred to as The Cream, the decision to settle on just Cream coincided with the release of Fresh Cream.

It is interesting to note that Eric Clapton, known as a blues purist, left the The Yardbirds because he didn’t like the commercial direction they were going when they released their first single, For Your Love. John Mayall gladly hired him to play in his band and Clapton continued to make a significant impact in the blues world with The Bluesbreakers. However, he left after the one album together, looking for a less controlling situation and not long after joined up with what became Cream. While the band was definitely blues-based to begin with, other things worked their way in rather quickly. Courtesy of Jack Bruce’s abilities spanning blues, rock and jazz, the band became a unit that would stretch the boundaries of what those genres meant, and play more powerfully and louder than any band up to that time. According to a Colin Fleming article in Rolling Stone, Jack Bruce said, “I thought of Cream as sort of a jazz band, only we never told Eric he was really Ornette Coleman”. Ultimately Cream took its’ place as a band that lead the way toward improvised jams, and on to psychedelic, hard rock and proto-metal styles. While not overly commercial (except in comparably few instances) Cream went beyond merely being a blues-based band. The notable jams that have been recorded with them in places like Winterland and The Fillmore reflected what had occurred in San Francisco with bands like The Grateful Dead during the Acid Tests and beyond. However, as Fleming describes it, “The connection between the mighty beast that was the Cream and the LSD-laced West Coast “softer” bands might seem a tenuous one, but Cream was teaching bands how to think onstage, how to improvise”. While their sometimes “bloated blues jams” were negatively criticized because of their flashiness, virtuosity and showmanship, lacking taste and focus, according to Unterberger, there is no doubt that they laid “the foundation for much blues-rock and hard rock of the 1960s and 1970s”. Meanwhile there is evidence in their studio recorded tracks that they were capable of producing interesting melodic music, in contrast with what happened in their live performances.

I first heard of Cream in spring of 1967. A friend of mine and I went to South Lake Tahoe CA for a training seminar put on by an organization we were in together. We drove to the event in his car,, talking together and listening to a lot of music. It was the first time I ever listened to Radio X and Wolfman Jack. My friend told me about a great new band from England called Cream and spoke of Eric Clapton and the others, none of which I had ever heard about before. Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce were totally unknowns to me while I was familiar with Clapton only because I heard his playing on the first Bluesbreakers album at the record store I would go to. While I didn’t end up getting that record until quite a bit later, the fact that the band and the albums title included “featuring Eric Clapton” was etched in my mind. I didn’t know about his connection with The Yardbirds until later. It wasn’t long after that I started hearing the only cut from Fresh Cream that got airplay on local radio, I’m So Glad. I always assumed it was a single, but as it turned out it was an early example of an album cut being played on top forty stations. As the rest of the decade unfolded this became a more common practice despite the normally tight format of those type of stations. I never got to see Cream perform live, but I have seen Eric Clapton in some of his eventual projects. Jack Bruce went onto a solo career as well as playing with other bands Ginger Baker was busy with various other band projects as well, but I never saw either Bruce or Baker perform.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cream_(band)#Formation_(1966)

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/how-cream-defined-the-rock-power-trio-190712/

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/cream-mn0000112462/biography

A combination that includes songs that appeared on both the original UK and US records plus additional tracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1xQRagjuwg

LP33

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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KFRC’s 21 Golden Rocks, Volume 1 - Various Artists

This was my first rock/r&b song collection album. How I got it is kind of vague. It certainly has the feel of listening to radio with just a few slight differences. There’s no DJ introducing the songs as they started and/or talking over the songs as they faded out, no commercials between songs, and I could choose when I wanted to hear them, how often, which ones, in what order…okay, so the songs were on the radio and now they could be on my record player. All the better. It also familiarized me with some songs I hadn’t heard, or heard very little. Since the majority of the songs were hits in 1966, with earlier ones going as far back as 1963, and one in 1967, the chances were that I heard most of them throughout ’66 & ’67 - when I really started paying more attention. It took me awhile to warm up to rhythm and blues music, I suppose one could say black music in general. I look back to some of the 45s that we had over time, courtesy of my sister and my mom. There actually are some songs that I had always enjoyed in that genre, but I just hadn’t gotten used to the newer ones yet. Sam Cooke comes to mind, but I think my sister kept that one even though I have most of those 45s now. As time went by I started appreciating the r&b songs on this album, as well as others that I was hearing more and more. It is evident that at this early stage it was reasonably important that I had this collection of music. Only three of the 21 songs are on albums I ended up owning. At the time I got it I already had albums with Hello Hello by Sopwith Camel and Laugh Laugh by The Beau Brummels, while later obtaining the Love album with My Little Red Book as the opening track.

Side one

Hello Hello - Sopwith Camel

1967 No.26 Billboard * recorded 1966

Album Sopwith Camel • origin San Francisco CA

The only song from the year of this album’s release. It was the first hit single by any band in the San Francisco Psychedelic era. There is more about the band in my posting about LP25.

Psychotic Reaction - Count Five

1966 No.5 Billboard * recorded 1965

Album Psychotic Reaction * origin in San Jose CA

The Count Five were the first San Jose band to have success in the “garage band era”. Psychotic Reaction was discovered by KLIV DJ Brian Lord. I saw Count Five with some original members including vocalist Kenn Elnerr perform Psychotic Reaction at Longstock XXI in 2013 in the Santa Cruz Mountains CA.

The Duck - Jackie Lee

1965 No.14 1966 Top 100 No.8 R&B Billboard * recorded 1965

Album The Duck 1966 * origin Los Angeles CA

His real name is Earl Nelson and he had been in The Hollywood Flames in the ‘50s and was lead vocalist on Buzz Buzz Buzz. He had been in the duo Bob & Earl with Bobby Boyd, who later recorded Rockin’ Robin as Bobby Day. Nelson united with Bob Relf for a further Bob & Earl period. Jackie was his wife’s name, and Lee his middle name.

Little Girl - Syndicate of Sound

1966 No.8 Billboard * recorded 1966

Album Little Girl * origin in San Jose CA

Little Girl was originally issued on Hush Records in San Francisco.and became a regional hit with help from KLIV radio. Bell Records picked it up and issued it nationally. In the early’70s Syndicate of Sound played at a DeMolay event I was at. I got to know co-writer Bob Gonzalez in the 2010s. He still performs in the South Bay Area as of this writing. Syndicate of Sound performed a few shows after I met Bob and I saw one of them at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds. Original guitarist, and lead singer of Little Girl Don Baskin, was there, but since passed away in 2019.

Dirty Water - The Standells

1966 No.11 Billboard * recorded 1965

Album Dirty Water * origin in Los Angeles CA

The song was written by producer Ed Cobb who had lived in Boston, and which explains references to that city in Dirty Water. Drummer Dick Dodd, who at one time was on The Mouseketeers, sang lead vocal on this and most Standell songs. Boston sports teams regularly play Dirty Water at their events. The Standells have played at Fenway Park five times including at the 2nd game of the 2004 World Series.

Little Latin Lupe Lu - The Righteous Brothers

1963 No.49 Billboard * recorded 1963

Album Right Now! * origin Orange County/Los Angeles CA

Their first single, this song was a moderate hit for The Righteous Brothers before their first major smash You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling the next year. Bill Medley said that he dated a “Lupe Laguna” in high school. I saw Medley perform solo at Circle Star Theater in the ‘70s.

Laugh Laugh - The Beau Brummels

1964 No.15 Billboard * recorded 1964

Album Introducing The Beau Brummels * origin San Francisco CA

This was their first hit single. It was written by guitarist Ron Elliott and sung by lead vocalist Sal Valentino. I saw Valentino perform as a guest with Jackie Greene in 2005 at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz CA. There is more about the band in my posting about LP29.

Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go) - The Leaves

1966 No. 31 Billboard * recorded 1966 (3rd version)

Album Hey Joe * origin San Fernando Valley-Los Angeles CA

A popular regional number, the Leaves recorded this song three times, with the final success of the third after new guitarist Bob Arlin, who used a fuzztone, had joined the band. They originally heard the song done by The Byrds at a club called Ciro’s. Johnny Echols of Love claims that The Leaves first heard Love’s version as well. The Leaves ended up releasing it before the Byrds version was released on their Fifth Dimension LP. The second version by The Leaves was released before the Love version came out on their first album, but was not successful as a single. Other notable versions were by Tim Rose, and Jimi Hendrix, plus LA’s Standells, Music Machine and Surfaries had also recorded it.

Baby Scratch My Back - Slim Harpo

1966 No.16 Top 100/No.1 R&B Billboard * recorded 1965

Album Baby Scratch My Back * origin Baton Rouge LA

Born James Isaac Moore in Lobdell LA, Slim Harpo was a leading exponent of Swamp Blues. His stage name was derived from his mastery of the blues “harp” harmonica. It was his most successful single, others of which included I’m a King Bee (’57) and Shake Your Hips (’66).

Pushin’ Too Hard - The Seeds

1966 No.36 (1967) Billboard * recorded 1965 reissued 1966

Album The Seeds 1966 * origin Los Angeles CA

Originally released as You’re Pushin’ Too Hard in 1965 when it became a regional hit and started being played extensively by an LA DJ after the album was released. After a new single of it was issued in November ’66 as Pushin’ Too Hard, it lead to it reaching national charts. Some radio stations banned it in the belief it was about a pusher of illegal drugs. Rather strange since it would have actually been an anti-drug song. The song is often cited as an example of garage rock in both celebratory and denigrating manners. I have seen keyboardist Darryl Hooper play with a recent version of the Seeds, and with Chocolate Watch Band in 2015 and 2019 all at at The Chapel in San Francisco CA.

Good Lovin' - The Young Rascals

1966 No.1 Billboard * recorded 1966

Album The Young Rascals * origin Garfield NJ

This song was originally recorded by Lemme B. Good (Limme Shell), and a month later by The Olympics with revised lyrics, which was a moderate hit for them. It is said that Young Rascal Felix Cavallere first heard The Olympics version and it was added to the Young Rascals’ repertoire, using those same lyrics and basic arrangement as The Olympics. It was the band’s first real hit, being only their second released single. They went on to have five other top 10 hits including two more No.1’s, in the meantime changing their name to The Rascals.

Side 2

You Turn Me On (Turn On Song) - Ian Whitcomb (and Bluesville)

1965 No.8 Billboard * recorded 1965

Album You Turn Me On * origin Dublin IE/from Woking Surrey Eng.

This is one of the only two British Invasion songs included in the collection, the other being technically Irish. (the Irish Invasion?) It was self-penned by Whitcomb and was the only one of his four Billboard songs over the years to reach hit status. He went on to be a record producer, author, and occasional actor. He eventually moved permanently to the U.S. and still performs as of this writing.

Sweet Talkin' Guy - The Chiffons

1966 No.10 Billboard * recorded 1966

Album Sweet Talkin’ Guy * origin The Bronx New York, NY

This was the group’s third Top 10 hit single. They ended up touring in Germany, and in England where members of the Beatles and Rollings Stones were in the audience on one club date.

Along Comes Mary - The Association

1966 No. 7 Billboard * recorded 1966

Album And Then…Along Comes The Association * origin LA CA

The band is famous for their rich vocal harmonies which lead to some major successes for the group in the ‘60s. This was their third single, but the first one to become a hit on Billboard. The next single, Cherish, hit No.1 the same year, as did Windy in 1967 with Never My Love at No.2 that year. The song refers to a once-disillusioned man’s tribulations being comforted by Mary and improving his life. It’s also been said that “Mary” refers to marijuana. It’s unclear whether composer Tandyn Almer ever confirmed that one way or the other. Over the years The Association has had an enormous amount of singers perform in the group over the years. They are still active, with the founder Jules Gary Alexander still on board, as of this writing.

Baby Do The Philly Dog - The Olympics

1966 No.63 R&B No.20 Billboard * recorded 1966

Album Something Old, Something New * origin Los Angeles CA

The Olympics started out as a doo-wop group in the late fifties, having their only big hit, Western Movies, make No.8 Top 100 and No.7 R&B on Billboard with one other top 10 song on Billboard R&B. They released a number of other singles until their last one Do the Philly Dog. They made no further singles following this. Charles Fizer died from a bullet wound in The Watts Riots of ’65. Not long after Melvin King left after his sister died in an accidental shooting. With line up changes the group continued after the mid-60s but with little success. They continued performing in the ‘70s on the oldies circuit in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Hang On Sloopy - The McCoys

1965 No. 1 Billboard * recorded 1965

Album Hang On Sloopy * origin Celina OH, Union City IN

Originally titled My Girl Sloopy when written by Wes Farrell & Bert Berns it was an R&B hit for The Vibrations in 1964. Before changing their name to The McCoys, they were called Rick & The Raiders. Rick & the band backed the Strangeloves, who were actually three writer/producers, at their last performance of a tour. The Strangeloves then recruited 17-year old Rick Zehringer (later Derringer) and his band to record Hang On Sloopy in New York. It later became the official song of the State of Ohio, unofficial fight song of Ohio State University, a signature song of the Cleveland Indians, and played regularly at Cleveland Cavalier games.

Hello Stranger - Barbara Lewis

1963 No.3 Top 100 No.1 R&B Billboard * recorded 1963

Album Hello Stranger * origin Detroit MI

Barbara Lewis wrote all the songs on her first album, Hello Stranger. She had eight other songs chart in the Billboard Top 100 through 1967, two of them which she had not written, peaking at No.11 in 1965. She was out of sight for awhile the next decade but resurfaced in 1977. She retired from singing in 2017 for health reasons.

My Little Red Book - Love

1966 No.52 Billboard * recorded 1966

Album Love * origin Los Angeles CA

This was Love’s first single on the Billboard chart and was a moderate hit. I remember it being played quite a bit on Bay Area stations. It was their version of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song. Bacharach criticized the altered chord changes in Love version, but the song “became a garage rock standard, per Mason Stewart in his AllMusic song biography. It has also “been credited for its "punk" quality” by Stewart and others. I got to see My Little Red Book, among other songs, performed live by Arthur Lee & Love at Great American Music Hall on January 16, 2004, while Lee was still alive.

Solitary Man - Neil Diamond

1966 No.55 Billboard * recorded 1966

Album The Feel of Neil Diamond * origin Brooklyn NY

This, Neil Diamonds’ first single to chart, was a moderate success on Billboard and remains one of his personal favorite songs. He had written some other successful songs that were covered by others up to that time. It had already been thought by some, but in the 2000s Diamond finally realized, that Solitary Man was about himself while he was trying to write and sell songs up to the point when he went to work in the Brill Building. It was followed by the higher charing single, Cherry Cherry the same year. Neil Diamond has gone on to be one of the the most popular, best selling music artists of all-time. He still performs to sold-out audiences.

5 O'Clock World - The Vogues

1965 No.4 Billboard * recorded 1965

Album Five O’Clock World * origin Turtle Creek/Pittsburg PA

This was the second of back-to-back No.4 singles on Billboard, the band’s best success as The Vogues. They had one non-charting single (released twice) prior to that as The Valaires. The only other time of Top Ten success was in 1968 when they had back-to-back No. 7 singles. Their last studio album was released in 1971, followed by several unsuccessful singles through 1974. Although they continued performing by 1983 there was one original member left. Their manager in the meantime had trademarked the name and assets of the band. What followed was a classic case of many multiple bands using the name The Vogues, resulting in legal actions, and even Congressional testimony regarding the Truth in Music Act by that original member Chuck Blasco.

Gloria - Them

1965 No.71 Billboard * recorded 1964

Album The Angry Young Them * origin Belfast IE

This is the other non-American single on the album, the band being Irish. It landed in the U/S. during the British Invasion period. This garage song staple, written by Van Morrison, was the B-side of Baby Please Don’t Go in the U.K. and as such, was not included on the UK Singles Chart on it’s own. It was only moderately successful in the U.S. as a single while the Shadows of Knight (SOK) version issued later in the year rose to No.10 on Billboard. Them’s version topped that SOK version only in places it could be played. One of my earlier memories as a teenager involved hushed whispers about songs like Gloria and Louie Louie. One could listen to the American band’s version of Gloria and think, so what. It turns out that many radio stations would not play Them’s version because of the line “She comes to my room”: Oh my. The SOK version went, “She calls out my name.” In either case, Gloria is a classic. Van Morrison left the band in 1966 and has gone on to be a beloved songwriter and performer. I saw him on a double-bill with Bob Dylan at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View CA in the 2000s.

——————————————————-

KFRC 610 “The Big 610” and “Boss Radio” was a Top 40 rock and roll AM radio station in San Francisco CA. Prior to that it was purchased by RKO-General in 1949 and had an MOR (middle of the road) music format. The station was originally licensed at 1110 kHz in 1924, then 660 kHz a three years later, and finally 610kHz in 1928. The change in 1966 blended into “The Summer of Love” era and KFRC became the dominant station in the Bay Area through the 1970s. The station was responsible for two important events that occurred during that period. One was The Beach Boys Summer Spectacular, which included many bands, held in 1966 at the Cow Palace in Daly City. The following year, on June 10 and 11, they hosted the very first rock festival ever held, Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival at Sidney B. Cushing Amphitheatre on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. It preceded the Monterey Pop Festival by one week. The only band on this album that played Magic Mountain was The Seeds, although there were many great upcoming local and national acts there. KYA 1260 was their chief rival in San Francisco. Another station I listened to a lot in the Bay Area was KLIV 1590 in San Jose. The fact is I listened to those stations more than KFRC overallI. Both of those stations preceded KFRC in the Top 40 format although KFRC held its’ own once it entered that arena. Of course any top forty station was fair game if they were playing the right song while I was cruising around. All these stations are gone now; sold, changed frequency and/or call letters, and of course, formats. It was a “golden” time to be listening to music radio though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFRC_(defunct)

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/various-artists/kfrc-the-big-610-21-golden-rocks-volume-1/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLIV

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Camel_(band)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Five

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Nelson_(singer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicate_of_Sound

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Standells

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Brothers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beau_Brummels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leaves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Harpo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seeds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rascals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Whitcomb

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chiffons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Association

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Olympics_(band)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_McCoys

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Lewis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_(band)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Diamond

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vogues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them_(band)

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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Chocolate Watch Band - No Way Out

Chocolate Watch Band (Watchband) is considered by some to be the ultimate Garage Band. They played early, if not the earliest psychedelic punk music.They had a heavier take on responding to the British Invasion that was in full swing when they formed. In their early stages they were interested in the music of The Who, but it is obvious that they owe a debt to The Rolling Stones, and perhaps were America’s answer to the hard edged blues-rock and swagger of the Stones. Their recordings certainly supported that, and their live performances reflected it as well. As a warm up, and to show their abilities to producer Ed Cobb down in Los Angeles in 1966, the first song they recorded tracks for was Chuck Berry’s Come On. This also happened to be the first song the Stones ever recorded. - As written about by Vladimir Bogdanov, Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Chris Woodstra. The style of music they played has been defined in a number of ways, garage rock, proto-punk, psychedelic, (definitive) psychedelic punk. In the bands’ website History - The Story, it even goes so far as to label their music as “Anglophilic blueswailing”. Music critic Bruce Eder said “they were a unique phenomenon -- based on their recordings, they were a world-class garage punk act, if that's possible, beating the Ramones to the punch by a decade, He further “described the material on the album as "highly potent, slashing, exciting, clever pieces of music”. While I’ve not seen it mentioned I would go so far as to surmise that they may have been influenced by the psychedelic blues-rock offered by The Yardbirds as well. Eder further says “…the album (No Way Out) was largely overlooked at the time of its release and had gone out of print by the early 1970s’, By the early ‘80s I started hearing about the demand for their original albums which eventually spread across the planet. Eder said that around that time their albums “were changing hands for $100 apiece or more.” In later writings I have seen up to $1000 being estimated. I firmly concluded early on that no way would I ever sell my copy of No Way Out.

Before going further it must be noted that the use of Watch Band in their name appeared in two places in particular, the albums No Way Out and inner Mystique. It is apparent in all other ways that the name as created by the band early on is Chocolate Watchband. In no place I’ve researched have I seen a reference or explanation for this. In my opinion it was either an error on the part of label and/or producer, or it was done intentionally. The latter would make some sense since producer Ed Cobb certainly did a lot of rogue tampering when it came to the production of their recordings. There was another band called The Chocolate Watch Band based in London, England. That group released two singles, ironically in 1967, the same year No Way Out was issued. I seriously doubt that the San Jose CA-based CWB was aware of that band. In any case, the name Chocolate Watchband (or CWB) will hereon be used.

When I discovered their album No Way Out in my favorite record store across the road from my high school it must have only been out a short time. I’m not sure I had heard of them, but the album was attractive enough to listen to and I bought it immediately. It’s possible that a friend of mine may have known about them because I found out pretty quickly that they were “local”, since I lived in Palo Alto, in Santa Clara County (aka, in time, Silicone Valley).

The band was originally formed at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills in 1965 by Mark Loomis and Ned Torney. This was prior to my tenure at Foothill, but I have heard they played there many times. As to how the band name came into being I happened to find this information from Tim Abbott: “The story is that the band was sitting around the Owls Nest up at Foothill College trying to come up with a name for the band. The idea was to find two cool words that sounded good together. Somebody said chocolate and somebody said watch()band and that was it”. Chocolate Watchband eventually dissolved when Torney and the lead singer at the time, Danny Phay, moved over to a band called The Otherside (The Other Side in some examples) followed by another CWB member Jo Kemling. This left Loomis, drummer Gary Andrijasevich and bassist Rick Young with no band. After a foray into The Shandels Mark Loomis decided to resurrect Chocolate Watchband, calling on Andrijasevich once again and pulling Shandel bandmates bassist Bill ‘Flo” Flores and Topsiders guitarist Dave ‘Sean” Tolby into the fold. The final piece was added when Loomis recruited David Aguilar as lead vocalist. Aguilar, who had just become the lead singer in the band The Mourning Reign, explains how it came about: “…as I moved around the stage at the Brass Rail with a tambourine in one hand and a microphone in the other, I saw two guys with long blond hair, Sean Tolby and Mark Loomis in the front row of the audience watching me. I didn't think much of it. There was always other band members hanging around checking out the competition. Later that evening, while I was struggling with chemistry homework in my bedroom, my Dad called up the stairs and said there was someone on the phone for me. It was Mark Loomis. He said he was forming a new band called the 'Chocolate Watchband'. Was I interested in joining it? It took almost a nanosecond to decide. "Hell Yes!" "Good" he said. "We meet next Thursday night at 6 PM at my house. Here's my address. " That was all we said to each other. When I drove up four days later, drums and cymbals were being thrown out the front door onto the lawn. I could hear yelling going on inside the house and a woman wailing in her high pitched voice. Out came the last remnant of the old Watchband, a drummer cursing and flipping off some invisible entity inside the house. I was thinking, wow this is one hell of a reception! When I got inside, everything was peaceful. Mark had a broad smile on his face. He was standing in front of his mother whose face was redder then a ripe tomato. All he said to me was, "Well, that's done. Let me show you where we're going to practice.” He led me past the kitchen, through the family room and out into the garage. In those days, the garage was where all good and bad bands ended up. …Mark's garage was awesome. No cars, no crap, just a garage with soundproof walls, carpet remnants on the cement floor and two little neighbor girls ages 11 and 12 with pimples on their chins sitting in lawn chairs with wide grins on their faces. It was time to rock and roll!”

The new line-up made their debut performance in February 1966, quickly becoming one the hottest live acts in the wider Bay Area and beyond. During their brief heyday period in 1966-1967 Chocolate Watch Band played many concerts, including at Fillmore Auditorium, Oakland Coliseum, The Whiskey in L.A,, Coconut Grove in Santa Cruz, and others. The played bills with The Mothers of Invention, Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and The Doors among others. They also performed at the first rock music festival in the United States, KFRC’s Magic Mountain Festival at Mount Tamalpais in Marin County CA. After the Mothers gig at The Fillmore, Bill Graham wanted CWB to be one of his personal house bands at his new venue, Fillmore East, along. with the Airplane and the Dead. They had just signed a contract to be managed by local promoter Ron Roupe a week before so that did not happen. Roupe went on to secure the record deal with Green Grass Productions which lead to their meeting producers Ed Cobb and Ray Harris, according to Richie Unterberger. By the fall of ’66 they got signed up by Cobb to the Capitol Records’ subsidiary Tower Records. Two singles, Sweet Young Thing backed by Dylan’s It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (1966) and Misty Lane backed by She Weaves a Tender Trap (1967) were released and failed to chart to add to the already recorded, but yet to be released, Come On.

During this period the band was featured in two Sam Katzman films released by American International Pictures. The first one, Riot on Sunset Strip, an “exploitation movie par excellence rushed out to theaters in early 1967” which, according to Eder included “a couple of excellent numbers, "Don't Need Your Lovin'" and "Sitting There Standing," and (the band) managed to appear in the movie, which has since become a '60s cult classic.” It was at the height of their musical powers. The next film, The Love-Ins, was released later in July. The band was supposed to have a major role in it, but most of that was cut before release. It is rumored that it was due to some band misbehavior on the set. However their song, Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-In),” ended up being used in the movie according to Eder. When asked by Amanda Sheppard for her 2018 Article “No Way Out for the Chocolate Watchband!” in PleaseKillMe, “Is it true that you started a food fight on the back lot of MGM while you guys were filming Riot On The Sunset Strip?” David Aguilar had this to say, “Yes, I may have started a food fight but what can I say…I was a young rocker in a strange land! Important Safety Note: You would think a hamburger has stable aerodynamics when tossed…it doesn’t….probably the pickles are to blame.” I guess the possibility of the band creating havoc on the set was real.

Along about this time Chocolate Watchband was also recording tracks for their first record. What ‘The Story’ on the band’s website history site calls “mysterioso studio trickery on (‘the’) (be)half of producer Ed Cobb” could also apply to other various details about the No Way Out recording project in general. There is no specific information about studio recording dates, exact release date, and what songs actually featured the band. Per one source the recording period was in mid-1967, which would be true, but not very precise. Based on what information there is, four of the tracks on the album actually featured the entire band. According to biographer Bruce Eder only two songs, Come On and Gone and Passes By made it to the album intact. Amanda Sheppard points out that the label, pressuring Ed Cobb to rush production, lead him “to record multiple songs he wrote with the sound engineers, while the band was out on tour”. There are actually two instrumentals written by engineers Richard Podolor and Bill Bennett, plus two more written by studio musician Don Bennett and a co-writer. Don Bennett’s lead vocals were also recorded for at least three of the tracks and ended up on the record rather than David Aguilar’s. This was notedly true concerning what is generally considered the most popular song, Let’s Talk About Girls. On some tracks entirely different musicians were used in the recordings. The song No Way Out is stated in one source as the only composition by the band, but Ed Cobb credited it to himself, which is what became official. There is even one source according to Eder that says “Frontman Aguilar began writing material for the band, including originals like….”No Way Out….”. He further states that it was “an instrumental spawned from a studio warm-up, with spontaneous Aguilar vocals, that Cobb later took credit for”. In his AllMusic biography of the band Eder says it was “Cobb-authored”. Mysterioso indeed.

Amanda Sheppard writes, “To further complicate matters, Chocolate Watchband’s label, Tower Records, had mistaken the group for a black rhythm and blues band and farmed out their distribution to Uptown Records who sold their albums in Oakland, instead of their top market in San Jose. Uptown even booked the Watchband on soul revues with Jackie Wilson and The Coasters.” In the same article with Sheppard she asked David Aguilar about soul revues: He replied, “We did one soul revue that I can remember. We had just been signed by the Attarack Corporation, we had cut some tracks in Los Angeles and in some bizarre turn of fate, someone at Capitol Records apparently looked at our name and decided what the ‘chocolate’ must indicate in our name, THIS WAS A BLACK ROCK AND ROLL BAND. They assigned us to the Uptown Label, a distributor of black rhythm & blues and 50’s black performers. Chuck Berry was notorious for showing up at a show, playing with a locally hired band, and then getting paid in cash before he left the theater. So, we stepped in and played as his backup band…paying off the theater bouncer to get rid of the original hired band when they showed up to play. It worked! The shows were set in the ‘50’s revue set-up…lots of performers, 3-4 songs, and then the next group came on stage. With Chuck, we did “Johnny B. Goode”, “Little Queenie”, “Sweet Little Sixteen”, and “Roll Over Beethoven”. The Watchband played “I’m a Man”, “Little Red Rooster”, “Better Man Than I”, and “I’m Not Like Everybody Else”, which really fit for that show!”

About the time the album came out Loomis, Andrijasevich and Aguilar had all left the band. It had become clear that Loomis preferred a more melodic style of music and he and Andrijasevich ended up in a folk-rock band for awhile, The Tingle Guild, with early CWB vocalist Danny Phay. Since there was still a heavy performance schedule to fulfill guitarist Tim Abbott, drummer Mark Whittaker and vocalist Chris Flinders (members of the San Francisco Bay Blues Band) joined the remaining Flores and Tolby and the band. While being somewhat different, the band maintained a level of success. Abbott and Flinders left the band before the end of 1967 however, and Aguilar came back briefly, but the band was essentially history by the end of the year.

A memory I have about the No Way Out album involves a party that included primarily members of the high school choir which I was in, and our friends. The party was at the home of one of my choir mates, She and two of her sisters were all friends of mine in high school. I brought along some record albums, amongst them was No Way Out. I put side one on and when the second cut, the bands’ wicked version of Wilson Picketts’ Midnight Hour, came on I suddenly found myself being asked to play it again, and again, and again. There were some people there who just couldn’t get enough of it. I don’t know, maybe it was the weed. No one else seemed to care so I, and a few other people, put it on several times throughout the night. Luckily, other music got played as well.

I recall hearing about a new drummer joining CWB not long after I got the album, and that he had attended my high school. The name was familiar and one day I was walking near my house and I ran into him outside his. He had graduated that year, two years before I did. I decided to ask him and he said that he had joined CWB. It turned out to be brief, but it was cool that I had a neighbor who was in Chocolate Watchband. Around 2010 or 2011 I got to know Gary Andrijasevich and Tim Abbott. Gary lives in Santa Cruz and is still an active percussionist. I met him when I saw him playing with one of the bands he regularly plays with, EXTRA LARGE. He also plays with other bands at times, like my friends Beach Cowboys.

Chocolate Watch Band has been playing off and on since 1999 and after I became publicist at the now-defunct Don Quixote’s in Felton CA I did some research into what they were up to. I discovered that Tim Abbott was now the ongoing guitarist for them. I decided to reach out to him and we communicated about the potential for them playing DQ’s. Eventually they were scheduled to play thanks to my friend DJ Sid Presley, but due to David Aguilars’ acute health issues it was canceled. I later met up with Tim when CWB premiered at San Francisco’s The Chapel in 2015, seeing them once more in 2019 just as they were releasing their newest album, “Sweet Young Thing”. Prior to that I got to see Chocolate Watch Band for the first times twice on the same day in 2002. They played a co-bill with The Electric Prunes presented by the BayPop Festival at The Great American Music Hall in SF. That afternoon both bands played at Amoeba Records in Berkeley. I picked up CWB’s 2000 ‘Get Away’ album written primarily by David Aguilar at Great American that night.

Chocolate Watchband is alive and well, recording singles and making videos real time as I write this, Tim Abbott told me. There is just no way out of it, folks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chocolate_Watchband

https://www.thechocolatewatchband.com

https://www.thechocolatewatchband.com/history

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-chocolate-watchband-mn0000774791/biography

https://pleasekillme.com/chocolate-watchband/

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/the_chocolate_watchband

No Way Out full album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FaO2yDAia8

LP31

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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The Yardbirds - Yardbirds’ Greatest Hits

As the mid-sixties were in full-swing I was paying more and more attention to the music of the day, and rock music was winning me over. 1966 was the year I fully turned the corner and The Yardbirds’ Shapes of Things definitely was a major factor. I was aware of their other songs that had been playing on the radio. I spent a lot of time looking at records in stores when I’d be with my mom while she was shopping for other things. I rarely bought anything though. I would look at the Yardbird albums but I was weary of what the other songs were like and didn’t bite the bullet.

When Epic Records decided to do an anthology of The Yardbirds in the U.S., it gave me an opportunity to get what mostly I wanted, those songs I had been hearing and especially Shapes of Things. I can clearly remember standing in an aisle at Gemco in Palo Alto one evening. I was near the record section and there was music being played on the store system. Shapes of Things came on, and while I am not exactly sure it was the first time I ever heard it, I do remember standing there in awe. I recall thinking to myself that it was one the most amazing things I’d ever heard and I knew I would get it someday. Just not that day, or anytime too soon because I was only thinking LPs at the time and it was not on any of the Yardbirds current albums. As it turns out the Greatest Hits album was to be its’ first time on LP, and it never came out on a Yardbirds studio album, in England or the United States. Their other U.S. hits up to that time are also on the Greatest Hits album, along with other songs that will be noted later.

The original Yardbird members were Keith Relf on lead vocals and harmonica, Jim McCarty on drums, Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar and later bass, Paul Samwell-Smith on bass and also producer, and Anthony “Top” Topham on lead guitar. Topham left the same year the band formed in 1963. Following that The Yardbirds became known for having three lead guitarists that are all ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone Magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitarists list, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Beck and Page played with the band at the same time for a period of time, but little was recorded with the two of them together in the studio or live. They first received notice when they replaced The Rolling Stones as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in the suburban town of Richmond.

The first hit record for The Yardbirds was For Your Love which was written by Graham Gouldman when he was eighteen years old. He was influenced by The Beatles to give songwriting a try. He was with a band called The Mockingbirds and they were with a record company. He had two songs that he had written and submitted to the company for use, but the one they rejected was For Your Love. The Yardbirds picked it up and it became a smash hit. This was actually the bands’ third single effort, the first two being primarily blues-based. One had failed to chart and the other, only issued as a single in England reached No. 49 on the UK Singles Chart. For Your Love, recorded in February 1965 and issued in March in the UK, and April in the U.S on Epic Records, reached No. 3 on the UK chart and No. 6 on the Billboard Top 100. This was the only hit single that Eric Clapton played on. He was a blues purist and had expressed his displeasure with this more commercial venture. For that, and other reasons as well, he suddenly quit the band the day the single was released in England. As it is, he and Chris Dreja only performed during the double-time middle break section. The rest of the piece was performed by Keith Relf, Jim McCarty and added musicians Ron Prentice on double-bass, Denny Piercy on bongos, and Brian Auger on Harpsichord.

On the heels of the hit single For Your Love, the eponymous album was an American release on Epic records in July 1965. Three of the cuts were recorded in March and April shortly after Clapton had departed and Jeff Beck had come on board. The balance of the album contained recordings from as far back as March 1964, while Clapton was the lead guitarist. It included all three singles plus their B-side tracks. Producer Giorgio Gomelsky selected all the numbers. Group chronicler Gregg Russo notes, "The cover was somewhat of a joke, as Jeff Beck was humorously seated in front of a keyboard that he did not play on the album.” Eric Clapton was not included on the cover, nor was he mentioned anywhere on the album. It was The Yardbirds first album to chart on the Billboard Top 100 at No. 96.

One of The Yardbirds most popular songs, Heart Full of Soul, which was another Graham Gouldman composition, was recorded in April 1965. Gouldman had followed his first success with the band with another demo that they immediately picked up. Music critic Richie Unterberger described Gouldman as "a genius at effectively alternating tempos and major/minor modes”. Martin Power noted that the tempo shifts and use of double-time, as in Heart Full of Soul, was a feature of Yardbirds live performances and became known as a “rave up”. This was the first hit with Jeff Beck on lead guitar, a guitarist who had more varied style influences. He experimented with guitar effects such as feedback, and the fuzz box that he used to create a sound that, as described by music writers Pete Lavezzoli, Alan di Perna, and Martin Power, introduced Indian influenced guitar style to rock music. This occurred after it was originally attempted to have an Indian sitarist play that part. The band didn’t feel it worked and Beck tried out a new fuzz box that was a prototype developed by Jimmy Page. It has been indicated by Alan di Perna that Beck's playing helped introduce "the psychedelic sub-genre known as raga rock’”, which became popular over the next two years. It was released in the U.K. in June and cresting on UK Singles at No. 2, and the U.S. in July reaching No. 9 on Billboard Top 100.

Heart Full of Soul was included on the American album Having A Rave Up (with The Yardbirds). The A-side of this album contained more studio material recorded in 1965 while the B-side had live recordings from 1964 with Eric Clapton on lead. Giorgio Gomelsky was once again the producer. I’m A Man, their third single, was recorded in September and released in November. It peaked on the Billboard Top 100 at No. 17. The B-side cut was Still I’m Sad which was part of a double-side hit with Evil Hearted You in the U.K. neither song of which was released as a single in the U.S. Still I’m Sad and the live Smokestack Lightning from the Rave Up. album are on the Greatest Hits album as well as I’m Not Talking, which was from For Your Love.

I’m A Man was written by Ellas McDaniel aka Bo Diddley and was a hit for him in 1955. The Yardbirds had recorded a live version for their first album in the U.K., and it is included on the B-side of the Rave Up album. I’m A Man as a single is definitely one of the songs that got me very excited about the band. Beck played a percussive effect on his guitar, termed “scratch-picking” by Gene Santora, which provided the double time beat and the instrumentation (“that builds to a crescendo“) climax on the studio version. I’m A Man is “perhaps the most famous Yardbirds rave-up of all” according to critic Cub Koda. Later versions of the song by bands like Chicago and The Coffis Brothers have paid great homage to that rave up style. It is also felt to be an early example of both psychedelic and hard rock styles.

The aforementioned Shapes of Things was called by Jeff Beck “the pinnacle of The Yardbirds”. It was the first recording in which he incorporated sustain, and guitar feedback which he had discovered through experimentation and began using in his playing. Producer Giorgio Gomelsky arranged for recording to be done while The Yardbirds were in the U.S. on tour at Chess Records Chicago studio in December 1965. Beck was not completely satisfied with the guitar solos he did at Chess so they did the finishing recording at Columbia studios in Hollywood in January 1966. It was simultaneously released in both countries near the end of February topping out on the UK Singles Chart at No. 3 and at No. 11 on the Billboard Top 100 on May 14. It appeared in the U.K. on a various artists collection in September ’66, while its’ first album appearance in the U.S. was Greatest Hits. The concept and development of the song is at least partially summarized by what Jim McCarty had to say. “We were really coming from not trying to create a sort of a 3-minute piece of music, it was just something that seemed natural to us. We started with the rhythm, we used a bass riff that came from a jazz record, got a groove going with that and then added a few other bits from elsewhere, other ideas that we'd had. And I think it was a great success for us, it was a good hit record that wasn't really selling out. And it was original.” With Beck’s ground-breaking techniques,, Paul Samwell Smith’s desire to use a bass line idea from jazz icon Dave Brubeck’s song Pick Up Sticks, and Keith Relf’s lyrics and melody the song for many, as Cub Koda wrote, “represents the Yardbirds' creative peak”. Relf’s lyrics were described by Beck biographer Martin Power as pro-environmental or anti-war. Jim McCarty felt that it more reflected opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Those words seem timely from an environmental point-of view, even more so today:

“Now the trees are almost green, but will they still be seen, when time and tide have been

Fall into your passing hands, please don't destroy these lands, don't make them desert sands”

They will always be timely from an anti-war perspective as well.

Over Under Sideways Down, the next hit single and was inspired by “Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets. Recorded in April 1966 in May in both in the U.K. and U.S, t peaked at No.10 and No. 13 respectively. Jeff Beck played both the guitar and bass on the record. It was the only single on the album that followed, and was backed by, the instrumental, Beck’s Boogie. That album, called The Yardbirds, was recorded in England in April and May and released on Columbia in the U.K. on May 14 It was produced by Paul Samwell-Smith and Simon Napier-Bell. It was the only album in which Jeff Beck was lead guitar on all tracks. All songs in the album were written by all five band members. It became known semi-officially as Roger the Engineer based on Chris Dreja’s cover drawing of audio engineer Roger Cameron. It was their only studio album released in the U.K. and the only one on the UK Album Chart, reaching No. 20. Meanwhile the American version of the album was titled Over Under Sideways Down. Released on Epic three days after the U.K. version, it reached No. 52 on Billboard Top 200. Two of the songs were omitted and there was slightly different placement on the record for the rest. While the album wasn’t among the best at the time, American music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that it was "the Yardbirds' best individual studio album, offering some of their very best psychedelia”.

Happenings Ten Years Time Ago was recorded following the Yardbirds/OUSD release in July, September and October, and after the departure of Paul Samwell-Smith, who became a producer on other projects. Jimmy Page had come aboard, first filling Samwell-Smith’s bass role, and then as an additional lead guitarist when Chris Dreja moved to bass. In the recording however, John Paul Jones was on bass. Happenings took a deep dive into psychedelia and this description in an AllMusic review by Matthew Greenwald sheds light on it: “Led by a dark, Middle Eastern/psychedelic guitar riff, the song is quickly transformed into a frenetic, almost psychopathic rhythm, giving the whole affair a weird and powerful atmosphere. The idea of going back and forwards into time is paramount here, and was certainly one with the overall psychedelic ambience of the time”. Released as a single in October in the U.K. and November in the U.S., it failed to rise to the level of the previous six (including Evil Hearted You/Still I’m Sad released only in the U.K.) top 20 singles. It crested at only No. 43 on UK Singles Chart and No. 30 on Billboard Top 100. Happenings Ten Years Time Ago made its’ album appearance on the Greatest Hits Album.

It wasn’t until some years later that I learned more about The Yardbirds roots in blues music. Of course the Greatest Hits album had a few blues tunes on it, including the Bo Diddley’s blues-rocker I’m a Man. Primarily though they started to become more mainstream in an attempt to be commercial. Along the way they became cutting edge in other recording and performance styles. What attracted me to their music in particular was that it had a harder edge to it than most of the songs on the air. That rave up factor I suppose. In fact, the Yardbird sound was a conduit to yet-to-come Hard Rock music. Also, they started experimenting, particularly with Jeff Beck and later Jimmy Page, with different instrumentation and techniques. Shapes of Things, and the later hit single Happenings Ten Years Time Ago, are now considered important examples of the psychedelic music that became a primary form of music in the rock scene for the next few years. Shapes of Things, says Richie Unterberger "can justifiably be classified as the first psychedelic rock classic”.

I have never seen The Yardbirds, although the opportunity to see the recent group reformed with new players by Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja (who had to drop out due to health issues) was available to me in the past few years, but I was unable to do so. Of course I have had the honor of seeing Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page in some of their other reincarnations. Guitar rock at its’ best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yardbirds#Discography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yardbirds_discography

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-yardbirds-mn0000489303/biography

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/yardbirds-band-history/

Shapes of Things https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OjcB-D5Yy4

LP30

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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The Beau Brummels - The Best of the Beau Brummels

The Beau Brummels had two big hits, a third one that made the Billboard Top 40, plus three other singles that were in the Billboard Hot 100. After that initial success they faded away rather quickly. It was three of their songs - Laugh Laugh, Just A Little and Don’t Talk to Strangers that persuaded me to purchase this Best of album, issued on Vault Records in 1967. As it turns out, not long after it had been released. In addition to those three songs I found most of the material very appealing with the exception of They’ll Make You Cry, which was on their Introduction album. The song is well written, by Ron Elliott of course, but the lead vocal by Ron Meagher never appealed to me. Still In Love With You Baby is one of my favorites. You Tell Me Why, Sad Little Girl, the instrumental, Woman, and I Want You are also songs that I really like. In Good Time and Good Time Music are both a hoot. It should be noted that I indeed wrote in the songs I Want You and Woman on the record sleeve. Their absence on the sleeve may have been an omission in the early printing of it, but fortunately the songs are present on the record.

Singer Sal Valentino, a San Francisco native who grew up in North Beach, had been doing some solo work and appeared on local television when he got an offer to play regularly at a club called El Cid. A band was needed so he reached out to his childhood friend Ron Elliott, a guitarist and songwriter. Elliott then enlisted the rest of the eventual band made up of John Peterson on drums, Declan Mulligan on guitar, harmonica and vocals, and Ron Meagher on bass. They took their name from the English dandy Beau Brummell, and according to Valentino, just liked the name. Some think that the band may have liked that it was British-sounding, especially since this was at the time of the British Music Invasion. In either case they were among, if not the earliest to respond to that “invasion”. With Elliott’s strong songwriting chops, and Sal Valentino’s memorable voice, they were soon to have their impressive moments in music history.

Rich Romanello soon hired them to play his Morocco Club in San Mateo. San Francisco disc jockeys Tom Donahue and Bobby Mitchell were in the process of forming a new music label, Autumn Records, and were looking for acts. Romanello invited them to his club to hear The Beau Brummels. The band signed with Autumn and for the first album, which included their first two singles. Sylvester Stewart, later known as Sly Stone, was the producer. He was credited as producer of their second album, but later, according to Valentino and Elliott, he had little if nothing to do with it, perhaps not even being involved with much of the first album’s recording other than Laugh Laugh and Just A Little.

Laugh Laugh was recorded in 1964 and released that December, quickly reaching its’ high point of No. 15 on Billboard in February 1965. It was backed by Still in Love With You Baby which also got some airplay with some saying it was also one of their “hits”, although not officially. Tom Donahue would later say that he felt Laugh Laugh could have gone all the way to No. 1 with stronger label distribution. Not only was it the band’s first single, it also was the first hit record in the growing San Francisco music scene.

Just a Little was recorded in early 1965, released that April just as their first album Introducing The Beau Brummels was about to come out. The song ended up spending nine weeks in the Billboard top 40, hitting No. 8 on the chart in June. Written by Ron Elliott with collaborator Bob Durand, the song contained elements of British beat and what came to be known as Folk-Rock. Having been released one month before The Byrds’ Tamborine Man, this made The Beau Brummels’ Just A Little the true birth of Folk-Rock.

You Tell Me Why was the initial single release from the album, coming out in the summer and in August peaking at No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100. SF Weekly journalist Justin F. Farrar said the song was “…prescient of the lush, melancholic vibe of early Jefferson Airplane, The B-side number, I Want You was considered by music critic and author Richie Unterberger to be "as good as any song the Beau Brummels ever did”.

The fourth single, Don’t Talk To Strangers, released in October, spent one week at No. 52 in November on the Billboard Top 100. It is possible that with Autumn Records near collapse the song’s relative low placement was a result. San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joel Selvin called the song “inventive, and author Maury Dean praised the song's "raging chord patterns and dynamic harmonies,” The aforementioned Richie Unterberger criticized the song for it’s harmonies and twelve-string guitar work being too similar to The Byrds. I find that kind of strange because the use of the twelve-string was likely an attempt to add more variety to the musical concept, and the album had full, rich harmonies throughout. It seems unlikely to me that they were in the studio worrying about whether they would sound like someone else. Ron Elliott said that folk-rock was not a thing they were trying to achieve, but rather a result of their attempt to indeed stretch their sound with alternative instrumentation while using things like acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica, and it seems a twelve-string guitar.

A final single from the album released by Autumn Records, was Good Time Music, a cover of John Sebastian’s composition done by The Lovin’ Spoonful It was backed by Sad Little Girl. It only reached No. 98 while Autumn Records was on the verge of being shifted to Warner Bros. Records. Sad Little Girl could easily have been a solid single in it’s own right, with Richie Unterberger conjecturing that it may have been a better choice as the third single after Laugh Laugh and Just A Little.

As 1965 progressed the band became a quartet when Declan Mulligan departed prior to the recording of their Volume 2 album. Because Ron Elliott was suffering from seizures caused by a diabetic condition, Don Irving joined the band on guitar for live performances and also recorded with the them. Shortly after the release of the the band’s third album Irving was inducted into the armed services. That third album was the first on Warner Brothers Records, who strangely had them make an all covers album. Although the Brummels had some songs already written Warner did not hold the publishing rights to them and had no interest in recording them. The final two studio albums recorded in the ‘60s saw further reduction in members as John Peterson left to join Harper’s Bazaar and later, in 1968, Ron Meagher was drafted into the armed services. Both the aforementioned albums, Triangle and Bradley’s Barn, utilized original material and were critically acclaimed but never charted. Triangle found three members left in the band while only Elliott, who was stabilized by now, and Sebastian were around for Bradley’s Barn. The latter record is recognized as one of the early country-rock albums. The original five members (with one leaving fairly early on) reunited in 1974 and stayed together until 1975, producing one album that got a moderate reception, but only reached No.180 on the Billboard Top 200. They toured during that time and a live album was recorded at Fair Oaks Village near Sacramento CA and later released in 2000. Following their break up the band continued to occasionally perform in various reincarnations in the ‘70s into the ‘90s. They also performed at a few Festivals in the early 2000s.

I never got the opportunity to see The Beau Brummels play live, but I, and many others, cannot forget their appearance in animation as The Beau Brummelstones in a Flintstones cartoon episode in December 1965. They also were seen in a few movies and several music tv shows in same time period. After the demise of The Beau Brummels, Sal Valentino formed the group Stoneground in 1970 of which three of the members eventually became the band Pablo Cruise, including my high school classmate, pianist Cory Lerios. After Sal left the band in 1973 he reunited with The Beau Brummels in ’74-‘75 and then his career went dormant, In July 2005 I went to see Jackie Greene play at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz CA. At one point he introduced someone whom I thought he referred to as his uncle. It was Sal Valentino, and he came out and performed with Jackie on a song or two. I was able to find out more recently that, while they aren’t related, Sal met Jackie while living in Sacramento. They played at open mics at Fox and the Goose. This was a pub that I had lunch at on a couple of occasions when I was in town for a few work related activities around that time. For Sal it was a tentative step back into performance after a long hiatus. He ended up being involved in a live recording with Jackie in 2003. While not his uncle, Valentino apparently became somewhat of a mentor for the upcoming Greene. Sal went on to record a very well received album in 2006, Dreamin’ Man, with his long time collaborator John Blakeley.

Ron Elliott continued to be involved in the music business in various ways. Per Richie Unterberger, in 2016 he teamed up with producer Lou Dorren to record a new Beau Brummels album, Continuum, with contributions from Sal Valentino, Ron Meagher, and Declan Mulligan. While John Petersen died in 2008, Elliott and Dorren discovered an unused drum track he had recorded, and it was used as the basis for one of the album's songs.

Declan Mulligan and Ron Meagher were members of The Black Velvets. John Peterson was with Harper’s Bazaar until they broke up. He married Roberta Templeman, the sister of one of his bandmates Ted Templeman. Ted Templeman went on to produce albums with The Doobie Brothers amongst many other artists, including The Beau Brummels in 1975.

In the brief time that The Beau Brummels were in their glory they are considered to be the first band from San Francisco to gain widespread success in the face of the British Invasion. Their music was on the cutting edge of new trends such as folk-rock and country rock, and their two biggest hits are arguably among the best songs ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beau_Brummels#Discography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beau_Brummels_discography

https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Decades-in-obscurity-Beau-Brummels-front-man-2522300.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal_Valentino

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-beau-brummels-mn0000135032/biography

Don’t Talk to Strangers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeQ-MYwjLu4 LP29

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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The Turtles - It Ain’t Me Babe

The Turtles was a band comprised primarily of young men who were in an instrumental surf rock band called The Crossfires while they were in high school and college in the Los Angeles Westchester neighborhood. Howard Kaylan, who lead the band, was joined by AJ Nichol on lead guitar, Don Murray on drums, and Chuck Portz on bass. While in the high school a cappella choir Mark Volman got interested in the band and joined on with it. Along the way Jim Tucker signed on as rhythm guitarist. Local radio DJ and club owner Reb Foster liked the band and became their manager, working out the deal that lead to their contract with the new label, White Whale Records. Because the band members were all under age of consent, their parents had to approve it. The genre changed along the way, bowing to the folk-rock trend. Along with it came a name change, first to The Tyrtles (a bow to the folk rock band The Byrds), and then finally to The Turtles. Like The Byrds, they looked to Bob Dylan for song inspiration, ending up with three Dylan-penned songs although one source indicates that Wanderin’ Kind was composed by Howard Kaylan, and Dylan. On the album it is only shown as composed by Kaylan.

By the time I purchased The Turtles’ It Ain’’t Me Babe album they already had released two more on White Whale Records, but I had originally heard of the band because of the first album awhile before that.. It was at a party, the details of which I cannot remember very well. I only know that it was at a home where I hadn’t really been before, with a lot of kids I didn’t know very well, and it was unusual because I didn’t really go to parties like this very much at that time. Records were being played, and I had finally started to pay more attention to rock music. One of the guys there was a high school classmate of mine, but he was also someone I didn’t know too well. We ended up talking, with a few others, about current music. He was the one who noticed that the Turtles’ first album was there, and perhaps was playing at the time. What I do remember well though, was that he really liked this album and made a big deal about it. That left a lasting impression on me and it ultimately led me to deciding to get it. By the time I did buy the album It Ain’t Me Babe, the Turtles, unbeknownst to me, had already notched a top ten hit single (at No. 8) from that album in 1965 on Billboard Hot 100 (Bob Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe). Another single You Baby, which reached No. 20 and was then included on their second album of the same name which was released in 1966, and was backed on the B-side by Wanderin’ Kind from their debut album. Strangely enough the B-side song Almost There, on the single It Ain’t Me Babe, was later included on the You Baby album. Four other songs from It Ain’t Me Babe were released on two singles. Let It Be was another song that hit a decent No.29 on Billboard, backed by Your Maw Said You Cried (In Your Sleep Last Night). It Was a Very Good Year, backed by Let the Cold Winds Blow, didn’t break into the Hot 100 but made No. 7 in Canada. Personally I think if B-side Let the Cold Winds Blow had been the song featured on American radio the single might have gotten some traction. The album itself registered No.98 on the Billboard 200. It was provident that such a young band, recording their first album at such a young age, should have been so successful although they ultimately broke up by the end of the sixties. The remarkable harmonies of the lead vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, continued on when they continued to perform under the moniker Flo and Eddie. Eventually in the 2000s I got an opportunity one time to see Howard and Mark perform as “The Turtles” at the B.R. Cohn Charity Events Fall Music Festival headlined by The Doobie Brothers in Glen Ellen CA and actually hang out with them for a few minutes after the show. It was nice to see and hear them getting back to their remarkable roots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turtles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turtles_discography

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-turtles-mn0000564239/biography

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers- Hard Road

I suppose one of the cool things about the Hard Road album, which was recorded in October and November 1966 and released in February 1967, is that John Mayall has a lot to say in the liner notes. Since I really knew little or nothing about him, the other band members, not to mention the blues in general, it gave me some important early insights. Previously purchasing another ‘blues’ album by the American band The Blues Project, I hadn’t done more than enjoy listening to it, not actually getting much below the surface of what it was really about. By reading some of the insights and opinions of Mayall it helped lead me into to examining the blues in more depth in the future. In the case of Mayall it has been about the Chicago electric blues in particular, filtered through the British blues scene. He moved to, and has lived in, the United States since the end of the ‘60s.

My decision to obtain this album was directly due to one of my best friends in high school. We had met in our sophomore English class and started hanging out together fairly quickly. One of our favorite after-school pastimes was to head over to the record store in the shopping center across the street. We spent countless hours there listening to albums on record players with headphones attached. My friend had somewhat more eclectic music interests than me at that time. He made made a point that I listened to some of the blues albums there, this being one of them. At first I had to get used to the falsetto voice of John Mayall, but I was immediately intrigued by the guitar work of Peter Green. After a few listens I had become comfortable with the whole concept and finally decided to make the purchase.

At home I found myself listening to Hard Road more and more. At the time I was not that familiar with Eric Clapton, but was aware that he had been in The Yardbirds. After departing from them he was the guitarist on John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton album. I think I had listened to that album a bit at the record store but it hadn’t really connected with me as this one had. Hard Road has become one of my favorite albums, there is not a song I don’t like, but of course there are some that I feel are outstanding. In addition to being the lead guitarist, Peter Green also was lead vocalist on two songs, wrote two songs - one of which, the instrumental Supernatural, is a truly impressive piece of work. Green also turns in some great playing on another instrumental, The Stumble. He does a nice job on You Don’t Love Me, which I soon found out is a true blues standard. As to John Mayall, he penned seven of the tunes on Hard Road, sang lead vocal in many of songs while playing guitars, organ, piano, and harmonica in various ones. In a user review of the album in Discogs, streetmouse mentions that Mayall had a preference for a 9-string guitar that allowed his guitar playing to sound “so eerie”. A seldom used type of intrument that the writer says van be breathtaking in the right hands. There was mention of various number string guitars in the liner notes, but this sheds some light on what was going on in some of album cuts. I enjoy what he does with Another Kinda Love, Someday After Awhile (You’ll Be Sorry), Living Alone, plus another blues standard, Dust My Blues. This album was even the core of a report I did in a music class I was taking in my junior year of high school.

Another talent that Mayall possesses is as an artist. He graduated from Manchester College of Art and first had a job as an art designer. Once he veered off and went the way of music he incorporated his talent into record album art, something which is in full display on the cover painting he created for Hard Road.

John Mayall went on to make many albums, jettisoning the Bluesbreakers name by the end of 1967, and then using it at times fifteen years later and beyond. This was the only Bluesbreakers album Peter Green and Aynsley Dunbar were on with him, and the last for John McVie. Ultimately those musicians went on to have substantial impact in other projects. Under the AllMusic review by Richie Unterberger a user review by Vinyl Connecrtion states that there were also three (unlisted) reed players who participated on some cuts on A Hard Road, John Almond, Alan Skidmore and Ray Warleigh. The user also suggests that Hughie Flint may have played drums in some capacity in the recording. The A Hard Road was third highest charting album by John Mayall, hitting No.8 on UK Albums chart. The other albums were Bare Wires at No.3 and Blue Breakers with Eric Clapton at No.8. There is no information as to whether it got onto any charts in the United States.

Mayall was another of those early on musicians for me, never expecting to necessarily ever see him live. He continued producing music and touring; ultimately I found myself seeing him perform solo on July 20, 2013 at the San Jose Fountain Blues Festival. We even got to say a brief hello to each other. At 86 years of age he is still touring but, as a footnote in history, he has had to take time off due to the COVID-19 virus. As of this writing it is unknown when he, and countless other folks, will be able to get back to what they were doing.

As for my high school friend who turned me onto John Mayall, we had lost contact after I had last seen him about thirty years ago. Last year changed that however. Thanks to a class alumni site we got ahold of each other and caught up on things. To my surprise he had decided to learn, and has been playing, guitar. His goal has been to play the blues. Play on, my friend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mayall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mayall_%26_the_Bluesbreakers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Road

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-mayall-mn0000238495/biography

https://www.discogs.com/John-Mayall-And-The-Bluesbreakers-A-Hard-Road/master/30189

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/rediscover-john-mayall-a-hard-road/

https://needlemeetsvinyl.com/products/john-mayall-the-bluesbreakers-a-hard-road-1967-ex-vg?variant=29676963856483

A Hard Road full album https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8a8cutYP7foja1vHkWcUfkaT9m1Huwdx

LP27

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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Strawberry Alarm Clock - Incense and Peppermints

Strawberry Alarm Clock evolved primarily from the band Sixpence that had formed in 1965 and then became known as Thee Sixpence. The original members were Lee Freeman rhythm guitar, harmonica, lead vocals, Ed King guitar, Michael Luciano tambourine, vocals, Gary Lovetro bass, Steve Rabe lead guitar, and Gene Gunnels drums. They recorded an early single on Impact Records. Five singles were recorded on manager/producer Bill Holmes’ All-American Record label in 1966 under the name Thee Sixpence. Four of those 45s were Fortune Teller b/w My Flash On You, Long Days Care b/w Can’t Explain, In the Building b/w Hey Joe, and Heart Full of Rain b/w Fortune Teller. Organist Mark Weitz replaced the departing Rabe and Luciano, sharing lead vocals with Freeman, while Ed King took over as lead guitarist. Birdman of Alkatrash b/w Incense and Peppermints was the final single. At this point Randy Seol replaced Gunnels as drummer. The final two singles weren’t released until January and April 1967 respectively.

The April release started getting heavy airplay by local Los Angeles DJs, but the B-side Incense and Peppermints was the one they played. It caught the interest of UNI Records, a subsidiary of MCA Records (later Universal Music Group) who released a second pressing in May 1967 with Incense and Peppermints now the A-side. The band signed a deal with UNI to record an album. Since there was a local band with a similar name it was decided that they needed a new one. While hanging around at Mark Weitz’s, where they rehearsed, the band members decided to use Strawberry, taken from the Beatles’ recent hit, Strawberry Fields. While trying to think of something to go with it they noticed the noise of an old alarm clock in the room and the name Strawberry Alarm Clock came into being. More songs were needed for the album. At Randy Seol’s suggestion George Bunnell was invited to get involved even though he was thoroughly involved with the band Waterfiord Traene, which Seol had just been in. Bunnell had been composing songs with his friend, and Traene bandmate, Steve Bartek since he was fourteen years old. The producer and the band listened to some of those songs and decided to include the ones they heard on the album. As the recording started Bunnell was invited to join the band. Despite regretting to leave the other band he decided to do that. Bartek ended up being included as a flute player on some of the album’s tracks while George became the second bass player in the band. Steve too was invited to join SAC, but at age sixteen his parent’s were unwilling to give him permission to do so. Nonetheless, the three former Waterfyrd Traene members played in another band, Public Bubble during their SAC tenure, and later in Buffington Rhodes for a time after SAC had folded.

Incense and Peppermints developed gradual interest over the next four months, finally debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 30 at No.88. Momentum started building at this point and two months later, November 25th, it reached No.1 on Billboard. After placing No.23 on Billboard for the year of 1967, the single’s 16th and last appearance on the Top 100 was at No.37 on January 13, 1968. Meanwhile, the album, also called Incense and Peppermints, was released in November and debuted on the Billboard Top 200 album chart on November 4th at No.197. By January 6 it crested at No.11 for three weeks and lasted in the Top Album 100 for 18 weeks ending March 9th. It managed to last another six weeks in the Top 200, last appearing at No.197 on April 13, 1968. While in its’ prime on the chart it earned a Gold Record for 500,000 sold.

THE TRACKS

The longest song, The World”s on Fire, starts things off. It is the longest track on any of SAC’s albums at over eight minutes. There are vocals, which feature interesting harmonies, but a variety of instruments take center stage for most of the piece, with Steve Bartek’s flute and Mark Weitz’ organ being the bulwark of the sound over a rhythm that stays basic and true. Among the solos however, there is vibraphone played by Randy Seol, Ed King’s guitar, and Seol playing a drum solo that blends in with the continuing sound. It is unusual to find a song that is the longest on an album being lead off, but it sets the tone for the rest of the record. Credit for the composition goes to the entire band.

The next song is the second shortest one at just under two minutes. It was composed by George Bunnell and Steve Bartek, one of four songs on the album they collaborated on. Both joined the band, after the song Incense and Peppermints had been recorded, primarily because they were songwriters. In actuality they brought some songs they had already written with another band with them, and this may have been one of them. The title of the song, Birds in My Tree, is sung only once, mid-song, with no indication how it related to the rest of the lyrics except when they say, “Raise up your arms higher, we have a reason to fly.”

Lose to Live is a relatively short suite that begins with a jump blues riff that features vocals and a harpsichord. It shifts into a different meter with spoken, half shouted vocals, before shifting into a swinging vibraphone section that brings the vocals to conclusion. This, of course, leads to the drum solo which then collapses into an experimental mish-mash of sound, and then back to the jump blues riff and finally a type of minor-chord circus theme bringing the song to conclusion.

Side One closes with another Bunnell-Bartek penned song, this one likely written after they joined the SAC since the title is Strawberries Mean Love. The predominate instrumental feature are droning guitars throughout and a certain amount of “doo-wah, doo-wah”.

Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow is the album’s most representative song of what has become known as psychedelic music. This was one of the George Bunnell-Steve Bartek penned numbers which they had written a year or two before while hanging out on a warm summer day, perhaps dreaming of a rainy day. Starting off with Bartek’s flute and filled throughout with Randy Seol on bongos, it is soft, smooth, and laidback. The song is underscored with Mark Weitz’ organ, while adding a touch of harpsichord here and there. The guitar work, while understated, does its’ share of filling in the lush instrumental sound. The vocals feature some notably lush harmonies as well. Lyrically, the song is a bit “out there”, but it was the sixties after all, fitting right into the mood of the era. It still left things a bit off-kilter with the chorus of “Poison Dreams, Distorted Dreams, Mushroom Dreams”, but it all came back together with it being a “Rainy day mushroom pillow” after all.

Paxton’s Back Street Carnival is an upbeat song also written by Bunnell and Bartek. George said it was a positive take on the typical LA freeway scene mixed in with a carnival that was located not far from it. After all, if one is stuck in freeway traffic, they might as well fantasize about being at a carnival. It kicks off with some punchy guitar that resurfaces with a short effective solo. All the while the score exudes music that is carnival-like, particularly as the song concludes. Mark Weitz’ organ and harpsichord licks enhance this mood effectively. Paxton’s Back Street Carnival was the only other song from the album that appeared on a single. This wasn’t until 1968 when it was the B-side of Sea Shell, a song on their third album.

The next number may come off sounding joyful, but Hummin’ Happy is far darker than its’ title. It is actually the twisted thoughts of a protagonist who relishes the sadistic scenes in the song. An effective rocker as well, it has some stormy guitar work to match the darkness of the lyrics. All the while the harmonies are the main lyrical focus throughout the cut. In addition to Bunnell, Randy Seol contributed to the writing of Hummin’ Happy.

Pass Time with the SAC, attributed to the entire band, is the album’s only instrumental. It is a punchy little number, the shortest one on the album at only 1:21. It would actually have been a good vehicle to stretch out on.

Interesting placement for the album’s only single, Incense and Peppermints, as the second to the last song on the record. By the time the album was released it was steadily climbing to its’ No.1 position on Billboard, reached just three weeks thereafter. It was a well-crafted psych pop song that seemed to contain all the creative elements necessary to be a timely contender in that era. These include an intricate blend of Eastern flavored guitars and organ, minor and major harmonic keys throughout, plus strong hooks, one of the strongest being the chorus, “who cares the games we play, little to win, and nothing to lose”. It was Strawberry Alarm Clock’s only single to garner a gold record for one million sold.

Mark Weitz had the original idea for the music, writing the intro, verses and ending while enlisting Ed King to assist with the bridge, and the lead guitar parts. At the time that music was recorded at Original Sounds studio in Hollywood, there was only a temporary title and no lyrics. Producer Frank Slay sent the fully mixed music track to John S. Carter, a musician/songwriter with the band Rainy Daze, whom Slay also produced. While Carter was fully responsible for the lyrics, he had a writing partner, Tim Gilbert, who was also credited for the lyrics. It is said that when Slay gave the song to Carter to write lyrics for it, he suggested the name Incense and Peppermints, and that was the focus Carter had in writing the song.

The band members didn’t particularly care for the words of the song, in particular Lee Freeman, who was the regular lead singer.

At the next recording session attempts to get the vocals done were made, including John Carter who had been invited to be there by Slay. Another client and friend of Slay’s was in the studio and he was invited to give it a try.

His effort was considered to be by far the best and this was how non-band member Greg Mumford’s vocals ended up being used for the final product. Of course this was for what was to be the B-side of the novelty song, Birdman of Alkatrash, that had been written by Mark Weitz. Mumford, a member of the Shapes and Sounds, was offered a spot in the band but declined. Once Incense and Peppermints became a big hit it was always a challenge to have the song sung at live performances. Drummer Randy Seol was tapped for that duty until he left the band.

Meanwhile, manager/produce Bill Holmes decided that he, as well as all the band members, should also receive composition credit. Producer/publisher Slay was the one making final approval of what would appear on the label. Holmes didn’t agree with Slay’s mandate that no more than four names could be used. When it came time for the finished product however, only Carter and Gilbert were given credit for the composition despite the fact that Weitz and King had been the primary creators of the song in the first place. After extensive complaint they ended being credited as arrangers, but never got paid for the song they originally created. While some band members considered legal action later it was eventually dropped.

The closing song, Unwind with the Clock, is virtually an instrumental for all but about 25 seconds that comes just before the ending. Written by Mark Weitz and Ed King, it features extensive organ and some guitar to a jumpy jazzy beat. The heart of the song though is Randy Seol’s vibraphone solo followed by Seol’s drum break. Weitz slips in a wheezy discordant trilll on the organ to end the song.

More line up changes began occurring even as the album Incense and Peppermints was being recorded. With the addition of George Bunnell it meant that there were two bass players, he and Gary Lovetro. Most of the time Bunnell did effects playing with his bass and some other instruments. However, since Bunnell was more familiar with the bass lines of the songs he had written he stepped in to play on some of those. Additionally, Ed King also played bass parts on some songs when Lovetro wasn’t able to handle them. Gradually Lovetro was shifted to being road manager. After conflicts with other band members he was bought out of the group before the release of their second album, which he had not played on at all.

The second record, Wake Up…It’s Tomorrow, is generally considered SAC most polished album, perhaps even its’ best musically, but it failed to chart. Still, two singles were released beginning with Tomorrow b/w Birds in My Tree from the first album which reached a respectable No.23 on the Billboard Hot 100. The first single was recorded in 1967 and released in December, hitting 23rd for two weeks in the last two weeks of February. The album wasn’t released until June. Sit With the Guru b/w Pretty Girl from Psych-Out was the other single, reaching No. 65 on Billboard.

Mark Weitz and Ed King were involved with composing of the newer songs on the singles. After their experience with getting shut out on Incense and Peppermints, they wanted to make sure that never happened again. Overall the songwriting spread out to Weitz, King and Freeman, and of course Bunnell and Seol were still there for some. Steve Bartek briefly became an official band member as guitarist and co-wrote one song with Bunnell and Seol. Howard Davis also co-wrote some songs, but his primary benefit to the band was being an amazing vocal coach for their harmonies. The poor showing for the album has been partially attributed to it coming out so long after the first single, Tomorrow, and that UNI didn’t promote it strongly. The underlying factor concerning the latter was that manager Bill Holmes refused their promotional assistance while trying to maintain control of the band.

With the failure of the second album the band went back to work on another album immediately and The World in a Sea Shell was released in November 1968. The producers decided to exert more control over the record by having more outside writers involved, including John Carter (and Tim Gilbert), and Carol King. That, along with a lusher less experimental feel to some of the songs, failed to produce better results. This frustrated the band and lead to the firing of manager/producer Bill Holmes following the album release. Two singles were released with one of them, Barefoot in Baltimore b/w An Angry Young man, reaching No.67 on Billboard. The other single, Sea Shell b/w Paxton’s Back Street Carnival from the first album failed to chart.

At this point George Bunnell and Randy Seol departed in disagreements with the band concerning Holmes handling of the band’s business affairs. With Steve Bartok they formed the band Buffington Rhodes. Meanwhile Bill Holmes decided to retaliate by hiring Bunnell and Seol as part of an alternate Strawberry Alarm Clock and sent them on the road. The band sought a court injunction and Holmes was soon ordered to cease using the band’s name in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Meanwhile, in the actual SAC, Seol was replaced by drummer Marty Katon and lead singer/guitarist Jimmy Pitman came on board with Ed King moving to bass. Not long after, original drummer Gene Gunnels returned to the band, replacing Katon, The fourth album, Good Morning Starshine, came out in ’69 but failed to have an impact, at which point Jimmy Pitman departed. Paul Marshall took his place and remained with the band until they temporarily disbanded in 1971 after UNI had dropped their contract. The only single from the album, the eponymous Good Morning Starshine, reached No.87 on Billboard, but Oliver’s version went on to be a big hit. By the end of the year Mark Weitz quit with the band continuing as a quartet until it’s disbandment. It was this version of the band that had two of their songs included in Russ Meyer’s film, Return to the Valley of the Dolls, both with Paul Marshall on lead vocals. It was during this period as well, that SAC toured the South and a then unknown band, Lynyrd Skynyrd opened for them. Gunnels joined the Everly Brothers back-up band along with Waddy Wachtel and Warren Zevon. Ed King had expressed interest in joining Skynyrd when they toured together and was invited to join the band as the third guitarist in November 1972.

Early on, as the first single and album were flourishing, the band toured nationally in ’67 and ’68 with the likes of The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and shared bills with Lynyrd Skynyrd (who opened for them), Country Joe & The Fish, Jimi Hendrix, Herman’s Hermits, and The Who.

Three songs from the album ended up in the 1968 film, Psych-Out, which starred Jack Nicholson. The songs were Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow, The World’s on Fire, plus SAC appeared in a scene playing Incense and Peppermints. A fourth song of their’s, The Pretty Song from Psych-Out was heard on the film, although a re-recorded version by the Storybook ended up on the soundtrack album. Two other songs were exclusives of the soundtrack album with Paul Marshall on lead vocals. They also got tapped for some songs in the 1970 Russ Meyer’s campy film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, once again appearing in it playing Incense and Peppermints. Two other numbers in the film were I’m Coming Home and Girl From the City. Strawberry Alarm Clock also appeared on television shows such as American Bandstand, Happening ’68, The Steve Martin Show, and were on the first Rowen and Martin Laugh-In episode.

I guess what struck me the first time I heard the single Incense and Peppermints by Strawberry Alarm Clock (SAC) on the radio in 1967, was the catchy intro along with the cool harmony vocals that soon followed. I couldn’t put my finger on what made the song work so well at the time, but now I realize it was a well-crafted work that effectively used major and minor key changes, along with a memorable melody line.

I got to see SAC play live at The Chapel in San Francisco CA on September 17, 2016. As that day approached I was invited, along with my girlfriend and a few other people, to a friend’s house. Our friend had lived in Los Angeles for awhile and gotten to know, and play music with, George Bunnell and others. She had invited George and his wife to stay with she and her husband while they were in San Francisco and we all got to hang out and get to know each other. I neither expected to see SAC play live just as I’d never imagined I would get to know anyone in the band. There we were, on the eve of the band’s show in SF, sitting in the living room listening and singing along with George as he performed an acoustic version of Incense and Peppermints. A short time later his bandmate, drummer Randy Seol arrived and they proceeded to play a few more tunes from their first album. I know one of the songs was Paxton’s Back Street Carnival, and am pretty certain another was Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow. Another fun thing that happened that evening was that six of us posed for a few photos in much the way the band did on the cover of the Incense and Peppermints album. Of course this was the night I updated my album with autographs from George and Randy. The Strawberry Alarm Clock concert was not only wonderful, it far surpassed anything I would have expected it to be. The band showed that they had kept together and played for significant time periods since their original success. Although it was mostly in the wider Southern California area, they proved that they had kept their “sound” intact. The show was nearly, if not, sold out and the audience, many of whom were decked out in groovy psychedelic splendor, really enjoyed what they came for.

The 2016 performance was prior to the band celebrating 50 years of performing as Strawberry Alarm Clock the next year. Four of the five band members that night were in the band in 1967 with another one who had been with them since 1986 (or 1987, depending on the information source). It was unfortunate that I had just heard before meeting George Bunnelll that Mark Weitz, who was also a band member in 1967, had been hit by a car just before he was to head up for the SF show. He was in severe condition but, according to George, it was not life-threatening. Ed King, who lived in Nashville, was no longer involved with the band, but was still very fond of what they had done together. He passed away the next year. While I don’t expect any new music from Strawberry Alarm Clock I hope to get to see them perform again. I may have to make my way to the Southland if it ever happens because I am doubtful they’ll be back in San Francisco. It was great to have had the opportunity though, to “Unwind With the Clock”.

https://strawberryalarmclock.com

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/strawberry-alarm-clock-mn0000633079/biography

https://www.laweekly.com/the-strawberry-alarm-clock-celebrate-50-years-of-incense-and-peppermints/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Alarm_Clock

https://www.classicbands.com/strawberry.html

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1162990/bio

https://bestclassicbands.com/incense-peppermints-6-6-1777/

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/strawberry-alarm-clock/incense-and-peppermints

https://www.unwindwithsac.com/songs/rainy-day-mushroom-pillow

https://www.unwindwithsac.com/songs/hummin-happy

https://www.discogs.com/artist/58352-Strawberry-Alarm-Clock

full album https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL94gOvpr5yt2Lv3uqSmovxVjdifqhpgG0 cut five is a latent live version of Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow

Album cut Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YerF7oUTyc8

LP26

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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The Sopwith Camel - Sopwith Camel A prime example of how fast things can develop, The Sopwith Camel released their only hit single less than one year after they had started rehearsing as a band. Within a week after founder Peter Kraemer met guitarist Terry MacNeil (later known as Nandi Devam) at Big Little Book Store in San Francisco they had written several songs, including Hello Hello, Frantic Desolation and You Always Tell Me Baby. By the end of 1965 they added three other band members guitarist William Sievers, drummer Norman Mayell, and bassist Bobby Collins who soon gave way to Martin Beard. The band started rehearsals in a former firehouse on Sacramento St. In April they laid down six tracks for a demo recording.

Thanks to Bobby Collins, who had briefly played bass for Kraemer and MacNeil in the beginning, a copy of the demo ended up in the hands of Erik Jacobson. A New York producer with Sweet Reliable Productions, Jacobsen had been responsible for seven top ten hits for The Lovin’ Spoonful in one year. He had also worked with Tim Hardin as well as with The Charlatans, another fledgling SF band. Particularly attracted to Sopwith Camel’s Hello Hello, Jacobsen came to California to meet with them in May. Within the week the band signed a contract with his Sweet Reliable Productions. In late summer he took them into Coast Studio in SF to do the basic track of Hello Hello. The band then relocated to New York City to record the album and while there, signed with Kama Sutra, for which Jacobsen had produced two albums with The Lovin’ Spoonful. The Sopwith Camel was the second San Francisco band of the era to be signed to a label. Recording was done intermittently throughout the Fall while The Sopwith Camel also toured as an opener for The Lovin’ Spoonful. This meant they spent an extended period of time in New York.

Not long after Hello Hello b/w Treadin’ had been released as a single the band returned to San Francisco. After the release of their next single, Postcard From Jamaica b/w Little Orphan Annie, in April 1967. Sopwith Camel went back into Coast Recorders and recorded one more track, The Great Morpheum. In May the eponymous album was released. By this time Hello Hello had gone off the charts and that next single, had not been successful. Considering this, a sticker was placed on the album upon release that said, Remember Hello Hello! In early October a third single, Saga of the Low Down Let Down b/w The Great Morpheum was released but did not chart. It took over five months for the album, Sopwith Camel, to enter the Billboard Top 200 and after two weeks it went off the chart. By this time the band had started slowly disintegrating.

Hello Hello was not the song one would have expected to be the first Top 40 hit to herald the up-and-coming San Francisco psychedelia music era. It was released in mid-November 1966, b/w Treadin’. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on Dec. 24 and by January ’67 crested at No.26 on the Top 100,y becoming the first San Francisco band in that era to have a Top 40 hit song. It did very well in some markets across the country: No.2 in San Jose CA, No.3 in San Diego CA, No.4 in San Francisco CA, and Louisville KY, and No.5 in San Antonio TX and Boston MA. It was one of the first songs written by band founder Peter Kraemer and guitarist Terry MacNeil right after the first met. The style harkens back to the days of Vaudeville, which was the primary live music source from the the late 1800’s to the early 1930s. The lyrics are about a simple desire to meet someone, get to know them, to share with them.

Song two of the album, Frantic Desolation, was also one fo the first songs Peter Kraemer and Terry MacNeil wrote together, but , according to MacNeil, they didn’t perform it early on. They decided to record it because they needed songs for the album. It was a distinct shift from the good timey vaudevillian Hello Hello to a distinctly psychedelic sound. The fuzztone guitar played by Terry MacNeil was noted by Elvis Costello to be ‘one of the best examples of psychedelic guitar from the period’. In an interview with the The Psychedelic Guitar MacNeil said that he wanted to reflect the meaning of the words desolation, desperation, in his guitar playing. He sat close to the amp for feed-back and played as weird as he could. In later reincarnations of Sopwith Camel it was regularly played.

William “Willie” Sievers penned The Saga of the Low Down Let Down. This has a good time feel to it musically, but it is about a low down let down none the less.. MacNeil again shines on the all too short, but effective guitar solo. Little Orphan Annie is a musical version of the syndicated newspaper comic strip that first appeared in 1924. Back to the vaudeville era, but with just a hint of the ‘60s hippie chick as well. The tongue-in-cheek performance has a a very winning way about it, with a skillful instrumental interlude featuring twelve-string guitar. One can’t help conjuring up images of Annie and Sandy in this winning “comic strip” tune.

The final two songs on side one each have their own character about them. You Always Tell Me Baby recites a complaint about how the protagonist is being told how to do things by their counterpart. It features flowing harmonies behind the lead vocals and well placed trumpet throughout. The conclusion of the song seems poised for the following song. Maybe in a Dream is basically an instrumental until the final quarter of the song. It has an optimistic feel as guitars and keyboards soar and glide throughout. The most arresting song on the album, Cellophane Woman, starts off side two. It is the other psychedelic number but with a harder, almost punk quality to it. The lyrics, written by Willy Sievers, seem to be an anti-materialism metaphor that doesn’t quite hit it’s mark. Yet the angst is there and the instrumentation takes it over the top right to the finish. Returning to the roots of the album, The Things That I Could Do With You takes it straight back to the vaudeville era. Again written by Kraemer and MacNeil, this one is a fantasy about all the things someone could be doing together with their girl. Well, not quite that kind of fantasy, unless you let your imagination run wild. It features a nice little harmonium solo. Walk in the Park continues in the vein of old-time vaudeville, only this time going back to the 19th century for inspiration. While very original in many ways, composer Willy Sievers seems to take a cue from British songwriter Harry Dacre’s 1892 “Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)”. Sievers replaces a ride on a bicycle with a walk in the park. The ragtime-style piano style fits in perfectly as do the background harmonies. On top of all this, the comedic voice-over in the middle is priceless as William, shyly but slyly, asks Daffney to take a walk in the park with him. The Great Morpheum was the last song written and recorded for the album. Like Hello Hello, it was recorded in San Francisco. It was in April 1967, the month before the album release. The band had just recorded four 45-second commercials for Levi Strauss. Peter Kraemer recalls that he and Terry MacNeil went into a smaller studio at Coast Recorders to write the song. Along with guest saxophonist Terry Clements, Martin Beard and Norman Mayell had the basic track cut on the second take. After inclusion in the album it later became the B-side of their third single. The pace of the song slows considerably from the other cuts on the album. It has variation within itself though and the highlight happens when Clements’ saxophone comes to the fore. The song is about a surreal movie at a theater (the Morpheum). I was recently enlightened by none other than Peter Kraemer, that the Great Morpheum is in fact, about the Vietnam War. I agree that, with a bit of thought and understanding, makes perfect sense. Thanks to Peter for pointing this out. Who else would know better than he? The song’s conclusion builds to a dramatic finish, but once again the last note, so to speak, hangs in mid-air. It also leads into the final song.

Postcard From Jamaica begins with a postman ringing a doorbell announcing a mail delivery. It’s a message from a girlfriend who is visiting Jamaica, and an invitation for the reader to take a trip to see her there. As the album had not come out as yet, Postcard From Jamaica b/w Little Orphan Annie was released as second single. The haste to get it out created a scenario as told by Peter Kraemer, "Sopwith Camel was being interviewed by the DJ at a radio studio in Dallas when a guy named Richie, from Cavallo’s (the band’s manager) office, brought the 45 in from New York. When the engineer in the sound booth dropped the tone arm it bounced and skated right off the record. He tried again; it did the same thing. He looked at the band through the double glass and sadly shook his head; the bass was cut too hot and the record wouldn't track. It would play on the more primitive equipment in jukeboxes and became what was called a 'jukebox hit' in some parts of the country and in Canada.”

The album featured poster artist Victor Moscoso’s first great pop-art cover. Essentialy the design already was used for a Matrix poster back in February. The back liner cover had the first infra-red band photo, shot by Jim Marshall.

While Hello Hello wasn’t precisely one of my favorite songs, when I spotted the album at the record store I decided to find out what the rest of it sounded like. I thought it strange that there was a sticker on the cover that said REMEMBER HELLO, HELLO. Of course I remembered it, but at the time I perhaps didn’t completely get that their only hit song had come and gone three or four months before the album hit the market. I immediately enjoyed what I heard though, and quickly added it to my small but growing collection.

I felt that overall, the song-writing, arrangements, originality, vocals and instrumentality were really top-notch. It’s notable that the music was all band-written, not something usually encountered at that time. What struck me most about some of the writing was its’ droll humor. In particular I was quite taken by Little Orphan Annie and Walk in the Park. They are among those songs on the album that harkened back to vaudevillian style, yet worked so well in the renaissance of the ‘60s. I was equally intrigued by Frantic Desolation and Cellophane Woman, both of which explored the more experimental aspects of the period. While I enjoyed the rest of the songs, the final two took me a bit longer to warm up to. I simply didn’t listen to them as much for quite awhile. Eventually though, I began to appreciate the more elaborate arrangement of The Great Morpheum, and the warmth and optimism of Postcard From Jamaica.

The record quickly became one of my favorites. I can still fairly well sing along with most all the songs. It’s unfortunate that, since the album faded so quickly once it finally appeared, not many people really got to hear all Sopwith Camel had to offer. It turns out that by the time of the release the band had started to fall apart due primarily to bickering and, as one band member called it, immaturity. Willy Sievers had announced in November that he intended to leave to start a solo career, but didn’t actually do that until late spring of the next year. The band members still played in other projects, some of which included two or more of them, but things seemed to be over for good. At least for the time being. I missed a golden opportunity to see not only Sopwith Camel, but Buffalo Springfield and The Standells as well in 1967. The event was a tri-school dance that had been put together by a student named Rod Jew at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto. Held at the high school pavilion, the concert was on April 27th, just prior to the Camel’s album release. All the bands had, or were enjoying, big hits. I thought I had lost any opportunity after that but Sopwith Camel was to have more in store.

Another opportunity unexpectedly came up in 1971. After not hearing anything about Sopwith Camel for nearly four years, they resurfaced playing a dance concert at Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills CA. By this time I was a student there and attended the show in the gym with my girlfriend/future wife. While he was not aware that this event had occurred, based on information obtained through a blog done by music historian Bruno Ceriotti, it appears that four of the original band members had reunited. Hearing them play songs from that first album live was like a dream come true.

Speaking of Bruno Cerotti, through three decades of research he created a day-by-day diary of The Sopwith Camel as well as other bands. Utilizing information from interviews, as well as gathering many visuals, from several individuals and news media sources, it gives far more details than one would would normally expect to encounter. Particularly for a band that had but two albums (not counting re-releases), three singles, one hit song, and lasted less than a decade at their height. He also documented their return to performing from 2009-2016. Finally looking into what Bruno has accomplished I decided to reach out to him and we have become friends. He was quite amazed and excited to hear of the show at Foothill College. He helped me hone in on the year it must of happened and now all we need to do is get a precise date and any other details. It’s good to be interactive.

http://brunoceriotti.weebly.com/the-sopwith-camel.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Camel_(band)

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-sopwith-camel-mw0000117772

website https://www.sopwithcamel.com

Joel Selvin articles https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories2.html

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories4.html

https://sopwithcamel.org/about-the-band/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sopwith-camel-where-are-they-now-93996/

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/Albums.html

https://vancouversignaturesounds.com/hits/hello-hello-sopwith-camel/

http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2014/09/sopwith-camel-sopwith-camel-1966-67-us.html

https://www.discogs.com/artist/391236-Sopwith-Camel

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories4.html

http://www.rockremnants.com/2013/06/22/song-of-the-week-hello-hello-sopwith-camel/

http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2014/01/

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/Terry.html

https://fictionliberationfront.net/erik_jacobsen.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Jacobsen

Hello Hello https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjYsl__loTw

Frantic Desolation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaxiKL-Rzjk

Saga of the Low Down Let Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdcMbtkQxaQ

Little Orphan Annie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-y-afIkukg

You Always Tell Me Baby: Maybe in a Dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2Saf1EKlc

Cellophane Woman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_0LxEQnnVI

The Things That I Could Do With You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3-kM0brrXQ

Walk in the Park https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CIG6Xc-GFc

The Great Morpheum; Postcard From Jamaica https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5e3lcHkx0

LP25

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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Love - Da Capo

Love released their second album, Da Capo, in the same year as their first one, 1966. It was recorded in five days, and released in November. It was preceded by the release of the single 7 and 7 Is b/w No. Fourteen, which was an outtake from their first album. 7 and 7 Is was recorded in June and hit the stores in July, topping out at No.33 on the Billboard Top 100. That song was then included on Da Capo, which after its’ release reached No.80 on the Billboard Top 200.

The band consisted of five members when 7 and 7 Is was recorded, but was up to seven by the time they recorded the album. The five existing band members when the eponymous Love album was recorded were founders Arthur Lee vocals and guitar, Johnny Echols vocals and lead guitar, plus Bryan McLean vocals and guitar, Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer drums, and Ken Forssi bass. While recording 7 and 7 drummer Pfisterer had a particularly difficult time with the frantic rhythm. After about 30 takes he was intermittently replaced by Lee, who continued to teach Pfisterer how to play the parts. It’s said that it took over seventy takes to get it done. Both Lee and Echols stated that Pfisterer is the drummer on the released version. Something that made the song particularly memorable was an explosion, toward the end, of a nuclear bomb. The use of this in the song is an example of what is called musique concrète; the utilization of recorded sounds in a music composition. The song then shifts to a peaceful bluesy fade to conclusion. According to Bruce Botnick, the sound for the explosion was “taken from a sound effects record”. ”He speculated that it was a recording of a gunshot slowed down.”

Once that was completed, musicians added to Love were Tjay Cantrelli (born John Barberis) on woodwinds and Michael Stuart on drums. Snoopy switched over from drums to harpsichord and organ. The now seven-piece band recorded the balance of Da Capo from September 27 to October 2 at Sunset Sound Studios in Hollywood. The producer was Paul Rothchild who had just finished with The Doors first album a few days before, but Da Capo was released two months before The Doors album. The two sides of the Love record couldn’t have been more different. The six songs on side one varied in style and delivery, and among them was what critic Robert Christgau called, “the perfect rocker”, 7 and 7 Is. Side 2 had one song, which was simply a long jam.

Instrumentally the band explored new concepts on Da Capo, some rarely seen in rock music up to that time. This included harpsichord, and the use of classical music, in what could be termed “baroque pop”. They explored jazz-driven jams and use of sax and flute blended into garage rock, folk-rock, psychedelia, blues, R&B and punk rock, not that all those had actually been defined yet.

Concerning the new band members, Michael Stuart (later Stuart-Ware), was playing drums with Sons of Adam in Los Angeles. The leader of that band was Randy Holden, an unsung guitar god in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Stuart made a point of seeing Love play live at a club called Bito Lito and appreciated them for their “distinctive raw energy”, as he called it. Having had a jazz background, Stuart was surprised when he joined up with Love, just after they had recorded the single 7 and 7 Is, “to discover the album was geared to have a kind of “jazz rock” flavor.” Tjay Cantrelli (born John Barberis) departed Love, after being its’ reed player, by the end of 1967. In the early ‘70s he was in the band Geronimo Black fronted by drummer Jimmy Carl Black of Mothers of Invention fame. On the band’s eponymous album, Cantrelli is the credited composer of two songs plus co-writer of two others. In the early ‘80s he was also associated with Black’s band, Grandmothers. Not much is known about Cantrelli’s life or career other than his stints with these bands. According to several sources Cantrelli/Barberis died in 1985.

TRACKS

Greeting the ears in the first cut is Pfisterer’s harpsichord proclaiming the rocker, Stephanie Knows Who. Immediately announcing a new direction for the band, they ripped through hard psychedelic rock with a flute-driven jazz interlude. While in most of Da Capo Arthur Lee vocalizes in softer tones, on Stephanie Knows Who he sings in a harsh style, similar to much of their first album. The song, written by Lee, is about a mutual friend of his and Bryan MacLean, for whom both had affections for.

Orange Skies comes next and is an immediate shift to the aforementioned softer tones. Sung by Arthur Lee, but written by Bryan MacLean, the song is the first he had ever written. Done so at the time he was a roadie with The Byrds, MacLean said he based the melody on a section of Roger McGuinn’s guitar arrangement of The Bells of Rhymney. It is built with jazz shadings using Latin rhythms, with a somewhat fanciful air about it. Critic Matthew Greenwald points out an influence of “Broadway musicals (such as Oklahoma and Carousel)”, as well similarity “to Stevie Wonder's My Cherie Amour.”

With the pop of a cork the mellowness continues into the next track, as does the latin jazz influence, this time a bossa nova rhythm. ¡Que Vida!, (What is Life, in Spanish) is the stated title, but the working title is With Pictures and Words. Several sources indicate that the melody is based on the Bacharach/David song Lifetime of Loneliness. Lyrically composer Lee speaks not only of life, but of death and reincarnation as well. The melody flows freely throughout, but as Matthew Greenwald indicates, “although the chords always resolve, they go in surprising directions. He also felt this was a "true groundbreaking composition for Arthur Lee”. Another pop of the cork and ¡Que Vida! finishes with quiet rustling sleigh bells leading into the crashing guitars of Seven and Seven Is. That song was addressed above. ¡Que Vida! was released in March 1967 as a single, b/w Hey Joe (off of the Love album), but didn’t reach the Billboard Hot 100.

Incorporating Bryan MacLean’s Spanish-style fingerpicking, flowing harpsichord ala Pfisterer, and precision percussion work by Michael Stewart, The Castle is, in effect, a mini-suite. Whether physical or in the mind, the theme of travel is something Arthur Lee explored in songs like this at the time. He does this for just over a minute into the song after which the rest of the journey winds through creative instrumental twists and turns. The ending note rests on a precipice, but not quite landing where one might expect.

The final number on side one has been suggested to possibly be “the best song Lee ever wrote” by Richie Unterberger. Arthur was inspired to write She Comes in Colors by a Love fan named Annette. According to bandmate Johnny Echols, “Annette came to shows “wearing these outrageous gypsy clothes.” The whimsical flute played throughout by Tjay Cantrelli, gives a flowing, almost airborne feel to it. The baroque pop meets folk-jazz melody incorporated many “strange chords”, per J. Emerson in his book Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and His Book of Love. Johnny Echols considered it the most difficult song on the album to record because of that. She Comes in Colors was released as a single b/w Orange Skies in December 1966. While it got significant airplay in Los Angeles and several other localities it failed to break into the Billboard Hot 100.

The final track of the album takes up side two. At just under nineteen minutes its’ length extended past the few other long tracks out there by seven or eight minutes. Revelation had developed into a concert showcase for the band. Originally titled John Lee Hooker, it is a blues/R&B jam that takes up the vast majority of the track. The brief intro however, is the Giga from J.S. Bach’s Partita No.1, which reprises for a slightly longer time at the conclusion. The early stages of the jam hold promise, but that only lasts about five minutes before it devolves into less exciting territory. Arthur Lee said that they did the long jam “so the musicians could express themselves.” What transpired is a run through by each musician, voice, guitar, harp, sax, bass, drums all bookended by harpsichord. As seems to be with many things, some say it’s “tedious” (Richie Unterberger) and some say, “I like 'Revelation', what of it?”, according to a RateYourMusic reviewer ‘acidballroom’. Generally Revelation gets panned, but it’s not the worst thing that ever happened on record.

There are those who say that if Revelation had been shorter, while concentrating on its best features, it may have been better received. In any case, long songs or jams, while not appealing to everyone, started being recorded more often. Longer tracks in general were appearing more as well. Radio, particularly the increase in FM availability, helped albums increasingly become the greater source over singles for the buying public. To this end Revelation was assuredly one of the very earliest examples.

Of the the three or four songs that exceeded ten minutes in length at that time, The Rolling Stones’ Goin’ Home, which was recorded for their artistic breakthrough album, Aftermath, was the true herald of what was to come. Goin Home, ‘only’ 11:35 in length, was recorded at RCA studios in Los Angeles in the midst of a Stones tour. Interestingly there has been some dispute about the relationship between it and Revelation. Tracks for Aftermath were laid down in December 1965 and March 1966. The record was released in April, seven months before Love’s Da Capo. Yet while the Stones were in LA they made the rounds of a few clubs. As Arthur Lee put it on the back cover of the 1980 Best of Love compilation by Rhino Records, “The Rolling Stones saw us play (Revelation) at the Brave New World, and they recorded a long song on their next album. After our album came out, I got the blame for copying them!”

Overall, the album fell just short of a masterpiece. The six-song first side is, at the very least, a full psychedelic potpourri. One could say that overall, the music hits just about everything but country music and the kitchen sink. The general consensus seems to be that some of the songs written by Arthur Lee (along with Orange Skies by Bryan MacLean), are the best, or among the best they’ve done. The follow-up, Forever Changes, is indeed considered among the best rock records ever issued. Still, at least some of the songs on Da Capo’s side one can stand toe-to-toe with many from Forever Changes. The decision to record Revelation had a definite impact on the fate of the album. However, the fact that the band chose not to tour mostly beyond the LA area may have caused the most damage to sales. This being true not only for Da Capo, but with all three of their first records and the singles issued from them as well. They did find their way up to San Francisco and thereabouts resulting in stronger popularity for their music in the wider Bay Area. —————————

My impetus for getting Da Capo was two-fold. I was quite excited about the single “Seven & Seven Is” being included in the album: the other being a nineteen minute song on one whole side. It was about the time I purchased it that I had started going to the record store conveniently located in the shopping center across from my high school. Usually along with my good buddy Dave, I spent many a day after school there, listening to records through earphones on the store’s turntables. Da Capo’s first side was immediately intriguing, while the second side seemed passable. Of course I never even came close to listening to that whole side and undoubtedly missed some of the less appealing aspects of it until listening to it at home.

I was struck by the eclectic nature of the material in Da Capo, which I was personally attracted to. It became pretty simple to listen to songs on side one, and just not flip it to side two. I believe I probably listened to those other songs more often that way. Looking back, I am pretty sure I only listened to Revelation a few times. It wasn’t until I got the CD years later that I did so once again, but that was about it for awhile. Once I began writing my original blog three years before this update, I listened to it in more depth than ever before. That turned out to be quite worthwhile because I finally was able to absorb the good things about the jam.

It’s fair to say that Da Capo is likely my favorite half album, because I truly consider the six songs on side one among the best ones I know, For most albums it’s rare to find all songs to be fully acceptable. With six out of seven songs, the rate of eighty-five percent favorability would make it a pretty incredible record, and well, Da Capo is.

I feel fortunate to have finally seen Arthur Lee play a few of these songs in person. After he had been released from prison when his 1996 weapons conviction was reversed, he renewed his relationship with the band Baby Lemonade. They had become his back up “Love” band in the early ‘90s before his arrest and conviction. In 2003-4 they did a Forever Changes tour in Europe and the U.S. When they played Great American Music Hall in San Francisco CA, on January 16, 2004, I was front and center. After completing the entire Forever Changes album live, they played some selections from the Love repertoire, which included Orange Skies and Seven and Seven Is. Within three years Arthur Lee died of leukemia. More recently Baby Lemonade joined forces with one of the Love founders, Johnny Echols, forming Love Revisited. I’ve seen them three times now, and on all occasions those two songs were included in the show. Great stuff, but the big thrill still remains the opportunity to have seen the amazing Arthur Lee in person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_(band)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Love-band

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/love-mn0000314600/biography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Capo_(Love_album)

https://psychedelicsight.com/no-37-loves-da-capo/

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/love-da-capo/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/da-capo-mw0000195829

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/love/da-capo/

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-aug-05-me-lee5-story.html

https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/love-hurts-6401143

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-bryan-maclean-1044305.html

http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/drummer-michael-stuart-ware-of-the-sons-of-adam-love-talks-about

Michael Stuart-Ware book https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/pegasus-epitaph-the-story-of-the-legendary-rock-group-love

Tjay Cantrelli (John Barberis) died 1985 https://culture.fandom.com/wiki/Love_(band)

https://books.google.com/books?id=Ho5XDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT212&lpg=PT212&dq=john+barbieri+(tjay+cantrelli)&source=bl&ots=l0JhXoR2S3&sig=ACfU3U0x71ysvfzrWKNgu8iItLTVctPiSA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiitqzV6_fpAhURLK0KHWu5AE0Q6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=john%20barbieri%20(tjay%20cantrelli)&f=false

SF/Central Valley shows http://www.chromeoxide.com/love.htm

http://poisgoneforever.blogspot.com/2011/05/love-family-tree.html

https://www.love-revisited.com/about-2/

https://www.discogs.com/artist/48410-Love

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVTsf1XlOneXNytPQnrcL-sg3fjackHIA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Lee_(musician)

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/arthur-lee-mn0000932220/biography

http://arthurlee.phpwebhosting.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Echols

http://www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk/MagSitePages/Article/9244/Interviews/Love-Interview-with-Johnny-Echols

https://www.culturesonar.com/a-piece-of-love-an-interview-with-johnny-echols/

http://www.classicbands.com/LoveInterview.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_MacLean

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bryan-maclean-mn0000525687/biography

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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The Id - The Inner Sounds of The Id

This is a story about The Inner Sounds of the Id. Perhaps two, or maybe even three stories. It is also a story about what were once the unknown musicians that made it happen. There was no mention of who the musicians were on the album, but they were finally identified many years later. One of the band members, Glenn Cass, wrote that it all began sometime in 1966. Cass admits he is “not sure of times and dates” in the Facebook page biography of The Inner Sounds of the Id. In that biography Cass says Arnold Sukonick approached Capitol Records producer/arranger Jimmy Haskell concerning a recording project he had in mind. Haskell put Sukonick, who started calling himself Paul Arnold, in touch with Jerry Cole. In turn Cole brought in musician friends Cass and Don Dexter and they started working with Arnold’s material.

Paul Arnold (Sukonick) was an avant-garde composer with some pretty eclectic ideas for a recording project. This included time signatures, such as 17/8, 20/8 and 7/4, that he could only verbalize about. Taking suggested composition from Arnold, Jerry Cole, Glenn Cass and Don Dexter started working from jams following the time signatures Arnold suggested. As things took shape the three musicians convinced Arnold that they form a band, adding Glenn’s brother Norm Cass on guitar, and Rich Cliburn on guitar/keyboards to the existing Cole on lead guitar, Cass on bass and Dexter on drums.

Some information contained in the next two paragraphs is from a portion of Don Dexter’s article, The Story of the Id, which was provided by Glenn Cass, who’s insights are also included in these paragraphs and beyond,

While Arnold took most of the credit for the album, most of the material was arranged and worked out by the band, including some of their own original songs. The band spent eight months writing, arranging and rehearsing in preparation for recording which eventually lead up to the album. Barry Stoller said in his article From Inner Sounds to Astro Sounds in PopMatters, “Recorded between 1965 and '66 (according to drummer Don Dexter), a massive collection of tracks was paired down to ten cuts and released by RCA.” (In the 2018 obituary for Don Dexter, it incorrectly says that The Id project occurred in 1968.) During that time all band members were busy with other projects. For instance Don Dexter played drums for Glenn Yarbrough for an album recording followed by a nationwide tour. Once Don returned in November he continued rehearsing with The Id until they wrapped that up later in the month. Dexter said, “We were well rehearsed.” They then went into the studio and completed recording ten songs. The sessions lasted less than three weeks, and included adding vocals and all overdubs.

All the while the band members were lead to believe that they would get credited for their work and artistic creation, and receive appropriate renumeration for it. Dexter said that “they were promised a large chunk of “front money” as soon as they signed with a record label, along with the royalties from sales.”, but they were never paid for the all the rehearsals and the recording of the album. While Arnold paid for the sessions, without consulting the band he had signed with RCA. Don Dexter complained, “The five of us opposed this because, when pressing the records, RCA had a history of putting the voices on top and then (using) filters that muffle the drums and bass so much that a person can hardly hear the rhythm section.” Glenn Cass further added, “RCA Victor took the group and gave Arnold $25.000.00 up front. We never saw a dime.”

The album by The Id was released in May 1967. The liner sleeve has limited information, but it does say that Paul Arnold created and produced The Inner Sounds of the Id. On the record it says two songs, The Rake and Butterfly Kiss, were written and arranged by Arnold, and that he wrote four others and was co-writer of one more. His songwriting credits are on the record by last name only, so it was presumed to be referring to Paul Arnold. Thanks to information retrieved much later the full names have come clear. Guitarist Jerry Cole wrote two songs while having co-written two more. The entire band is credited on one song, along with “Elijah”. The record also said this mysterious Elijah co-wrote one other song. It turns out that Elijah was Jack Good, who was the British co-producer of the American television show Shindig, among other things. The brief liner notes, which is a fanciful description of what Paul Arnold created in this music, have Jack Good’s signature at the end of them, but Barry Stoller, in his Feb. 19, 2015 article From Inner Sounds to Astro Sounds in PopMatters, attributes it to Paul Arnold.

The Id made its’ live performance debut to promote the impending album in Chicago IL at the insistence of the producer. Band members felt it would have been better to go to San Francisco, which was more open for a modern, experimental sound. The debut took place at the Happy Medium, an intimate theater club on Rush Street. There was a blurb in the Feb. 25, 1967 issue of Billboard Magazine saying, “The Id brings its "inner sounds" to the Pussycat Wednesday (February 22). Group includes Jerry Cole, Don Dexter, Glenn Cass, Rich Cliburn and Norman Cass”. Turns out Billboard was wrong about the actual venue. The Pussycat was in the basement. Glenn Cass says, “we were in the theater”.

The gig was scheduled to be an extended run and the first performance was for a special audience that included RCA executives, radio and media. It was a big deal. They were all on their own risers under spotlights with a light show with strobes. Hollywood fashion designer Harvey Krantz designed uniforms, that could be worn two ways, for them. Playing this music live in concert for the first times was quite challenging. The band wasn’t getting paid properly and Cass estimates within two weeks they were at Chicago O’Hare ready to fly back to LA to get back to other projects. “The Id was over.”

Or was it? It seems that while The ID may have been over, The inner Sounds of the Id was just getting off the ground. On March 11, 1967 a full page ad promoting The Id album ran in Billboard Magazine. In the same issue a Spotlight Singles review appeared predicting the single being released, Short Circuit, could hit the Top 60. The “New Album Releases” section of the May 6th Billboard issue announced that the Id’s album was arriving in stores. That was followed a month later in the June 3rd issue with a short album Pop Spotlight: “One of those groups that is experimenting in sounds. “Wild Times” borders on the non-musical, the tune “The Inner Sound of the Id” is weird enough to capture aficionados of the new kind of rock, and put this LP on the chart.” What was predicted failed to materialize. A week later Dave Diamond, a DJ at KFWB, promoted a concert featuring The Id at Valley Music Theater in LA on Saturday June 10. An ad for the show was published in the June 9 issue of the Los Angeles Free Press. When asked how that could be, Glenn Cass opined: “I think he tried to put together another Id.”

It is estimated that the sales of the album were in the neighborhood of 250,000. It continues to be of cult interest as an album ahead of its’ time.

TRACKS

Jerry Cole, Glenn Cass and Rich Cliburn, did the lead vocals on the songs. Each of them had at least one song on the album. At times Cole and Glenn doubled up on lead vocals, and Glenn also sang harmony on some songs. Jerry Cole was the lead arranger on all the songs. Everyone in the group contributed to building the “sound”, and such things as the rhythm of the 17/8 time signature. Don Dexter interpreted all the percussion, building all the drum breaks, tempos, and fills. Another statement has been made that Jerry and Glenn wrote most of the songs.

The opening song is The Rake. A challenging and frenetic piece (also called “hyperactive” in an album description by Bear Cat Records) written by Paul Arnold. It definitely has a song structure with an unusual time signature. In a comment by tlow0510 regarding a blog called Mono and Stereo Comparison (thread) by imgur, The Rake is called “a guitar reverb masterpiece, guitar and bass interplay pretty nicely and elevate the psychedelia experience.” In an album review in Rate Your Music - Sonemic Inc. (in association with Amazon), iauc comments, ”The Rake is precisely the best here thanks to its haunting melody and psychedelic guitars.” The Rake starts the record off with more of a question mark than an answer as to what else to expect from the album though. It was released as a second single in May ’67 b/w Wild Times with no documentation as to how it fared.

Wild Times just keeps one guessing. It is somewhat of a blues-rocker that comes on breathlessly until it suddenly shifts into a contrapuntal melody with a different meter. Bear Cat Records offers that “different genres collided - check out the blue-eyed soul-meets Eastern sitar freak out.” Ritchie Unterberger referred to “gratuitous overlay of sitar sounds”. At the time Richie may have written this opinion he likely did not have this particular insight given by Glenn Cass , “By the way folks. There was no sitar on this album. Jerry was playing an Appalachian Dulcimer.” To be fair Unterberger called it sitar “sounds”, so perhaps he wasn’t being precise as to what instrument it really was. According to Glenn Cass, Rich Cliburn sings the first verse, and Cass the second one. After the dulcimer section it sounds like Cass sings the remaining verse. Harmonies are likely Cass and Rich, as well as Cass and Cole. tlow0510’ adds this positive comment in Mono and Stereo Comparison (thread) by imgur blog, “Wild Times has great flamenco guitar that Cole adds a short sound wavelength tremolo to”. Wild Times’ title, instrumentation and lyrics, leave little doubt that the psychedelic flourishes in this song are wild times indeed.

Don’t Think Twice was one of the two songs indicated as a Jerry Cole composition. While that is how it ended up getting published, Glenn Cass states that he co-wrote it, but received no credit. He is also the lead vocalist and he and Jerry sing the harmonies. Don’t Think Twice is the only straight-ahead rocker on the album and may have been the song that could have gotten some attention had it been released as a single. Glenn Cass’ bass is punchy, and Jerry’s guitar rings throughout the song.

Stone and Steel, with a somewhat syncopated rhythm, tells a dark tale of childhood to maturity. It seems correct of Richie Unterberger to call this psych-folk-rock. In this case the psych may refer more to psyche than psychedelic.

Baby Eyes is the poppiest song on the album, and while not being particularly eclectic or unusual, it is shown to be written by Paul Arnold. In addition to referring to it as pop/rock, Richie Unterberger also calls it “garage”. tlow0510 comment in Mono and Stereo Comparison (thread) by imgur Blog says “Baby Eyes" lets the bass player shine. Nice runs. He practiced his scales.” Not only that, bassist Glenn Cass was the lead vocalist as well.

If there is any doubt that Boil the Kettle, Mother is psychedelic, as it is considered by several sources, it most certainly qualifies as such. Richie Unterberger slyly calls it “nonchalant oddness”. The mysterious Elijah (Jack Good) makes his appearance with droning spoken word over a pounding beat and breath-taking guitar work by Jerry Cole. It’s no wonder that this song was an underground FM and college favorite at the time, and continues to fascinate cult fans of psychedelic and progressive music. In album reviews in Rate Your Music-Sonemic Inc. (in association with Amazon), this is a sampling of comments about the song: Tovan called it a “Barrett-esqe track, in reference to Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett, iauc says "Boil The Kettle Mother" also marks another high point with its insane guitars and bizarre vocals”, and tlow0510 comment in Mono and Stereo Comparison (thread) by imgur blog refers to the “standout track”, which “has spoken vampire voice.”

Described as “crazed folk” music by Bear Cat Records, Butterfly Kiss is a love analogy that ends with a wish to fly away with a butterfly. Music journalist Eileen Kaufman’ July 14, 1967 article, “Latest AcidRock Groups Reach Multiple Mind Level” in the Los Angeles Free Press, calls it “a baroque ditty —— done with female vocal obligato and male voice on the melody. The accompaniment ranges from baroque chamber music to a Slavic beat at the finale.” In a Customer Review on the album site on Amazon, Gologanov Alexey calls Butterfly Kiss an “absolutely unbelievable masterpiece of baroque with fine strings, exquisite female singing and a harmony which endlessly evolves in spiral, without repeating itself.” Indeed it’s composer, Paul Arnold Solunek was an accomplished violinist. Since there were no credits to any musicians on the liner sleeve it can only be surmised that he was responsible for the string arrangement as well as the performance. The source of the female voice was unnamed, but it is possible that it may be Tsvia Abrabanal, of Tsvia & The Followers. She and Sukonick had met for the first time earlier in the ‘60s. They worked together on his Moon Express recording project following The Inner Sound of the Id. While those recordings were completed in 1969 it was not released as an album until Sukonick’s nephew completed it and released Prophetic Spirit posthumously in 2019. The voice in that music sounds similar to the one in Butterfly Kiss.

The first single released from the album, Short Circuit b/w Boil the Kettle, Mother, got the attention of Billboard Magazine as it was released in March ’67: “Off-beat weirdy has all the ingredients for a teen-identifiable smash. Clever, pulsating beat and production featuring far out guitar sounds and strong group vocal.” With Jerry Cole and Glenn Cass on vocals, Cole’s guitar is dependably evident, but it is Cass’s winding bass that leads the way through the song. That nothing came of the single afterwards may be explained, at least in part, by the fact that The Id had disbanded just as Billboard unveiled it. Both these songs, along with the long closing cut, The Inner Sound of the Id, became popular on underground radio stations in L.A. in the late 1960s.” according to the album description in Tasty Odds associated with label World of Sounds.

Just Who is the other number attributed to Jerry Cole. It is an energetic rocker that has rhythmic spoken word lyrics throughout, somewhat in the vein of The Troggs’ Wild Thing. A harmony chorus comes in at about a minute ten seconds until the conclusion of the song. It is again a display of Glenn Cass’ strong winding bass, but additionally he is the lead vocalist, in what he has referred to as a “shit song”. Some of the songs like Just Who, that are in the Youtube full album link included in references below, are in mono rather than stereo sound. There is a marked difference between the mono and the stereo versions, particularly with vocals. As tlow0510 in Mono and Stereo Comparison (thread) by imgur blog opined about the stereo version of the album, “… the vocals are awwwwwfffuuuuullll. They're only in the right channel. As a result they sounded distant and distracting compared to the mono version.”

There have been a variety of opinions in regard to the final track. The Inner Sound of the Id, composed by Paul Arnold, has had a very mixed critical reception. At ten and half minutes there is speculation as to whether it is a creative example of psychedelia, or just filler. It moves through the instrumental intro, as Eileen Kaufman puts it, ”merging into the poetry recited by an eerie voice discussing Psyche, Libido and the Id - and how each affects your senses”. The afore-mentioned Jack “Elijah” Good is the spoken word vocalist over a slowly mounting instrumental build up until two-thirds of the way through The album’s first song, The Rake, plays in entirety and leads to a slowly fading finish. The Jerry Cole-played dulcimer is reminiscent of the album’s second song, Wild Times. Kaufman also had this to say about the last track of the same name, “The entire selection builds to a mysterious climax while the dulcimer solo blows your mind.” At least somebody knew those sitar sounds were actually made by a dulcimer.

—-Further opinions.

>ProgMusic Paradise blog calls it the “the high point of the album, "The inner sound of The Id", with a completely acidic atmosphere”.

>A “ten-minute final track is the stereotypical dark-indo-esoteric-sitar bungle” per wago album review in Rate Your Music-Sonemic Inc. (in association with Amazon).

>“Another standout track” according to tlow0510 comment in Mono and Stereo Comparison (thread) by imgur Blog, who goes on to say, “The Inner Sound of the ID" has samples from earlier tracks on the album and seems like it was written while they were exploring the id of their minds.”

>iauc album review in Rate Your Music-Sonemic Inc. (in association with Amazon) scathingly writes, the album “may have been a major addition to the extensive catalog of psychedelic rarities, but the final 10 bland minutes of "The Inner Sounds Of The Id" take away any chance”, and “the truth is that this failed recitation on a background with oriental overtones is a good sample of the excesses of the period.”

>And finally, Bear Cat Records says the “ten minute title track, complete with extended sitar, marshal drumming and earnest chanting is must-hear hysterical.”

—————————-

While there are differences in opinion, a case can be made that much of the music on The Inner Sound of the Id was quintessentially psychedelic., even though the band did not set out to make it that. Richie Unterberger questioned whether this was done artistically, or rather was an exploitation of the developing psychedelia culture. Reflecting back, Glenn Cass intones, “Psych my ass! As far as I can remember, we never looked at this session as psychedelic. We went into this to do an album with different time signatures that no one had ever done. We knew nothing about psych, we were almost all playing country (music). We agreed to do this between us cause we had done everything else so why not try this.” As to it being exploitive of the expanding psychedelia culture, the only thing that Cass had to add is that they were “also thinking the big break and money was possible.”

In regards to Unterberger’s thought as to it was done artistically, one need only review the long and thoughtful efforts that were put into preparing for and creating this album, which happened to occur in the midst of what came to be known as psychedelic music. After the fact, many things have come to be associated with psychedelia in music. These can include disjunctive song structures such as time and key signatures, modal and drone concepts, lyrics that can be surreal, esoteric, whimsical, inspired by literature, unusual instrumental and studio effects and enhancement and the use of exotic instrumentation, and extended instrumental parts, or jams. Most of this can be found in the work and results of what went into The Inner Sounds of the Id. It seems safe to say that none of the participants were drugged out young people tripping out over mind-expanding substances, even if that may be what happened with some of folks who ended up listening to The Id’s music, be they younger or older.

As to other comments:

-Richie Unterberger used terms like “weird in a forced, mediocre fashion”. “makes it sound more like an exploitation of psychedelic movement than a genuine part of it”., “chanted pseudo-séance vocals” emulating “freakishness, or a “kind of mediocre California psychedelic band”, “strange on-the-sleeve efforts”, “gratuitous overlay of sitar sounds”, “outlandish lyrics, poker-faced spoken vocal”.

-D&J blog in Wings of Dream June 22, 2011 “By 1967 psychedelia had become trendy and commercial. Major labels released goofy, self-conscious experimental rock records that didn’t have a chance to make the charts, obscure major-label psychedelic product of the time, psychsploitation, cash in on a fad rather than sincere ambitious musical endeavor, strange guitar reverb and distortion, dashes of sitar, pseudo-Eastern musical and mystical influences, shortage of good songs and ideas, aura of strained attempt to be freaky. The presence of well-traveled Los Angeles session guitarist Jerry Cole on the LP makes one wonder if the Inner Sound of the Id were a studio-only group.”

-ProgMusic Paradise blog September 11, 2019 says “by 1967 and at the time of their album release, the musicians of The Id were a bit older and more experienced than other ordinary psychedelic artists. The album starts with weak pop compositions but gradually sinks deeper into psychedelia with fuzz, distortion, echo effects and meditative chants. the high point of the album, "The inner sound of The Id", with a completely acidic atmosphere.”

-Bad Cat Records album description says, referring to “psychedelic touches”, “Interestingly, when I first heard the album it didn't strike me as the year's most original package. That was before I realized when this thing was recorded - 1967!, Upbeat, varied and enthusiastic, major psych reference books describes the set as "Beatles influenced”.

From Rate Your Music-Sonemic Inc. (in association with Amazon) album review comments:

>Tovan review September 26, 2007 says good, trippy psychedelia with some odd twists and turns. A bit maldirected at times, but with some really nice tracks.

>wago review December 2, 2007 loaded with compound meters (in agreement with “Don Ellis”), style is typically garage-psych, but the songs feature very strong melodies and a wonderful Sixties/Beatlesque/Love allure, A bit ingenuous at times, but never sounding unaccomplished, ten-minute final track is the stereotypical dark-indo-esoteric-sitar bungle.

>iauc November 21, 2008 says “it may have been a major addition to the extensive catalog of psychedelic rarities, but the final 10 bland minutes of "The Inner Sounds Of The Id" take away any chance, ailed recitation on a background with oriental overtones,” ”The Rake" is precisely the best here thanks to its haunting melody and psychedelic guitars”, "Boil The Kettle Mother" also marks another high point with its insane guitars and bizarre vocals, other consistent and more conventional songs in a predominantly garage style and a few folk touches.”

>tymeshifter review January 29, 2011 says “actually a great punk/psych album, considerably more talented and better sounding (through better production) than most typical punk groups, little denying the presence of a punk element on this record, inclusion of famed session man Jerry Cole in their personnel was also a guarantee this was going to be interesting.”

>CooperBolan October 2, 2015 says “underground garage psych band, pretty raw and simple psychedelic rock tracks.”

>tlow0510 comment in Mono and Stereo Comparison (thread) by imgur Blog 2018 says style is “Psychedelic Rock, Garage Psych”, “fantastic psychedelia masterpiece, bass and vocals compliment the reverberated flamenco and jazz influenced guitar playing, guitar/sitar psych album.” “It seems like a lot of organ was ham-fisted into psych records back then.” “guitar and bass interplay pretty nicely and elevate the psychedelia experience.”

BAND MEMBERS AND PRODUCER

Jerry Cole (born Gerald Kolbrak September 23, 1939 Green Bay WI-died May 28, 2008 Corona CA) was raised in Chicago, but by his late teens had returned to Green Bay. He and Glenn Cass met up at the time Jerry was playing guitar in jazz and swing bands. They started playing some rock and country music together. Cass, who was a guitarist as well, said he helped Jerry learn rock guitar licks. Jerry formed a band called Jerry Cole & The Flaming Coals with Cass, Tom “TC” Gebheim, Larry Russell and Fritz Rueblien. After Gebheim left the band Don Dexter joined as the drummer. They played for about a year at a local club called the Piccadilly. In 1959 The Champs came to town while on tour supporting their hit, Tequila. After playing at the Riverside Ballroom they stopped in at the Piccadilly and ended up sitting in with the Flaming Coals.

After some time following the end of the Flaming Coals’ gig at Piccadilly, Jerry Cole along with Cass and Dexter played in the Johnny Pike Quartet at the Caravan Club in Colorado Springs CO for awhile. Jerry then moved to Los Angeles where he had been invited to join The Champs as lead guitarist. Glenn Campbell also joined to replace Johnny Meeks. Cole and Campbell later left the band and ended up putting out a single together as The Cee Gees called Buzzsaw Twist b/w Annie Had a Party.

Jerry started finding work in the energetic LA music scene. He became pseudonymously involved with several budget record albums released by Crown Records, with some that actually included his name . In the meantime he lead the surf rock band Jerry Cole & His Spacemen and had three albums released by Capitol Records. Glenn Cass was in the band, as was TC Gebheim. They were the first to cover the song written by Michael Z. Gordon, Outer Limits, which was first recorded by Gordon’s band The Routers. In subsequent versions the song was called Out of Limits after Rod Serling sued because of the non-permitted use of the four note motif from Twilight Zone. Gordon founded The Marketts, who had a No.3 hit version of his song. The Ventures followed up with another popular version.

Cole became an in-demand session guitarist by the time The Byrds went into the studio for the first time. Their producer Terry Melcher was not confident in their capability at that time and brought in members of the Wrecking Crew to back up Jim McGuinn, who sang lead and played 12-string guitar. The studio musicians included Cole as well as Larry Knechtel, Leon Russell and Hal Blaine. The songs recorded, which went on the first hit single, were Mr. Tambourine Man and the B-side I Knew I’d Want You. During this time period Cole also recorded on Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ and Paul Revere & The Raiders’ Kicks, among others. He was with bands on TV shows Hullabaloo and Shindig while leading or participating in bands with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Roger Miller and Ricky Nelson. Cole was first-call guitarist in TV bands for Andy Williams, Sonny & Cher, Smothers Brothers, Laugh In and Dick Van Dyke. As part of the Wrecking Crew he recorded on Phil Spector productions. Additionally Cole was often part of the Gene Davis and Red Rhodes incarnations at the Palomino and other clubs off and on through 1969.

In the process of “becoming the most prolific session guitarist in history”, as mentioned by Barry Stoller, Jerry Cole once again got into the nebulous world of pseudonymous record albums courtesy of Alshire Records of 101 Strings notoriety. Session tracks and/or outtakes from the Id recording sessions became at least part of the basis for several "psychsploitation" budget recordings. Cole’s involvement, as well that of other musicians, perhaps was inadvertent, but there no way of knowing whether it was, or not.

Alshire’s owners, Al Sherman and DL Miller decided to cash in on the new music happening in the mid-to-late ‘60s. The first act to release an album on the label other than 101 Strings was The Animated Egg. All album tracks are attributed to David Leonard Miller and Al Sherman. In one of several descriptions Barry Stoller says of the music, “A mad pastiche of bump-and-grind, transcendental arpeggios, proto-metal swagger and laser-beam leads reaching a crescendo of post-punk deconstruction (on "Sock It My Way"), the uncredited instrumentals suggest slapdash genius. That's exactly what it is. These tracks are the missing masters from The Inner Sounds of the Id sessions.” He further suggests Paul Arnold’s responsibility for “missing” Id masters once they disbanded prior to their 1967 album release. Jerry alleged that to Stoller back in the early 2000s. Quoted by Stoller, Cole said, “Paul Arnold absconded with the RCA royalties from The Id and then proceeded to sell that other material to a lot of people at various labels.”

Sherman and Miller then took it even further, releasing Astro Sounds From Beyond the Year 2000 using the Id rock music now enhanced with string arrangements. Despite it’s superior production, according to Stoller, it was neglected due to being credited to 101 Strings. This material continued to be recycled by various labels beyond the year 2000. When first told of this, and finally hearing his “work” on The Animated Egg, Cole told Stoller, "No doubt, that album is entirely me - iron clad - every tune.” "All they really did was add phase shifting through a Leslie speaker throughout the album. You know, I'm really gonna have to have my lawyer look into this Alshire business.” And then again, Cole may have been involved, hard to say.

Glenn (sometimes billed as Glen) Cass (born Kastner May 27, 1939 Green Bay WI, and grew up in Oconto WI). He got his first guitar when he was 10 years old. After high school he played a few beer bars while working a regular job. He met Jerry Cole, who was playing jazz and swing gigs around the area in 1959 and helped him learn rock guitar licks. When Jerry Cole and The Flaming Coals came about he switched to bass as there were already two other guitarists. Tom “TC” Geldheim, the drummer of the band, left and Don Dexter, who had returned from the service, started playing with them. They played for about a year at a lounge called Piccadilly.

After an extended gig with the Johnny Pike Quartet at the Caravan Club in Colorado Springs CO, along with Cole and Dexter, Glenn and Don returned to Green Bay. Glenn got back together with TC Geldheim and toured the midwest for about a year and a half. Thereafter Glenn got a gig with the Johnny Rivers band at a club in New Orleans for a few months. Glenn then ended up going to Los Angeles, arriving about the same time as Jerry Cole. They often played together during their time in LA. He recorded on some of the pseudonymous Crown Records albums, and on the surf albums on Capitol Records with Jerry Cole & His Spacemen which also included TC Gebheim.

Glenn was involved with an album on Capitol Records in 1964 called Black Boots and Bikes by a band called The Kickstands. The cover described it as “Hillclimbing instrumentals and Vocals”. Vocal Surf and Surf Rock are genres that later were used to define the music. It is possible Jerry Cole may have also been involved. Glenn was in on The Byrds demo tapes made in mid-year to November 1964, but eventually were released in the album Preflyte in 1969.

Glenn brought his brother Norm Cass out to LA in ’64 and they played together at The Palomino Club in North Hollywood CA with The Gene Davis Band (aka The Palomino Riders, and Gene Davis & the Star Routers) while also being on the (Cal) Worthington Dodge TV show. In the meantime they were part of a band with drummer Sandy Nelson and Jerry Inman that was in the 1965 movie, Wild on the Beach. In addition to them the Astronauts were also part of the onscreen cast as well as it being the film debut for Sonny and Cher. Glenn Cass found a movie poster of the movie that shows the band Sandy Nelson, Glenn, Norm and Jerry Inman.

In later 1965 Gene Davis joined Roger Miller’s road band for a time and steel guitar player Red Rhodes fronted the band, called Red Rhodes & the Detours. When Gene returned Glenn left to play with his new band at a club called Starland, then Clouds in San Fernando Valley, and finally on TV in The Brand Motors Ford Show. Gene left again in early 1966 and Glenn put his own band together and played some clubs.

On his own again Glenn started working at the Ban-Dar club in Ventura CA. When the owners sold he took over the band and began bringing in big names like Willie Nelson, George Jones, Merle Haggard and Glenn Campbell. It was at this time that The Id project was going on. After the The Id disbanded in 1967, Glenn had returned to the Ban-Dar for a short while and then joined with Glen Kiener in taking over a place they renamed the Corral. Gene Davis was hired by Glenn after he had returned to town and the Corral became very popular. Glenn was asked to fill in for Waylon Jennings who was unable to play a gig at the Golden Nugget in Vegas. Billed as the Glenn Cass Band, he left Gene with the Corral for that run. Upon returning he was asked to join up with Red Rhodes & The Detours at the Palomino.

In 1969 Happy Tiger Records released the album Live at The Palomino. Glenn said in his Facebook page that the band members, which also included Norm and Jerry Cole at the time, got no recognition on the album itself, although the cover includes a photo of the band. A single on Happy Tiger, The Conspiracy of Homer Jones b/w Divorce, by Glenn Cass featured two songs from the Live album. Also that year Red Rhodes & The Detours, with guest Dave Dudley, played at the Tomorrowland Terrace stage in Disneyland. It was the day of the first crewed moon landing, July 20, 1969. Glenn said that the landing was shown on a large screen at the Tomorrowland Stage. They also played as a back-up band for fifty-two big name artists at the Cow Palace in Daly City CA, as well as with Eddy Arnold at the Hollywood Bowl. Before the year was out the band left the Palomino in a pay dispute.

Glenn and his brother Norm returned to Green Bay and took other work for awhile before Glenn decided to get back into country music. Around this time Glenn had a single, What Color is a Man b/w Hurry Up Sundown released by Target Records in 1971. He got a band together and shot a pilot TV show which was picked up by WFRV-NBC. It was called The Glenn Cass Country Show and held a number one position on local Nielsen ratings for two years. The Country Christmas album by he and the show’s female vocalist, April Walker, was released back in this period as well. In 1973 Glenn recorded Country Girl b/w Sweet Sweetheart on DBL Records. He said it was engineered by Sam Philips with the instrumental tracks at Muscle Shoals Alabama, and later voices added in Memphis. It was mixed by Charlie Tallent. Backing vocals were by Paul Anka’s back up group, Rhodes, Chalmers & Rhodes. Charlie McCoy played harp on Sweet Sweetheart.

Due to health issues Glenn had to give up the show to April Walker. A year later he got an offer to play in a club called Flower Drum in Portland Oregon, playing there for the last thirteen years of his career. He was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame on October 8, 2010. Glenn released a private label CD of the original ten songs from The Inner Sound of the Id in the 2000s. It is billed as Glenn Cass Bassist “The Id” After Fifty Years The Original Ten Songs. There is an album by he and Dave Dudley called Sixteen Hundred Miles released on Compose Records which appears to be recordings from the Crown Records days in the early ’60s. Information about it says it was released December 10, 2018, but there is evidence of it on Glenn’s Facebook going back to at least 2015.

Norm Cass (born Norman Richard Kastner on September 2, 1945 Green Bay WI died July 18, 2012 Alvin, TX) joined his brother Glenn in Los Angeles CA in 1964. In that year he was involved with a pseudonymous budget album on crown records called Buckaroo and Other Guitar Country and Western Favorites. Norm and Glenn played together at The Palomino Club in North Hollywood CA with The Gene Davis Band (aka The Palomino Riders, and Gene Davis & the Star Routers) during the mid-to-late sixties. In 1966 steel guitar player Red Rhodes fronted the band after Gene Davis joined Roger Miller’s road band. In the same period he played with the McGinnis Brothers at The Cape Room and other clubs Norm was working with The Id project as rhythm guitarist and back up vocalist. After this he eventually played with his brother in Red Rhodes & The Legends at the Palomino again. -see other information about that in the Glenn Cass bio above.

Norm played guitar with Gene Watson & The Farewell Party Band, and was on both albums the band recorded between 1982 and 1984. The band also backed Gene on a solo album and released an album under their own name. He may have played with Watson before that period, but was with him further into the ‘90s and perhaps beyond. The song Carmen from the 1985 album, Memories to Burn, has a video performed by Gene and the band live at Wembley Arena in England in 1986, featuring Norm playing Spanish style guitar. There are a few other videos showing Norm playing with Gene Watson as well.

Don Dexter (born Donald James Dexter December 17, 1937 in Appleton WI died October 3, 2018 Canon City CO) started playing drums at age ten. He lead his first band, Don Dexter & The Downbeats from 1954-56. Tom TC Gebheim was a member of his band. After a turn in the service Dexter became a member of Jerry Cole and The Flaming Coals, replacing Gebheim as drummer. He was the first one, in what became The Id, to go to Los Angeles. He then returned to GB, and soon joined Jerry and Glenn when they went to Colorado Springs to play in the Johnny Pike Quartet at the Caravan Club for a time. After once again being back in Green Bay for awhile he headed back to LA, where he became a regular session and band drummer. He played and recorded with Ricky Nelson, Frankie Avalon, Glenn Yarbrough (with whom he toured, and got to play with at Carnegie Hall), Mason Williams, Joe & Eddie, Del Shannon, Nino Tempo and April Stevens, Sonny James, and the Smothers Brothers. He was in the bands on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, a Bob Hope special, rock and roll specials on ABC, made for TV movies, and six Frankie Avalon movies, two of which were made for TV.

Before moving to Colorado from Los Angeles, Don was director of film and video for music legends Warner Bros. platinum artists Seals & Crofts. He also became a noted director/producer of television film documentaries. He taught film and video at UC-Colorado Springs, Pikes Peak Community College, the Colorado Film School, and The Art Institute of Colorado. He received numerous honors and awards including six of nine Emmy nominations resulting in Awards. He formed and produced film and video for twenty years with his Wolf River Productions company. Don was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 2003.

James Richard “Rich” Cliburn (born March 1, 1943 Mt. Olive MS) played guitar and keyboards with The Id. He went on to play lead guitar with Smith, a band he helped form in 1969. Smith evolved from a band called The Smiths (not to be confused with the later English band), which had recorded a song that didn’t chart well. After scouting for a different lead singer, Gayle McCormick was tapped to join the band. While Smith was the house band at the Rag Doll Club Del Shannon discovered them and helped them sign with Dunhill Records. He also did an arrangement of The Chiffons’ song, Baby It’s You, for Smith with which they had No.5 hit on Billboard. The album, A Group Called Smith, was released and included Cliburn and bassist Jerry Carter on vocals as well as McCormick. Cliburn and Carter, along with one other person, were apparently the writers of a 1966 song called Dance With Me. which was released as a single by by The Trippers on Ruby-Doo Records.

Paul Arnold Sukonick (born August 3, 1933 Philadelphia PA died February 18, 1991 Los Angeles CA) was a celebrated classical violinist who won the Young Artist competition of California playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto. Sukonick, after moving to Los Angeles, studied with Russian virtuoso violinist Toscha Seidel and became the United States representative to the second Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1962. Seidel helped Sukonick find work in film and music recording studios in Hollywood and Los Angeles. It is documented that Sukonick was a violinist in Frank Sinatra recording sessions including March 1961 recording sessions for Capitol Records’ album Come Swing With Me!, and May 1961 recording sessions for Reprise Records’ album I Remember Tommy.

Arnold eventually began the work on The Inner Sound of the Id after which he started another project in 1967 which was named Moon Express. He worked with Yemen-born, Israeli-raised Tsvia Abarbanel and other musicians. As the album neared completion in 1969 Paul Arnold & Moon Express was part of the line up in an NBC special called 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee. They contributed a piece called Only The Fittest Shall Survive for a psychedelic dance performance. The female voice was Yemen-born Tsvia Abrabanal of Tsvia & The Followers. Tsvia was a member of the Inbal Dance Theater, which may have been involved with this production, but that point is conjecture. In addition to the Monkees, Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Buddy Miles Express, The Clara Ward Singers and We Three were also featured. The special was created and produced by Jack Good.

Shortly thereafter Sukonick was severely debilitated when struck by a car. Eventually his Moon Express project was completed by his nephew, David Sukonick in 2019, fifty years after the accident ended his quest. Moon Express’ album, Prophetic Spirit was released on Sundazed Records with the help of Mike Vernon. Paul Arnold is heard performing spoken voice and violin. Tsvia & The Followers were of course on it as well. That group was once on a 1967 Andy Williams TV special, and they also opened for Donovan at the Hollywood Bowl.

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This was the first (of many) records that I obtained with no clue as to what it was. Although I had already purchased albums that I hadn’t actually heard, or knew little about, I did so knowing something about the musicians and/or music in them. I knew nothing about The Id, but the record intrigued me. Of course in those days there was nothing like the internet to assist with finding out more about the record itself. I was not familiar with the word “id” but thought I should go home and look it up in the dictionary. The result made it appealing enough to try out the record and I returned to the record store located in Menlo Park CA to buy it.

I have to admit that my initial thoughts on it were not overly positive. As I have previously described there were some unusual things done with this record; some worked, some not so much. I didn’t listen to it near as much as my other albums. I was put off by some of the vocals. I thought it was because they sounded distant, perhaps muted and reedy, and the spoken word stuff was unusual for me. After reading one of the opinions I found in my research I realized that the vocals coming out of one channel in the stereo version were the main issue. It made them sound more distant and unclear seemed a definite factor in my perception. I wasn’t used to such adventuresome signature meters either. Again, later research highlighted that they were indeed quite different, even for the musicians.

Three years before this final edit, I found a certain amount of information on the internet regarding The Inner Sounds of the Id. In particular I found some comments about the album on Amazon. Along with three or four other sources, for the first time I discovered who the musicians were. While making the decision to revise and update blogs I had previously posted, I didn’t realize it would result in my unearthing so much more regarding The Id and the album.

I want to thank Mr. Glenn Cass, one of two band members still around as of this writing. Fortunately he commented on Amazon back in 2014. This gave me the insight into who the hell all these people were, and an idea of what went on. This time around, thanks to him, I was able to garner so much more through his personal Facebook page on which I went back eight years, finding special new nuggets all the way through. More recently I became familiar with Mr. Jason Odd, a music historian who had much to add to the subject, and is the creator of The Inner Sounds of the Id Facebook page. Thanks to his fresh, as well as Glenn’s even newer, perspectives, I was convinced to once again delve into the story.

As I absorbed the information on all this, I realized the importance in adding an in-depth view of the artists. I also felt it was important to address some of the opinions regarding the relationship of psychedelic music to this band and their record. Coupled with some researched information, I expressed my own opinions in regard to this. While not claiming vast expertise, I think there is some validity in my opinions, and that’s where I am going to leave it.

With all this intense familiarization, I now have a much stronger appreciation for what transpired. There seemed to have been a sincere effort by these professionals to create something fresh and different. With a change in fortune it might have risen to the level of other contemporary offerings. While completing my previous effort on all this I commented, ‘An album shrouded in mystery and inconsistencies’. I no longer consider this applicable. To that I had concluded that it was ‘the stuff that legends are made of”, which remains true indeed.

Glenn Cass https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R9VJ9B2FID67F/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001CESP9Q

David Sukonick nephew of Paul Arnold https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R14AUP2ZBHIOCB/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001CESP9Q

Golonanov Alexey https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2TQELH3948JZF/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001CESP9Q

New Album Releases page 51 https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/60s/1967/Billboard%201967-05-06.pdf

Mention of Id concert in Chicago Ihttps://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/60s/1967/Billboard%201967-02-25.pdf pg. 58 From the Music Capitols of the World

The Id Ad & Short Circuit Spotlight Singles https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/60s/1967/Billboard%201967-03-11.pdf

Spotlight Album Reviews page 44 https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/60s/1967/Billboard%201967-06-03.pdf

Id Concert Poster 6-9-67 Ad https://voices.revealdigital.org/?a=d&d=BGJFHJH19670609.1.11&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN---------------1

Eileen Kaufman article 6-14-67 page 9 https://voices.revealdigital.org/?a=d&d=BGJFHJH19670714.1.9&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN---------------1

https://www.popmatters.com/060220-astrosounds-2496104391.html

https://www.tastyodds.com/en/Compact-Discs/Relics-from-the-past/The-Id-The-Inner-Sounds-Of-The-Id-CD.html

https://www.discogs.com/The-Id-The-Inner-Sounds-Of-The-Id/release/2838941

https://www.discogs.com/The-Id-The-Rake-Wild-Times/release/6984973

https://www.discogs.com/The-Id-Short-Circuit-Boil-The-Kettle-Mother/release/8242097

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-inner-sound-of-the-id-mw0000875937

http://badcatrecords.com/BadCat/ID.htm

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the-id/the-inner-sounds-of-the-id-2/reviews/1/

https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/comments/8c5bkq/the_inner_sounds_of_the_id_the_id_1967/

http://musicofsixties.blogspot.com/2011/06/the-id-inner-sounds-of-id-1967.html

https://www.adsausage.com/freep6/

https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/the-id-short-circuit-boil-the-kettle-mother

https://isthmus.com/music/vinyl-cave/vinyl-cave-the-inner-sounds-of-the-id-by-the-id/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Champs

https://pandora.com/artist/moon-express/prophetic-spirit/AL5qXqkm2Jd2Pw2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Cole

Id page Kastner https://www.facebook.com/basemannn/

http://www.rockabillyhall.com/GlennCass.html

http://www.rockinroundthevalley.com/2019/09/featured-song-sweet-sweetheart-by-glenn.html

Topic15 1/2019 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.music.country.classic/dnDcgi26qZYhttps://www.legacy.com/obituaries/canoncitydailyrecord/obituary.aspx?n=donald-%22don%22-james-dexter&pid=190423841&fhid=3551

http://rockabillyhall.com/DonDexter1.html

Arnold Sukonick https://books.google.com/books?id=yqth52rImHQC&pg=PA328&lpg=PA328&dq=paul+arnold+sukonick&source=bl&ots=YutzMRK-Jm&sig=ACfU3U0iBni1MbqaAUIGJVOXi_-aCVvT4A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtn-u2l8bpAhUSCM0KHYAjDkoQ6AEwBXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=paul%20arnold%20sukonick&f=false

Moon Express-Prophetic Spirit https://sundazed.com/moon-express.aspx

http://www.rockabillyhall.com/RiversideBallroom.html

Cole/Wilson/Lewis-Shindig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfJnT4C1gXM

Cole-Pretty Woman-Shindig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii-yJZRAwX0

Cole-Spacemen-Outer Limits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=517pXh73H1U

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Limits

Glenn/April Walker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYfOnNfoutE

Norm/Farewell Party Band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPBIuBps5s

Norm/guitar-Gene Watson-Carmen live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5V9GeQcpiM

Cliburn-Smith-Baby It’s You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee9cs_JZ-Ro

Cliburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_(band)

Cliburn https://m.facebook.com/SimpsonCountyHistorical/posts/1081706975531117

Paul Arnold-Moon Express spoken word https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wvZxUOTXhY&list=PLgPMmC48fEdvwxZJrbAbuojr-rJN5rR0O&index=1

Sukonick-violin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt_tkPrrbDw

Arnold/Moon Express music for dance (at 17:38) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYSssfG7Gy8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33%E2%85%93_Revolutions_per_Monkee

Full album less track 3 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8a8cutYP7fo5Un7FZkbJ2Z_oxjGzwSU0

Track 3 - Don’t Think Twice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llw32IpttPM

Id Facebook link https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=ms.c.eJwzNDAyMjQ0NzM3NjIxMjEwN9UzRIiYm5gYWBgDAH01Bv8~-.bps.a.10207379571663679&type=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0MCRxld8bY alternate The Rake in mono

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdsZ2zduGMU alternate Wild Times in mono

LP23

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

Photo

The Doors - The Doors

The Doors eponymous first album was widely released near the beginning of January 1967. The first single release occurred in the same month, but failed to reach the Hot 100 only reaching No.126. That single, Break On Through (To the Other Side) was also the first track on the album, and was backed by End of the Night, As the album steadily rose up the charts the next single, Light My Fire b/w Crystal Ship, was released toward the end of April. While the single was heading for a No.1 position on the Billboard Hot 100, the album accelerated to No.2 on the Top 200, unable to reach No.1 which was held by The Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. For The Doors album it was still one of the most impressive debut releases in history, and it is ranked No.42 on Billboard’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Both the album and the single went on to receive Platinum Records, and Light My Fire is No.35 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. After the success of Jose Feliciano’s cover version of Light My Fire about a year later, reaching No.3 on Billboard, The Doors original single re-entered the Hot 100, going to No.87.

When the album came out, radio DJs wanted to play Light My Fire, but it was too long for AM. When released as a single, Light My Fire was an edited version with most of the organ and guitar solos left out. It ran just under three minutes, as opposed to nearly seven minutes on the album. Decades later, it was later discovered that the album version was released in the key of A, whereas all other eventual versions, including the single, were at Ab/G#. Brigham Young University professor Michael Hicks notified the album’s sound engineer Bruce Botnick who then determined there had been a decreased speed discrepancy of nearly 3.5%. On the 2007 40th Anniversary Electra/Rhino Records releases of The Doors, Light My Fire with the corrected speed was included for the first time.

Light My Fire, while being credited to The Doors as all their songs

they composed on their albums were, was primarily written by guitarist Robby Krieger. The reality had been that Jim Morrison was writing most of the songs leading up to their first album. He said someone else should give it a try. Krieger had never written a song before, and he worked on doing so with earnest for several days. After coming up with a premise, fire, and a melody, he completed the first verse and then asked Morrison to help him with the second one. Others in the band provided assists as well.

The originality and vitality of The Doors was apparent at the very beginning of the album. Break On Through (To the Other Side) was a song they had been performing regularly and it remained one of their most popular songs in performance thereafter. Drummer John Densmore had become attracted to bossa nova, which was very popular at the time, and based his drum work on this. The bass line was also typical of bossa nova and that carried through most of the song. Robby Krieger’s guitar riff has inspiration attributed to the Paul Butterfield version of Shake Your Moneymaker, as well as Them’s One Two Brown Eyes. Manzarek’s keyboard work has roots in Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto’s album Getz/Gilberto, and his bass line to What I Say by Ray Charles. Allmusic reviewer Lindsay Planer noted about Morrison’s lyrics, “Immediately the lyrics indicate that something is different ... "Break on Through" is structured like a love song. However, Morrison’s phraseology cleverly juxtaposes romantic lyrics such as "I found an island in your arms/A country in your eyes" with the almost sinister lines "arms that chain/Eyes that lie”.

Jim Morrison actually wrote Soul Kitchen, his tribute to Olivia’s soul food restaurant in Venice Beach CA. The line “let me sleep all night, in your soul kitchen” refers to nights when he stayed so late there, that the staff had to kick him out. The song was compared to Van Morrison’s Gloria in cadence by Greil Marcus, and by Paul Williams in Crawdaddy as compared to Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind for having a message. In Soul Kitchen this being, “ Learn to forget.”

The next cut, The Crystal Ship, which was also the single B-side to Light My Fire, was again written by Jim Morrison. John Densmore has emphasized that the song was written as a break up love song for his first serious girlfriend, Mary Werbelow. It begins as a typical love song, but Morrison’s penchant for vagueness, and the atmosphere of the song, leaves much to speculate about. Of course speculation surely happened, drugs being one of the primary sources for it.

The obvious play on words of Twentieth Century Fox were again penned by Jim Morrison. Fox was a term popularized in that time period, referring to a pretty girl. Twentieth Century Fox Film Studios represented the juxtaposition “used to represent the woman in the song, who is glamorous, but artificial.”, according to SongFacts. It also goes on to give this inside info, “Producer Paul Rothchild had the band walk on wooden planks during the chorus to get the pounding effect.”

Next comes one of the two album’s cover songs, chosen from a rather unexpected source, Bertholt Brecht & Kurt Weill’s play Little Mahogany (Mahagonny-Songspiel) and reused for Brecht and Weill's 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny). An idiosyncratic English interpretation by Elisabeth Hauptmann was used with Alabama Song despite the majority of of the works were in German. The Doors version has a change in melody and omitted the line "Show me the way to the next little dollar…”. The second verse, with the line "Show us the way to the next pretty boy" was altered by Morrison to "Show me the way to the next little girl” on the recording. Of course this wasn’t necessarily the first time a Weill/Brecht composition was the basis of a popular song. Their 1928 music drama, The Three Penny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper), contained Die Moritat von Mackie Messer. In English, The Ballad of Mack the Knife, was shortened to Mack the Knife. Marc Blitzstein successfully translated the words to English for the 1954 Broadway version of the musical, which ran for six years. Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin recorded the best known popular versions of Mack the Knife in 1956 and 1958.

Willie Dixon/Chester Burnett classic Chicago blues standard, Back Door Man, starts off side two. The original recording was made by Howlin’ Wolf, and Dixon was on bass. The Doors performed a blues rock version of the song.

I Look At You and Take It Easy Baby are two lightweight likable songs that are more than just filler. They are the second and fourth cuts on side two with melodies are that bouncy, and lyrics that are direct and have positive messages about love.

The song in between those two, End of the Night, contains three lines taken directly from the 1803 (published posthumously in 1863) poem, Auguries of Innocence by Willams Blake. The Doors (Morrison) wrote the song in their early days and it was one of a six-song demo recorded in 1965 while trying to land a deal with Aura Records. The title comes from Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s 1932 French novel, Journey to The End of the Night.

That brings us to The End, but of course that is actually just the beginning of the last song on the album. Jim Morrison had written the lyrics, and The End was performed early on by The Doors. The original genesis for the song was the end of Morrison’s relationship with his girlfriend, Mary Werbelow. Much was added to this, and song performance became longer and longer. On the album, The Doors, the length is 11:41. It became a vehicle for Morrison’s take on the ancient Greek tale about Oedipus Rex featuring a complexity of meanings unlike what existed in concurrent popular music at the time. As Allmusic reviewer Lindsay Planer puts it, “it requires the listener to ultimately surrender to the complexity of the multiple layers woven into the story line. In keeping with Morrison’s lyrical capacity for ambiguity, an analysis often begs more questions than it ultimately answers.” Given that the Oedipal tale was, and still is, tied to Freudian psychology, the song has been a source of conjecture by many. The concept of the song was so new and unexpected by early audiences that at first there was little reaction to it. In the Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010), The End is ranked No.363. Although much has been made of the lyrics and performance(s) of Jim Morrison of this song, it is important to remember the strong instrumental work by the other three Doors. Robbie Krieger’s guitar work has been recognized in Guitar World’s 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time, ranked No.93. Attention was refocused on The End, and the album, when a remixed version of it was included in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now!

The Doors created very unified, fresh performances on the recordings. Frontman Jim Morrison catapulted to stardom immediately. His voice is one of the most recognizable in rock and roll, or any other music for that matter. He was also very precocious and unpredictable, the stuff that legends are made of. It’s worthy of noting that the Doors album continued the psychedelic music trend and was easily one of the leading examples of it in 1967, along with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, and Jimi Hendrix. It is also likely that Jim Morrison’s frequently manic performances likely influenced future punk musicians, such as Iggy Pop.

The consistency amid reviewers is profound in that The Doors was a well performed record which influenced many others that followed it. The consensus by critics is that it is one of the greatest albums of all time. Robert Christgau, while recommending the album, was less enthusiastic about certain aspects of it. He was particularly critical of the “long, obscure dirge” The End, as he referred to it. He also felt that Jim Morrison was, at times, self indulgent and poetically obscure. He expressed admiration for a “great hard rock original”, Break on Through, and the “clever”(ness) of songs like Twentieth Century Fox.”

When the long-awaited single of Light My Fire hit the radio it was indeed on fire. It was one of the most impressive song debuts of all time, especially to this young guy. That single inspired me to buy the album, but the longer version lacked the punch of the radio version. This brought me to my re-immersion into 45rpm records. I purchased it at what became my favorite place to get records, Town & Country Record Store. I always wondered at the fact that the shortened single version always sounded more vibrant. Not completely understanding the ins and outs of recording, I even wondered if it had been a separate recording of the song. I later realized it was an edited version from that longer recording. I learned in later years about the speed error that was made in the the long version release. That surely made sense, and it really made a difference on the re-mastered album cut that was done in 2006. If you ever want to drive someone crazy, or maybe just yourself, try playing both the original and remastered versions at the same time on a computer. To make it even more special, start one track about a second after the other one.

I recall having a discussion about Light My Fire, and so much more music, on a drive up to South Lake Tahoe that year. We were in the car of a high school upperclassman, listening to the radio as we crossed the Sacramento/San Joaquin Central Valley, talking about the music of the day. The Light My Fire single had just come out and was in heavy rotation on AM radio. It was also my first opportunity to learn of Radio X. We were driving at night, and Bill managed to find Radio X and it also became my first time hearing Wolfman Jack. There was certainly a lotta rock and soul going on for us that night.

Needless to say, The Doors album was a huge success and an important part of the psychedelic music scene. Over twenty million copies have been sold. In addition to Light My Fire, Crystal Ship (it’s b-side) and Alabama Song got a lot of airplay, at least in the SF Bay Area. I imagine in more areas as well. I never recalled hearing the first single, Break On Through (To the Other Side), on the radio either before or after the release of Light My Fire.

The Doors came about after Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek met up on Venice Beach in 1965. They had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Based on a comment by Morrison, Manzarek encouraged him to sing something he had composed, Moonlight Mile. Ray was already in a band with his brothers called Rick & The Ravens. He invited Morrison to one of their gigs and surprised him by calling him up to sing a cover song they were going to do, Louie Louie. Eventually Ray invited Jim to join the band. Manzarek also knew a drummer, John Densmore, who played in a band called Psychedelic Rangers, and soon he was also in the band. Patty Sullivan (later Hansen), played bass with the band. In September the group recorded a six-song demo, at World Pacific Studios in LA, which included first versions of Moonlight Drive, Hello, I Love You, and Summer's Almost Gone. It didn’t result in a recording contract at that time.

Morrison had suggested the band be renamed the Doors. A line from William Blake’s 18th century book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, was the basis for the band name. The line reads, “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” This in turn was a source for Aldous Huxley’s 1954 book The Doors of Perception, where he elaborated on the effects of being under the influence of mescaline. It wasn’t long after the recording session that the band became The Doors and at that point Ray’s brothers, followed soon by Patty Sullivan, departed. Robby Krieger became the guitarist between those departures. Manzarek then decided to play bass thanks to the recently introduced new keyboard, the Fender Rhodes Piano Bass.

In the early part of 1966 The Doors played a residency at the rundown club, London Fog, on a bill with Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer. Per Manzarek, this is where the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness...that is where the magic began to happen.” Jim Morrison built up his confidence as a front man and songs like The End and Light My Fire developed to the point of their inclusion on the first album. They moved onto a much more esteemed club Whiskey A Go Go. They were the house band supporting acts that played there, such as Them. Elektra Records president Jac Holzman and producer Paul Rothchild attended a show there, at Love lead singer Arthur Lee’s suggestion. Following that a recording contract was signed with The Doors. Three days after the contract was signed the band was fired by Whiskey a Go Go after Morrison got carried away with profanity and explicitness during a performance of The End.

The Doors were in the recording studio at Sunset Sound before the end of August and the tracks were completed in September. Despite the fact that Ray Manzarek had made the decision to play bass rather than have an actual bass guitar player in the band, Larry Knechtel of Wrecking Crew fame added bass overdubs to some of the studio mixes. As the album was released in January ’67 The Doors made a few television appearances in L.A. and New York to promote the first single. After Break on Through, well, did not so much, Light My Fire was prepared and released on April 24. Prior to that, on March 7-11, The Doors appeared at the Matrix in San Francisco. Ten of the shows were recorded by Peter Abram, one of the club’s co-owners, and were among the earliest live recordings of The Doors. Eventually a compilation of the recordings were released by the band in 2008 entitled Live at The Matrix, 1967.

As was the case with several of the bands and performers during this time period, I did not get to see The Doors play live. Many of the bands only lasted a short time, and The Doors existence as the band they were was cut short by Morrison’s sudden death in 1971. I eventually saw Ray Manzarek play, with beat poet Michael McClure, at West Fest Woodstock 40th Anniversary at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on October 25, 2009. I saw Robby Krieger with his band Jam Kitchen twice in San Jose CA. The first time was a year or two later when he played at Plaza de Cesar Chavez. What event and date he played on are vague for me, but it was a great outdoor concert. Some friends of mine, Sweet HayaH, got to open for Robby Krieger’s Jam Kitchen when they played at the now-defunct Rockbar on September 16, 2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doors_discography

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-doors-mn0000114342/biography

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-doors-mw0000650088

https://thedoors.com

https://www.discogs.com/artist/56798-The-Doors

https://zoamorphosis.com/2011/03/how-much-did-jim-morrison-know-about-william-blake/

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/doors-debut-album-10-things-you-didnt-know-w458833?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=010417_12

https://www.facebook.com/events/rockbar-theater/robby-kriegers-jam-kitchen/1692033581024662/

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-doors/twentieth-century-fox

Light My Fire single https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C1EjBsaQSE \

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfHUjByk1U1efrx3lwsHIJANatG0pmG2J

LP22

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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Grateful Dead - Grateful Dead

After morphing from a jug band into a folk-blues-rock band in early 1965, and honing their music during the Merry Prankster Acid Tests, the Grateful Dead got around to making a record. The recording sessions, that took place in all of four days in January 1967, were far more successful than the ones that had happened a few months before. That session involved their first demos after they had signed with MGM Records and it was a fiasco, thus ending that relationship. After signing with Warner Brothers in late 1966, the band made their way to RCA Studio A in Los Angeles, although they would have preferred recording in San Francisco. A proper recording studio hadn’t appeared in the City as yet.

Based on the reputation of band’s live performance, it soon became clear that this first album would be far different than what The Dead was capable of. The only exception to this was the ten-minute potboiler version of an old jug band tune by Noah Lewis, Viola Lee Blues. The band drew mostly on repertoire they were performing, which consisted of cover tunes from a variety of influences, including blues, jugband and folk. The two songs written by the band ended up as the two sides of the only single issued from the album. Side A of the single was The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion) which was credited to all five band members: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Ron McKernan and Bill Kreutzmann. The song started the album off in a joyful, somewhat whacky, yet accurate encapsulation of the Haight-Asbury scene they were in the midst of. The flip side of the single was the Jerry Garcia penned Cream Puff War, which also closed side one out on the album. The song was a commentary on war and greed, as it flashed through to its’ finish.

The band circumvented calling their alleged group authorship of two songs by using the the collective pseudonym McGannahan Skjellyfetti. The sources for this were “a character in Kenneth Patchen’s comic novel The Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer, plus the name of then-frontman Pigpen's cat”, according to David Shank and Steve Silberman in their book, Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads. Because there was difficulty at the time in ascertaining actual authorship or public domain status, they were attributed to the band. In actuality the murder ballad, Cold Rain and Snow, appears to have emanated from oral tradition and have roots going back to at least the nineteenth century. A written version was first published in 1917 by Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp. It was said to be collected from Mrs. Tom Rice in 1916 and had been sung by Berzilla Wallin who had learned it from an “old lady”. Dillard Chandler recorded a graphic murder ballad version of it in 1965 and also attributed it to Wallin whom he said he heard sing it in 1911. He was told by her that when she was a girl a man who was supposed to be hanged was instead sentenced to 99 years for the murder of his wife, and that was what the song was about. All of this emanates from North Carolina. The song was recorded by Bill Monroe and became a part of bluegrass tradition. This may have been the source for Jerry Garcia to have heard the song in the first place, or perhaps Chandler’s recording as well. According to Patrick Blackman in Sing Out!, the version the Grateful Dead used was adopted from an earlier recording by Obray Ramsey, but most performances use the Campbell-Sharp melody as written. Note: Obray Ramsey has been credited for the song in at least one source. He himself was “discovered” in the ‘60s and in 1970 (Iain) Matthew’s Southern Comfort recorded their song called Obray Ramsey on their Second Spring album. The Dead’s version has lyrics in which the husband laments his treatment by his greedy wife, but does not murder her. The song became most closely associated with The Grateful Dead once they performed and recorded it, and they are most responsible for its’ popularization.

New, New Minglewood Blues, which was again indicated as by “McGannahan Skjellyfetti”. In this case it appears the Grateful Dead may have some claim in the composition. Noah Lewis, who wrote Viola Lee Blues, wrote two Minglewood Blues tunes. The first was Minglewood Blues, and then New Minglewood Blues. According to the site Roots of the Grateful Dead, “The first version of the song that the Dead recorded was New New Minglewood Blues. The title suggests that the Dead were aware of both Minglewood Blues and New Minglewood Blues and that New New Minglewood Blues was intended to be the next song in the sequence. New New Minglewood Blues appears to be a collection of lyrics from other traditional blues tunes.” “The Dead stopped playing New New Minglewood Blues in 1971. Then in 1976, after they returned from their self imposed touring break, they began playing All New Minglewood Blues, which they recorded in 1978 for Shakedown Street. Only the first verse remained from New New Minglewood Blues, the rest of the song being completely overhauled.” That article also contains lines and verses from other songs that may fit the part about “a collection of lyrics from other traditional blues tunes.” Sounds like a whole lot of mingling.

The balance of the album include songs written by various composers. Beat It On Down the Line and Good Morning, Little School Girl are both country-blues numbers. Jesse Fuller, a longtime Oakland CA resident originally from Georgia, wrote Beat It on Down the Line in the ‘50s. A British label recorded his album that contained the song in 1959. It was one of the first songs the Grateful Dead performed live, but it had already been performed and recorded by the band’s jug band predecessor, Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Band Champions in 1964. The song is strongly associated with the Dead now.

Good Morning Little, School Girl is the only song on a studio album that features Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. Sonny Boy Williamson wrote and recorded the song in 1937, but the melody is attributed to Son Bonds’ Back and Side Blues, which had been recorded in 1934. It became a country-blues standard that has been performed by many blues and other artists. The Dead’s version was based on an arrangement by Junior Wells and was a staple of their live performance in that time period.

Another country blues standard is Sitting on Top of the World, here performed by the Grateful Dead at the remarkably short time of two minutes and one second. It was written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon, and recorded by their band, The Mississippi Sheiks in 1930. As is common, there are many versions with a variety of lyrics. Most of the melody finds its’ source in Tampa Red’s You Got to Reap What You Sow which had come out the year before. This song should not be confused with I’m Sitting on Top of the World written by Ray Henderson, Sam Lewis and Joe Young which had been written in earlier in the ‘20s.

Canadian folksinger Bonnie Dobson wrote Morning Dew in 1962 and it is a post-apocalyptic song she based on the movie On the Beach. Jerry Garcia was introduced to the Fred Neil version, by Dead roadie Laird Grant, which had been recorded a few years after Dobson’s. The Grateful Dead first performed it at The Human Be-in at Golden Gate Park in January 1967, the same month this album was recorded.

Many of these songs became a part of the Grateful Dead live repertoire throughout its’ existence, and have been performed by its’ follow up bands. They still are regularly covered by the many Dead cover and tribute bands. For example, it has been noted that Beat It on Down the Line had been performed by the Grateful Dead at least 323 times, in every year from 1966 to 1994 except 1976 and 1995. Jerry Garcia was lead vocalist on all tunes except three. Bob Weir was lead on two and both sang on Viola Lee Blues. And of course organist Ron McKernan did Good Morning, Little School Girl.

The album only reached No.73 on Billboard, but stayed on the charts for six months. It was certified as a Gold Record in 1971. Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion) could be categorized as a regional hit as it got heavy airplay on SF Bay Area radio, but not much in other markets. According to an article in Billboard Magazine May 6, 1967 issue: Golden Road was sitting at No.4 on KFRC’s playlist in San Francisco at the end of April.

The cover design is the first record album cover collaboration between the Grateful Dead and Mouse Studios, i.e. Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley. The cover design is credited to Mouse Studios, the cover collage to Kelly (seemingly misspelled - presumedly (Alton) Kelley), and the cover photo to Herb Greene.

Ah, the Grateful Dead. Is there a group of musicians more synonymous with San Francisco and the Bay Area than this band? They were at the epicenter of a new way to experience music, and a whole new way to get "experienced". That epicenter was in the midst of progressing from the “beatnik” counterculture rhetoric of the ‘50s to the anti-establishment drug-induced free love heading through the ‘60s. As music critic and author Joel Selvin explains, it was the drugs that created the San Francisco Bay Area music scene of the ‘60s, particularly LSD. The band that became the Grateful Dead happened to be the right one, in the right place, at the right time. And that spot turned out to be Palo Alto, California.

Jerry Garcia moved to Palo Alto in 1960, but had lived with his family in nearby Menlo Park earlier in the ’50s. By 1957 they had moved back to San Francisco, where he had been born. Garcia’s return to the area was precipitated by his general discharge from the Army. He had enlisted after he had been given a choice by a judge to either enlist, or go to jail. This had followed his theft of his mother’s car for which he was arrested. After basic training at Fort Ord he was stationed at San Francisco Letterman Hospital. Eight AWOLs and two court-martials later, he was given a general discharge with dishonorable mention. He began his musical journey at this point, although it went slowly at first. He had musical parents; his father had once been a professional musician and his mother played the piano. Jerry took piano lessons during much of his childhood. In the meantime he found the banjo and, after learning to play it, he eventually played instruments in which the strings were visible.

The event that changed Garcia forever occurred in February 1961. He was riding home in a car with three other men when the driver, at a speed estimated at 90 mph, hit a guard rail and the car flipped over it and rolled over several times. One man was killed and the other three sustained severe injuries, although Jerry’s broken collarbone was the least threatening. He had flown through the windshield in the accident, right out of his shoes. As Garcia later put it, "That's where my life began. Before then I was always living at less than capacity. I was idling. That was the slingshot for the rest of my life. It was like a second chance. Then I got serious.”

A few months later Garcia was introduced to Robert Hunter. Hunter had lived in Palo Alto at one time and attended Cubberley High School before moving to Connecticut with his family. Before he moved back to Palo Alto he graduated from Stamford High School, attended one year at the University of Connecticut and had a year stint in the Army National Guard in 1959, the same year Garcia had his tenuous episode in the army. They were introduced by his old girlfriend, who had become Jerry’s new girlfriend. Having a mutual interest in music, Garcia and Hunter played together as Jerry and Bob for a time, including places like Kepler Books in Menlo Park, and at the Stanford University’s Tresidder Union. In 1962 Hunter was a paid volunteer in a research project at Stanford University that was covertly sponsored by the CIA. Participants took psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin and mescaline and reported their experiences. Among other participants were Ken Kesey and Allen Ginsberg. In the meantime Garcia started getting interested in bluegrass music and both he and Hunter played in a few bands (Wildwood Boys and Hart Valley Drifters).

In 1962 Garcia met Phil Lesh at a party in the Perry “Lane” neighborhood of Ken Kesey, ending up at Kesey’s house. Lesh later suggested that he tape record Jerry playing some tunes and he produced them on a show he had put together at KPFA radio station in Berkeley. This lead to an eventual relationship between the station and the Grateful Dead that is still in existence with the Dead community to this day. He also first met “Pigpen” McKernan at a party in this time period.

Jerry started teaching guitar and banjo, eventually instructing students at Dana Morgan Music Store in downtown Palo Alto. For a period he played bluegrass with the band Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers. Then came New Year’s Eve 1963. Bob Weir and his friend Bob Matthews were walking around Palo Alto that night in the vicinity of the Dana Morgan Music back entrance. They heard banjo playing and went to check it out. Jerry was there, expecting students to come by, but it was NYE and he wondered why they weren’t showing up. Weir and Matthews hung out and soon Weir and Garcia were trading licks together. By the time they left it was decided they should start a jug band together. Matthews later became a recording producer for the Grateful Dead. Garcia and Weir, along with “Pigpen” McKernan on harmonica and three other friends, formed Mother McCree’s Uptown Jugband Champions. They recorded performances in July ’64 which were later thought to be lost. One of the men who recorded them found the tapes in his mother’s house after she passed away in 1997. There was enough material to record an album.

It was 1964 when Jerry Garcia first took LSD. He never looked back. By 1965 the jugband members were among many who were affected by the huge impact The Beatles had on the music scene. Their interest in music style veered in a whole new direction: rock and roll. Garcia, Weir and McKernan brought a local drummer, Bill Kreutzmann, and Dana Morgan Jr. on board and named themselves The Warlocks. Their first live gig was at Magoo’s Pizza in downtown Menlo Park on May 5, 1965. By the third gig Phil Lesh replaced Morgan Jr. on bass which ended Garcia’s, and by that time Bob Weir’s teaching jobs at the music store. Although he was musical, Lesh had to be instructed about bass playing by some friends. Also by that time, Jerry Garcia had become very fond of electric guitars.

They soon realized they needed to change their name when they found out that a New York City band had put out a record with the same band name. Not long after Jerry Garcia was at Phil Lesh’s house and started looking in a Funk & Wagnalls folklore dictionary. Turning to a page and putting his finger on a phrase, he discovered the term ‘grateful dead’ there. Phil Lesh said it was a Britannia World Language Dictionary, but in either case the definition was, according to Lesh, "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial”. Jerry suggested it as their new name, but at first the band disapproved. Garcia later explained the group's reaction: "I didn't like it really, I just found it to be really powerful. [Bob] Weir didn't like it, [Bill] Kreutzmann didn't like it and nobody really wanted to hear about it. After experimenting with other names for a few months the band still hadn’t taken on the name.

In November they were invited to an unofficial Acid Test, which took place at Ken Babbs cabin in Soquel CA on November 27, 1965. They did not play as a band at this one, and were still known as The Warlocks. On December 4, in San Jose, the Grateful Dead played at the first official Acid Test. This is what Jann Wenner, who was at the event, said Phil Lesh told him they were calling themselves. It is still conjectured as to whether this was the first official Dead performance, or as the Grateful Dead site puts it, on December 10, when they played a benefit for the San Francisco Mime Troupe at Fillmore Auditorium. They were not on the bill for that one, but Bill Graham said that it was what they were calling themselves, although he hated it at the time. Whatever the situation was, they were off and running with The Merry Pranksters and their Acid Tests.

Such is the blurred history of the LSD-soaked beginnings of the Grateful Dead. If everyone was on acid, who of them were “reliable witnesses” to anything? There were eighteen Acid Tests in all including the unofficial one in Soquel and the three-day Trips Festival at Longshoreman’s Hall in San Francisco, January 21-23, 1966. There is nothing that ascertains that they actually performed at all of these, but they certainly did at the first ones, and stayed in Los Angeles while the Tests were going on there. They played their home base, Palo Alto, at the Acid Test that took place on December 18, 1965 at a place called The Big Beat. It was located in far South Palo Alto, on San Antonio Road near Frontage Road on the east side of Bayshore Freeway (CA101). One was also held at The Fillmore on January 8, which was one of only two times in which there was an actual stage to play on (the other at the Trips Festival). It was also the first fan-recorded show of the Dead. Over 2000 shows were recorded in the next 27 years. Along the way the band started picking up friends, Rock Scully. after the Big Beat Acid Test, and of course Owsley Stanley, who ended up supporting them financially thanks to his successful enterprise.

After living near Watts in LA for a time, during the Acid Tests in the Southland, the band established their home in the Haight at 710 Ashbury. That area had become the center of everything counterculture. This lead to the recording of their first album and its’ release in March 1967. A few months later they were part of even more history, playing at Monterey Pop.

I was totally oblivious to any of the doings that lead up to the Grateful Dead in the early to mid-‘60s, understandably in many ways. My family moved from Yakima WA to California in 1963, ending up on Seale Ave. in Palo Alto. I was just finishing sixth grade, and the last thing on my mind at that point was anything to do with local music. I was not into blues, bluegrass, jugband or rock and roll whatsoever, and I stayed away from those individuals who seemed unusual, or, “bad”.

Eventually I caught up with what was going on in the music scene, primarily because of what was going on in America, but which had been instigated by the British Invasion. I caught up on the local scene pretty well, and by the time the first Dead album came out I was familiar with them. From a distance. I just didn’t realize that the distance was a lot closer than I had imagined. Oh, I had become aware that Jerry Garcia had hung around Palo Alto. Once my best friend and I started hanging out he would mention Jerry giving guitar lessons at Dana Morgan Music Store. The problem is, by the time we were driving around and going by the store, it had been over a year since that had ended. 1967 being the year that I bought my first psychedelic rock-infused records, things started accelerating for me very quickly. Everything but the drug-taking part. That never happened for me. If I had been aware of things

and kept track, or at least paid close attention, I probably could have totally re-written much of Grateful Dead history, simply because I was never stoned out of my mind.

Obtaining the Dead album was part of a two record purchase, the other album being The Blues Project’s Projection. I had mail ordered them from an outfit in New York City, and it was the first time I had done that, and bought more than one record at a single time. The advantage I had when I started listening to the Grateful Dead was that I nothing to compare it to as far the band was concerned. One could say I was a Grateful Dead virgin. I liked all the songs that didn’t sound like their usual live performance, and the one song that did sound more live I very much liked as well. I could only make my best guess; I didn’t see them play live until the early ‘70s.

One day, later in 1967 during my junior year in high school, I was taking a class concerning music. I was taking a semester off from being in the school choir and this class kept my interest in music going. One day in class something came up about the Grateful Dead record and I mentioned how much I liked it. I was told in no uncertain terms, by none other than future Bill Graham Presents vice-president, Danny Scher, that it was not a good album because it didn’t sound like the real Dead. I was summarily put in my place, but later I wish I had said, Well, I like it anyway…so there. It was a learning lesson though. It was an early insight into how people listen to music, in every way possible. I eventually decided that it is possible, and most assuredly okay, to like someone for both what they perform live, and what they record, knowing full well that it can be quite different.

As time went on in high school, and afterwards, I learned much more about the Dead haze that had been floating all around me in Palo Alto. In my sophomore year, my good high school friend and I were taking a German language class together. We sat three to a table in the classroom and our third partner, Peggy, became a very good friend with us as well. At times we were the proverbial Three Musketeers, one might say. I am now quite confused by what happened back then, because in my research, it doesn’t appear that it could have happened the way it seemed. One day in class, Peggy confided in us that she was going to participate in an LSD research thing, and I am pretty sure she said in La Honda. I knew very little about LSD, but I knew of it. Dave and I were both amazed, and concerned. There had been talk about bad trips. We both knew that Peggy was an adventurous type, so we were interested to get a report once she had done it. I am not sure if it was the next day, or after a weekend, but Peggy assured us that it had been a good trip. She told us about being in a small room with padded walls. The little buttons in the pads began to look like flowers and la-di-da-di-da. I now realize that it in no way resembled the Acid Tests of the Merry Pranksters, and it had to have occurred nearly two years after all those tests had ended, and certainly after the drug was declared illegal.

As graduation approached in my senior year, rumor spread that the Grateful Dead might possibly play at our graduation party. Eventually we heard that they could not, or perhaps it never was really going to happen. In either case the word was also spread that Jerry Garcia had graduated from my high school, Paly (Palo Alto HS). That stuck with me for a very long time, but eventually I found out that it was not even close. Of course, I had also heard that Carlos Santana had at least attended Paly, but that too was laid to rest eventually. The one true fact is that he, and the rest of the Santana Band, were the ones who played two sets at our grad party. The other band was Gropus Cackus, and eventually I got to be friends with one or two of them. Two months later the Santana Band made history at Woodstock. The Dead were at that one too. I wasn’t, just like I didn’t make it to Monterey Pop, but my current girlfriend and her best friend did make it to Woodstock, east-coasters that they were back in the day.

I did confirm, not a whole long time after graduation, that Ron “Pigpen” McKernan did attend Paly. He didn’t really last a whole long time there, he didn’t really seem to be cut out for that form of education. Somehow though, I completely missed the fact that one other member of the Dead attended Paly, and he actually graduated, five years before me as it turns out. None other than Bill, “the Drummer”, Kreutzmann. He was involved with some bands while in high school that I actually recall, although I’m not sure I ever saw them perform.

As I took a recent virtual journey into the band members existence in Palo Alto I discovered how close locations were to my life. In addition to Dana Morgan Music, which I never went into, but was certainly aware of, there were places in downtown Palo Alto that I had been very often close to many times. A few houses, on Hamilton Ave., were located within a block where my mother eventually worked, at Wells Fargo Bank at the intersection of Waverley. The long torn down house at 436 Hamilton was just down the street and there is another house in its’ place now. A house on Gilman, which is now where a parking lot is located, was nearby the bank and close to the post office as well. My eventual father-in-law worked at that Palo Alto Main PO. A house on Waverley Street, described as massive and painted purple, with two turrets on it, seems familiar. St. Michael’s Alley also seems familiar: Stanford Music Hall (which I definitely was in after it reverted back to a movie theater); The Top of the Tangent (which I never went in, but had eaten at the The Tangent pizza restaurant below it.

The Poppycock, where New Riders of the Purple Sage played once, (and I had gone twice, without parental knowledge) was a fish & chip place on University in Palo Alto. My best friend John and I once saw The Youngbloods there, and another time listened to a very avant-garde jazz saxophonist, whose name I don’t recall hearing. He later reminded me of Charles Lloyd. Of course the 21 and over Poppycock wasn’t being too efficient about checking IDs. John and I managed to just walk in quite easily on those occasions.

El Camino Park, was across from Stanford and its’ Stanford Shopping Center, and located near the Menlo Park city line. It was the site of a Grateful Dead be-in, and a few others featuring other artists took place there as well. I managed to see the Steve Miller Band play at one those latter be-ins, from the window of a multi-story townhouse building nearby where a friend of mine lived.

In Menlo Park I have been to Kepler Books, but long after Jerry and others had played there, and I seem to recall Magoo’s Pizza, but never went in there. Then there is Stanford University, where occasional music concerts and musicians playing at places like Tresidder Union could be found. I never seemed to be around for those, but I did hang around Frost Amphitheater one time to hear The Chambers Brothers play Time Will Come Today, and catch a tune by Quicksilver. It was weird because the concert space was fenced off, but you could walk on the pathway around it. They didn’t really move us along.

One of my favorite memories of my youthful adventures involved a nice mild night when I was driving around with three buddies listening to tunes on my car radio. We decided to stop and call in a song request to KLIV 1590 San Jose. At a pay phone. You remember those things? We collectively thought of the Dead, and I suggested Viola Lee Blues. Everybody laughed and thought wouldn’t that be funny if they played a ten minute song on AM radio. I got to make the call, but for some reason we didn’t hear it played on the radio that night. No matter, I could always listen to it at home. I have never considered myself a Deadhead, as the fervent fans of the Grateful Dead are known, but I have steadily enjoyed their music right from the get go.

It wasn’t too long after that experience that the mindset about the length of songs changed, if but for awhile. I’ll never forget one morning when this amazing song started playing on one of the local stations. I had dropped my dad off at his job and was heading home and I really hoped they would announce who was doing it when it ended. I also decided to try driving over to my friends in Barron Park, where I knew my best friend was hanging out, and see if I could get there before the song ended. I thought it would be impossible, but it kept going, and going, and going, and the next thing I knew I was pulling into their driveway. Luckily they were outside and I waved them over. It played for another two minutes or so. It was the day that all of us first heard The Chambers Brothers’ Time Has Come Today. Luckily it was announced and we all cheered. Eleven minutes had felt like twenty.

When I created the original version of this blog I wrote a portion of it at Slim's SF while waiting for the show that night. After Scary Little Friends played the opening set it was time for Midnight North. They played a few tunes and then were joined by special guest Phil Lesh on bass, the father of the band's Grahame Lesh. To my joy they jumped into Viola Lee Blues. It was much better than it would have been to have heard the album cut on KLIV back in the day. Okay, sometimes the hidden Deadhead comes out in me. (At Slim’s - November 4, 2016).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grateful_Dead_(album)

https://www.dead.net

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/grateful-dead-mn0000988440/biography

https://www.allmusic.com/album/grateful-dead-mw0001998802

https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rs/albums1967-07.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Garcia

http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2014/09/palo-alto-menlo-park-and-stanford.html http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/07/warlocks-resumes-1965-pre-grateful-dead.html

http://www.paloaltohistory.org/the-grateful-dead.php

http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/01/dana-morgans-music-store-emerson-street.html

https://medium.com/collectors-weekly/did-the-cia-s-experiments-with-psychedelic-drugs-unwittingly-create-the-grateful-dead-c7cd92954baa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_McCree%27s_Uptown_Jug_Champions_(album)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Tests

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Grateful-Dead-lyricist-Robert-Hunter-graduated-14476780.php

https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/60s/1967/Billboard%201967-05-06.pdf

https://books.google.com/books?id=CzWE_J3ZZfoC&pg=PA335&lpg=PA335&dq=did+the+Golden+road+(to+unlimited+devotion)+get+on+the+billboard+charts&source=bl&ots=P7hG84u84P&sig=ACfU3U13Tmq5SiFFWH-p3P2SOyDfchD1BQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiy4N-RgbXpAhVDba0KHXiND54Q6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=did%20the%20Golden%20road%20(to%20unlimited%20devotion)%20get%20on%20the%20billboard%20charts&f=false

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_and_Snow

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/obray-ramsey-mn0000463093

http://www.taco.com/roots/minglewood.html

https://www.whitegum.com/introjs.htm?/songfile/BEATIT.HTM

Sitting on Top of the World https://secondhandsongs.com/work/4219/versions

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2A0F5F9D67FF3424

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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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The Blues Project - Projections

The band name implies the blues, and that form of music was certainly part of The Blues Project’s repertoire, but their eclecticism was apparent in everything they did. Projections was their second album, and the first one created in a recording studio. By this time they had received some national attention from their first album, a live one that lead to some touring around the U.S. Their first time in a studio lasted all of three days. While the tracks they produced included songs that they had been playing, new songs were written by band members that ended up on the album. None of these songs were blues numbers, but rather drew from folk, jazz, rock, R&B and pop elements; even a touch of classical. Steve Katz, who played guitar, harmonica and sang, wrote his first ever composition for Projections. Intended to be called September Fifth, it ended up on the album as Steve’s Song due to some confusion between the label and the band’s manager, Jeff Chase. It is a folk-pop composition which has an extended minute and half intro featuring Andy Kulberg’s flute playing plus Roy Blumenfeld’s underpinning on drums, which also comes off with a classical feel to it as well. Al Kooper wrote the other two original numbers. The album’s closing track, Fly Away, was apparently about Kooper’s failed marriage, but ends the record in somewhat of a light and flowing manner. It was his jazzy composition, Flute Thing, that got a lot of attention. This again featured Andy Kulberg on flute, with good counterpoint from Kooper’s organ playing, and the suitable percussion work of Roy Blumenfeld. The uniqueness of this piece made it an “underground” favorite among the growing number of “experienced” music listeners. In a 2015 interview with Frank Mastropolo for Ultimate Classic Rock, Roy Blumenfeld said “The lead-up to the song Flute Thing, that became the Muzak to a lot of folks' acid trips out there on the West Coast. It was, so to speak, their metaphoric elevator.” Both sides of Projections open energetically with blues/gospel songs arranged and sung by Al Kooper. Blind Willie Johnson’s (Lord) I Can’t Keep From Crying starts the album off, first implying it is the blues, but moving at a frenetic pace, it quickly goes psychedelic; the band propelling it to a high crescendo as lead guitarist Danny Kalb brings it to a close. Wake Me, Shake Me comes from a traditional gospel song, but it too builds into high energy. It was a song the band liked to improvise on and was often the closer for their performances. The band’s energy level alternatively rose and fell with the four numbers on side one. After Steve’s Song came the Chuck Berry rocker, You Can’t Catch Me. One of the band’s first big gigs was opening for and then backing up Berry. Kooper said, “That one had a really cool kind of groove to it that we got into. Danny (Kalb) did a real sterling job of knockin' that one out of the park when he would do it.”. Finishing side one, it was all Kalb in this slow-paced tribute to Muddy Waters, playing his Slow Train Running. Al Kooper said of it, “We started playing it and as we became a better band it became a better arrangement. And there were amazing things in it. It was a really great arrangement. It's nothing like the Muddy Waters version.” Even though the recording was nearly eleven and a half minutes long, it stayed powerful and moving right to the end. Kooper goes on to say, “What's really funny is on the version that's on the album, Danny's string went out of tune and as part of the arrangement he tuned it back up. It was fabulous, we didn't have to stop. Normally you would stop. But he made it part of the arrangement. That was a great moment.” Danny Kalb added, “We were up there in the studio and there's magic in the air. We were right before the end and I hit one bad note, but I quickly made the bad note into a good note in a quarter of a second. And the thing comes together and ends right and we've got a masterpiece.” No credit to the engineers, who were setting up for the next artist, Eric Burdon, to come into the studio, according to Steve Katz. The Blues Project had an opportunity to be on a bill with Muddy Waters and they played Two Trains Running. Reflecting on this, Danny Kalb said that when he later saw Waters leaving the club, “So right before Muddy opened the door to go, I went up to Muddy Waters and I said to him, "Mr. Waters - well, what did you think?" And I knew at that point that he knew what I was asking him. And he said to me, "You really got to me." If I had died then, it would have been enough.” Another slow blues number on the album was Caress Me Baby by Jimmy Reed, which The Blues Project also put there own spin on, with Danny doing lead vocal and guitar once again. Another folk-pop song rounded out the album, Cheryl’s Going Home by Bob Lind. Lind had released the hit song, Elusive Butterfly, and that song was the B-side of the single. Kalb says of it, “That was a song by another composer, Bob Lind, I just listened to recently. The Blues Project version is excellent, Bob Lind's version is excellent, it's the best of both worlds.” In the 2015 interview with Mastropolo, Kalb, Katz and Kooper all had derogatory comments about their experience with the record label. Kalb: “Unfortunately, the record company just wanted to make a few bucks. They were not interested in the artists, and on the back of Projections, one of the great albums of the '60s, I don't think our names are on it. That's criminal.”, and “I think that the way the Blues Project has been either forgotten or dissed is disgraceful. We were one of the most exciting bands in the period. We took big chances, spiritually and musically”. Katz: “I have to say that our record company was really awful. There were things like that that were missed. From changing the name of my song, from not giving us enough studio time, not putting our names on it. There were just a lot of mistakes. There always were with Verve Folkways.” Kooper: “We never saw the cover until it was in the store, and all stuff like that. We had zero control. We never heard the mixes 'till it was in the store.” Despite that the album did moderately well on the Billboard Top 200, hitting No.52. With a producer like Tom Wilson, who had already worked with Boy Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, The Velvet Underground and The Mothers of Invention, it was too bad that he and The Blues Project weren’t given a reasonable opportunity in the studio, and to have their say about the finished product before it was released. With all that, they still managed to create a tour de force.

I suppose in buying this album I basically thought I was getting a “blues” record. I had heard some of the music from The Blues Project’s Live at Cafe Au Go Go when I was at the home of a friend of mine, Kenny Wardell, and so was familiar with their name. Kenny, who was older than me went on to become a radio personality at stations in Sacramento and the Bay Area, including KFOG back in the ‘90s. That record was mostly blues, but there were a few folk-pop songs on it as well. When I finally got around to it, I mail ordered Projections, and along with the first Grateful Dead album, made this the first time had personally purchased multiple albums and used mail order to buy them. My mom had been doing so for quite some time through Columbia and RCA record clubs. All I remember is that it was some company in New York City. By the time I purchased Projections, Verve Folkways had changed to Verve Forecast, but my album was apparently in the midst of that change. The back cover said Verve Forecast and a slightly off-kilter Verve Forecast sticker had been applied to the front cover, but the end panel still had Verve Folkways on it. The record itself says Verve Forecast. Considering some of the concerns the band had about their treatment by the label, this was of little consequence. I had heard rumblings about the song Flute Thing before I got the album. I may have even heard it, but once I got the album I began to really appreciate it, even if I wasn’t using LSD. It was the first piece of music I ever recalled hearing that featured flute, except perhaps its’ role in Tchaikovsky’s Peter and the Wolf suite. The rest of the record grew on me very quickly. I've learned a lot about the blues since I got this record, and I still appreciate the way these Greenwich Village Jewish white guys played it. Of course it wasn't all blues, what with the jazzy Flute Thing, and songs that were pop and folk based, R&B and rock and roll, plus some gospel to spice things up. I hadn’t thought of it as having anything psychedelic to it, but it turns out indeed it did. Both I Can’t Keep From Crying and Flute Thing fit that bill. Projections was my introduction to “long songs”, something that attracted me to future albums at times. At a total length of over fifty minutes, it was likely the longest album I had heard of up to that time. I had a few records that topped out at nearly half that long. The two songs on the album that were long, Caress Me Baby at 7:12 and Two Trains Running at 11:20, were both slow-burn favorites of mine. I have a special memory regarding Caress Me Baby. As time went by as a young man I always thought it would be a cool slow dance song. In 1968 my best friend and I decided to DJ a New Year’s Eve dance for an organization we belonged to. Another friend’s dad loaned us his great home sound system and we alternated as DJ throughout the evening. Not long before that event I met a an attractive young lady and invited her to be my date. She hung out with me while I spun discs and we partied and danced while John did the honors. By request he finally gave me the opportunity to dance with my pretty date to Caress Me Baby. Soon the young lady was my girlfriend, and four years later to the day, she became my wife. Thank you Blues Project, and thank you John. Can’t Catch Me was the first Chuck Berry composed song I ever had, and it too is a favorite of mine. Overall, the eclectic variety of the music, weaving in and out of fast and slow, jarring and relaxing, bluesy and folksy, worked well for me. It is still one of my favorite all time albums. It was ironic to see band members complain that their names weren’t on the album. Somehow I managed, back in the day, to figure out who they were. Perhaps I read something in the SF Chronicle. By that time changes started occurring, such as Al Kooper leaving, forming Blood Sweat and Tears along with Steve Katz, and eventually recording Super Session with Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills. Turns out not long after I got the album Kooper left the band, but I didn’t learn that until later. Eventually he went on to produce Lynyrd Skynryd’s first three albums. I didn’t hear of the band Seatrain until quite some time later, but as it turns out the roots of that band tied in directly with the demise of The Blues Project. Andy Kulberg and Roy Blumenfeld had formed Seatrain with four other musicians in 1968, after one more Blue Project album had been issued. When they released their first album on the same label, Verve Forecast, the label insisted it be under the name Blues Project. Essentially this was the first Seatrain album, but the next year they officially released their “first” Seatrain album, Sea Train on A&M Records. The band was formed in Marin County, CA. Ironically Roy Blumenfeld, a New Yorker, eventually ended up living in Marin County. I became aware of this when I went to Don Quixote’s International Music Hall in Felton, CA in 2011 to see the Joe Cohen band with Greg Douglass, Bruce Barthol and Roy on drums. I had never ever thought I’d meet up with a member of The Blues Project, but I’ve seen Roy several times since as well.

The formation of the band came about after a compilation album called The Blues Project was released by Electra Records in 1964. Danny Kalb was paid $75 for recording two songs on that album. With the British Invasion, things began to change musically. Kalb changed from acoustic to electric guitar and in early 1965 formed the Danny Kalb Quartet, which included rhythm guitarist Artie Traum, bassist Andy Kulberg and drummer Roy Blumanthal. Steve Katz replaced Traum soon after, when Artie went to Europe for the summer. After adding singer Tommy Flanders the group became The Blues Project. They auditioned for Columbia Records who summarily declined to sign the band. Al Kooper had been hired by Columbia’s Tom Wilson to play keyboards as a session musician at the time of the audition. Kulberg and Blumenthal had worked with Kooper during the recording of another compilation album put together by Electra and was invited to join The Blues Project. Meanwhile producer Tom Wilson left Columbia and went to Verve/Folkways, then signing The Blues Project to that label. This soon lead to the first album project for the band. In November ’65 and January ’66 the live recording was done. By the time of its’ release Tommy Flanders had left the band, thus he was only in a few of the tracks. That release occurred quickly after the last recording was done, the album coming out that very January. It had some reasonable success and the band ended up touring to support it. That April they received rave reviews after their appearance at The Fillmore in San Francisco. The recording of the next album, Projections, took place in the fall and was released in November. By spring of ’67 Kooper left and the band completed their next album, Live at Town Hall without him. That album was not all it seemed to be. There was only one actual Town Hall live cut, while other cuts were from other venue live performances, plus recording outtakes using canned applause. The album did contain the band’s only charting single, Al Kooper’s No Time Like the Right Time. It has been called one of the "great hit singles that never were”. Kooper left after a disagreement with Danny Kalb about Al wanting to add a horn section. Kalb then disappeared for a few months after a bad acid trio, but he resurfaced in time to play with the band at Monterey Pop. It was said that he was in a deeply depressed state just prior to that event. Not long after that Katz left the band followed by Kalb. This lead to the Planned Obsolescence album that was in reality the new band Seatrain. With a modified lineup (including Kalb and Blumenfeld, plus Flanders on the 1972 album) three Blues Project albums were released in 1971-73, the final one being called The Original Blues Project Reunion In Central Park, which included Kooper, but not Tommy Flanders.

Jeff Tamarkin sums it up well in his 2018 review of The Blues Project in Best Classic Bands, “Sadly, the band is not well known today among younger rock fans, but many who were around at the time still cherish their small but potent output, particularly the one studio set that encapsulated everything that made the Blues Project a great ’60s band.” I firmly believe they were a great band for any time period, and that there is still time for younger generations to know and appreciate their music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blues_Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_(The_Blues_Project_album)

https://bestclassicbands.com/blues-project-projections-6-20-18/

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-blues-project-mn0000041899/biography

https://www.allmusic.com/album/projections-mw0000202605

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/blues-project-projections/

http://www.theblues-thatjazz.com/en/blues/796-bluesproject/24626-the-blues-project-projections-1966.html

https://www.discogs.com/artist/252489-The-Blues-Project

Flute Song Live at Monterey Pop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oIE95Ro9Ms

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCCF5F612C7F6E73F

LP20

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