Pink Floyd - Matilda Mother

 #Pink Floyd #Syd Barrett #Roger Waters #psychedelic rock #British psychedelia #progressive rock #art rock #space rock #experimental rock #blues rock #1960s

The original members of Pink Floyd met in an architectural college. The band started as a blues band. Later, under Syd Barrett's leadership, they played music that was psychedelic in style. After Barrett left the band, they started to play longer and more complicated songs, and to play at a lot of colleges and universities. Soon, they were famous as studio musicians who loved to experiment with music. On the album Atom Heart Mother, from 1970, they used a brass band and a choir. They used a lot of things to make their concerts interesting to watch. They had a round movie screen on the stage. They would show videos on the screen when they played. They also used lighting and lasers in a much fancier way than many bands do. They also had big balloon puppets. The most famous is in the shape of a pig, which first appeared on the cover for their album, Animals. The pig has since become a symbol of Pink Floyd. Another symbol that reminds people of Pink Floyd is a prism with light shining through it. This was on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon, one of their most popular albums.  From: https://kids.kiddle.co/Pink_Floyd

By the spring of 1967, Pink Floyd was at the forefront of the psychedelic rock movement that was pushing its way into mainstream popular culture. Fronted by lead guitarist and songwriter Syd Barrett, and including bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason and organist Richard Wright, the band cracked the Top 20 in the United Kingdom with their catchy debut single, "Arnold Layne." In May 1967, they made an indelible impression with the Games for May concert at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, featuring a quadraphonic sound system, dazzling light show and bubble-generating machine. The band was fueled by the creativity of its frontman, known for his cryptic lyrics that mixed mysticism and wordplay, and an experimental guitar style that made use of echo machines and other distortions. Sadly, the same forces that drove Barrett to artistic breakthroughs also led him down the path of self-destruction, leaving him exiled from the group shortly after they arrived on the charts and rendering him a cautionary tale as Pink Floyd became one of the biggest bands in the world.  From: https://www.biography.com/news/syd-barrett-pink-floyd

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Manic Depression

 #The Jimi Hendrix Experience #hard rock #psychedelic rock #blues rock #R&B #heavy metal #British psychedelia #acid rock #1960s Mitch Mitchell #Noel Redding

There has been a lot of speculation that Hendrix had bipolar disorder based on some erratic behavior and mood swings he had. A big part of this, I think, is because he wrote a song called “manic depression” (an older term for bipolar disorder) with some assuming it was based on personal experience. My answer to this is that so far as I know Hendrix was never diagnosed with that disorder during his lifetime. I’ve never heard of him having either characteristic manic or depressive episodes, either. There are potentially other explanations for his behavior (including more mundane substance abuse). The description of “Manic depression” in his song of the same name doesn’t really correlate well with current understanding of that disorder. So my answer is that absent a contemporary psychiatric evaluation, I don’t think anyone can say for sure that he did or didn’t have bipolar disorder, but I think evidence for it is pretty thin.

I believe he did in fact suffer from Bipolar Disorder Through his lyrics, his drug/alcohol addiction, his mannerisms, the depression that he suffered from and from his clothing. Mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder gives away physical symptoms, such as the sufferers wearing bright colors and strange patterns. On top of that, there’s a significant loss in his weight from the time he entered the military and the time that he was discovered. This disorder makes them unable to even get out of bed to eat. Then again, this could have been caused by the lack of money he had at the time, when he was traveling in the chitlin circuit. But, his weight got even lower and according to his close friends, not the hanger-ons, they stated that he hardly ate. Another concern would be his sleeping pattern. He often said that he had trouble sleeping and that he either slept too little or slept too much. Sometimes he would go days without sleeping. There was even an incident where he was scheduled to appear on the Dick Cavett show the day after Woodstock, I believe. But, he ended up missing. It probably had something to do with exhaustion because he had to be carried back to his dressing room. Dick asked about Jimi about twice during the interview, it was poignant and kind of creepy.

From: https://www.quora.com/Did-Jimi-Hendrix-have-bipolar-disorder

The Jimi Hendrix Experience was an English-American rock band that came together in London, in 1966. Composed of singer, songwriter, and guitarist Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding, and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the band was active until 1969. During this time they released three successful studio albums. After Redding left the band in mid-1969, Hendrix and Mitchell continued to work together on other projects. The Experience reunited in 1970, with Billy Cox on bass, until Hendrix's death in September. Widely recognized as hugely influential in the development of the hard rock and heavy metal music genres during the late-1960s and beyond, The Jimi Hendrix Experience was best known for the skill, style and charisma of their frontman, Hendrix, who has since been called one of the greatest guitarists of all time by various music publications and writers. In his brief four-year reign as a superstar, Jimi Hendrix expanded the vocabulary of the electric rock guitar more than anyone before or since. Hendrix was a master at coaxing all manner of unforeseen sonics from his instrument, often with innovative amplification experiments that produced astral-quality feedback and roaring distortion. His frequent hurricane blasts of noise and dazzling showmanship - he could and would play behind his back and with his teeth and set his guitar on fire - has sometimes obscured his considerable gifts as a songwriter, singer, and master of a gamut of blues, R&B, and rock styles.  From: https://rock.fandom.com/wiki/The_Jimi_Hendrix_Experience and https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-jimi-hendrix-experience-mn0000088906/biography

Poco - C'mon

 #Poco #Richie Furay #Timothy Schmidt #Jim Messina #Randy Meisner #country rock #folk rock #ex-Buffalo Springfield #pre-Eagles #1960s #1970s #Beat-Club

The great Southern Californian country-rock group Poco can take a large amount of credit for forging a path through the roots and heartland of their chosen sound. Richie Furay and Jim Messina already had the reputation and the chops since they’d been fundamental to the success of Buffalo Springfield. The multi-instrumentalist Rusty Young added a flavour of pedal steel and six-string virtuosity while George Grantham’s drums and Randy Meisner’s lucid bass and distinctive harmony vocals completed a panoramic view of contemporary Troubadour era rock culture with an eye on the mythic Western past.  From: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/artist/poco/

Poco’s first two studio albums and Deliverin’, the live set from 1971, represent some of the best country-rock laid down to wax.  The tracks were taken from two recorded live shows: Boston’s Music Hall and New York City’s Felt Forum.  If you’re into this kind of music, Deliverin’ represents a kind of peak or pinnacle for the genre.  If only for the powerful playing, tight performances and Rusty Young’s brilliant, often underrated steel guitar work.  It’s easily one of the best live discs of its time; a better played and more enjoyable listening experience than say the Rolling Stones’ Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out.  Furay and Messina are in great spirits too, often lifting the mood and interplay between the musicians.  That’s what makes Deliverin’ so essential; the positive attitudes and vibrant mood of the musicians.  This music soothes the soul and lifts spirits; it’s good listening when you’re having a bad day or going through the motions.  But there’s also depth here too, these tunes will stick in your head for days.
Deliverin’ is high energy, hard hitting country music that mixes new group originals with tracks from Poco’s first two albums and a few Richie Furay penned Buffalo Springfield era gems.  “Kind Woman”, a great, great song, is given a 5 minute rendition while “A Child’s Claim To Fame” is the center of a brilliant medley which also includes “Pickin’ Up The Pieces” and the awesome “Hard Luck.”  They rock the hell out of album opener “I Guess You Made It” and nearly burst into flames on an acoustic version of “You’d Better Think Twice,” which was one of their all-time classics (a small radio hit too).  Deliverin’ ends with another great medley that is mostly comprised of songs from Poco’s superb debut. Not a wasted moment here.  This is Jim Messina’s swan song with the group as he would leave shortly after, forming the Loggins & Messina duo with Kenny Loggins of course.  Deliverin’ shows us why Poco was one of the great American bands.  From: https://therisingstorm.net/poco-deliverin/

The Byrds - It Won't Be Wrong

 #The Byrds #Roger McGuinn #David Crosby #Gene Clark #Chris Hillman #folk rock #psychedelic rock #country rock #jangle pop #classic rock #1960s

Although they only attained the huge success of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Beach Boys for a short time in the mid-1960s, time has judged the Byrds to be nearly as influential as those groups in the long run. They were not solely responsible for devising folk-rock, but they were certainly more responsible than any other single act (Dylan included) for melding the innovations and energy of the British Invasion with the best lyrical and musical elements of contemporary folk music. The jangling, 12-string guitar sound of leader Roger McGuinn's Rickenbacker was permanently absorbed into the vocabulary of rock. They also played a vital role in pioneering psychedelic rock and country-rock, the unifying element being their angelic harmonies and restless eclecticism.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-byrds-mn0000631774/biography

"It Won't Be Wrong" was composed in 1964 by the Byrds lead guitarist Jim McGuinn and his friend Harvey Gerst, who was an acquaintance from McGuinn's days as a folk singer at The Troubadour folk club in West Hollywood, California. The song originally appeared with the alternate title of "Don't Be Long" on the B-side of a single that the Byrds had released on Elektra Records in October 1964, under the pseudonym the Beefeaters. By the time the song was re-recorded in September 1965, during the recording sessions for the Byrds' second Columbia Records' album, its title had been changed to "It Won't Be Wrong". Both the band and their producer Terry Melcher felt that the 1965 version included on the Turn! Turn! Turn! album was far more accomplished and exciting than the earlier Elektra recording of the song.
Lyrically, the song is a relatively simplistic appeal for a lover to submit to the singer's romantic advances. Musically, however, the guitar riff following each verse foreshadows the raga experimentation of the band's later songs "Eight Miles High" and "Why", both of which would be recorded within three months of "It Won't Be Wrong". The Byrds' biographer, Johnny Rogan, has described the difference between the earlier Beefeaters' recording of the song and The Byrds' Columbia version as remarkable. Rogan went on to state that the "lackluster Beefeaters' version was replaced by the driving beat of a Byrds rock classic, complete with strident guitars and improved harmonies, that transformed the sentiments of the song from an ineffectual statement to a passionate plea."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Won%27t_Be_Wrong
 

The Move - Brontosaurus

 #The Move #Roy Wood #Jeff Lynne #psychedelic rock #blues rock #hard rock #British psychedelia #pop rock #art rock #proto-prog #1960s

The Move’s "Brontosaurus" is some Heaaavy blues sludge with ridiculously on point lyrics in regards to what rock once was (a dance music) to what was coming (slow, loud and drugged up music). The riff is a fucking monster; you can practically smoke the fucking thing. Halfway through, the song double times into a rock & roll rave up (Roy Wood really liked to juxtapose 50's rock with acid sludge - see also Wizzard) with a slop fuzz slide solo that melts your speakers. Both proto-metal AND proto-glam rock.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/the-move/brontosaurus-lightning-never-strikes-twice/

An exceptionally dynamic and controversial stage act, The Move’s live performances have been remembered for stunning musicianship and frenzied demolitions of televisions, instruments and stages with an axe, chopping a Cadillac to pieces at London’s Roundhouse and inciting a riot which alarmed headline act The Who (the stage had to be rebuilt…). Even the famous Marquee Club was not safe. During a performance of ‘Fire Brigade’, the stage was set alight, resulting in the Soho district being jammed with fire engines. So shocking and fiery were The Move live, that for a while, the group were banned from every theatre in the UK and Europe, a decade before the Sex Pistols’ similar punk rock antics. They even threatened Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s government with the furore surrounding the promotional campaign for ‘Flowers In The Rain’. The single reached no. 2 in the UK charts but Wilson sued manager Tony Secunda and The Move in the High Court and all royalties were paid to charities of Wilson’s choice, a ruling still in place today. As songwriter Roy Wood says, it’s less for murder.  From: http://bettyloumusic.com/themovebiography.htm

Spirit - When I Touch You

 #Spirit #Randy California #Jay Ferguson #psychedelic rock #hard rock #progressive rock #experimental rock #jazz rock #blues rock #eclectic #West coast psychedelia #1960s

This would be the last Spirit album to feature the original lineup, and what a finale it turned out to be! ‘The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus’ is generally considered to be one of the top American psychedelic albums ever made. There has been no shortage of musicians and bands who have pointed to this album as inspiration for their own work, particularly in the early and mid-seventies. Spirit’s unique and seamless blend of rock and jazz-fusion were stretched to the limit on this loosely thematic work that explored the timeless topics of the meaning of life, the intrusive nature of modernization, and the deeper meanings of numerous classic and popular literary works.
While the dominant sound throughout the album is once again Randy California’s ever-expanding guitar experimentation, the band also essentially introduced the moog synthesizer as an integral part of psychedelic music with this release. Few bands (if any) had used the instrument to such a mature and varied extent prior to this album, and keyboardist John Locke does a masterful job of combining psychedelic meandering with jazz improvisational sounds to great effect, particularly on the funky “Mr. Skin”, the introspective “Life Has Just Begun”, and the melancholic anthem “Soldier”.
Most of the arrangements on this album are tighter than on the band’s first four albums, presumably with the overall goal of more commercial success coming off their first really big break with 1969’s ‘Clear’. There are a couple exceptions, most notably the choppy “Love Has Found a Way” with it’s seemingly pointless tempo changes and slightly gauche vocal harmonies; and the aggressively bluesy but slightly misleading opening track “Nothin’ to Hide”. But for the most part this is a very cohesive collection of short songs that seems to fit together quite well, and serve to highlight the importance of each member’s contributions to the band’s overall sound. It was during the recording of this album that California had the famous accident and head injury that some say affected him for the rest of his life, but to be honest there isn’t any apparent evidence of the fracturing personal relationships and California’s mental problems that were revealed publicly in the years following its release.
It’s a little surprising this wasn’t a major hit when it released in late 1970, but part of the problem can probably be attributed to the collapse of the supporting tour, the band’s fracturing as a result, and in more general terms the public’s fading interest in the flower-power generation rockers of the late sixties. Spirit would never again achieve either the artistic or commercial success of their early years after this album was released, and California would soon embark on a largely anonymous solo career for many years before finally returning to a Spirit lineup that was well-received by long-time fans, but was largely ignored by the critics and the music industry in general. Like I said at the outset, this is an outstanding forty minutes of psychedelic, guitar- intensive and socially-inflected music that is highly regarded by musicians of all stripes even today.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=13052 

T. Rex - Beltane Walk

 #T. Rex #Marc Bolan #glam rock #hard rock #pop rock #folk rock #British folk rock #psychedelic folk #acid folk #garage rock #1960s #1970s

T. Rex (originally Tyrannosaurus Rex) were an English rock band, formed in 1967 by singer-songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan, who was their leader, frontman and only consistent member. Though initially associated with the psychedelic folk genre, Bolan began to change the band's style towards electric rock in 1969, and shortened their name to T. Rex the following year. This development culminated in 1970 with their first hit single "Ride a White Swan", and the group soon became pioneers of the glam rock movement.  From:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Rex_(band)

 Marc Bolan did not invent glitter rock, but he most certainly perfected it. With nothing more than a mass of corkscrew hair, a battered acoustic guitar and a barefoot hippy bongo player, the elfin young Bolan transformed from a late-60s coffee house warbler into an electrified sci-fi superhero in silver space boots, glittered cheekbones and bright pink feather boas. His music was pop-metal perfection; brilliant little bursts of rock flash and psychedelic poetry, the ultimate ear candy for the sex-saturated 1970s. And everybody loved him. Bolan fever swept the UK, nearly topping Beatlemania in its froth, and T. Rex enjoyed a few years of stunning success. After a murky year or two in the mid-70s when Marc experimented with short hair, vodka and disco, he returned to the spotlight with a smashing comeback album and a punk-friendly television show in 1977, but his resurgence was short-lived. On September 16, 1977, he died in a car crash in London, two weeks before his 30th birthday.

T. REX (1970)

This self-titled album came hot on the heels of their breakthrough hit Ride A White Swan. Still a guitar/bongo duo at the time, they had just shortened their name from the impossible-to-spell Tyrannosaurus Rex and had switched to an electric guitar - two moves which alienated the sandal wearers that had gotten them this far. They more than made up for the loss with the success of this one. Musically it’s the stop-gap between the flower-sniffing folk of their early days and the stack-heel strut of Electric Warrior, a warm and pleasant collection of electric pop songs like the elfin One Inch Rock and Beltane Walk.

From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-to-buy-the-very-best-of-t-rex

The Velvet Underground - I'm Waiting For The Man

 #The Velvet Underground #Lou Reed #John Cale #Nico #experimental rock #art rock #avant-garde #proto-punk #Andy Warhol

American rock band The Velvet Underground released "I'm Waiting for the Man" in 1967 on their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Like many of the band's other songs, "I'm Waiting for the Man" focuses on the dark underbelly of life in New York City. The track, written by singer Lou Reed, tells the story of a man in New York traveling to Harlem to meet his drug dealer, who is never referred to as anything other than "the man" in the song. He brings $26 uptown, where he stops at a brownstone at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, which is currently the home of a 4/5/6 subway station. ("Up to Lexington, 1-2-5"). The Velvet Underground were one of the first groups to openly write songs about drug use and its catastrophic consequences (heroin, in the case of "I'm Waiting for the Man"). The accounts often came from the personal experiences of the band members.  From: https://www.musicbanter.com/lyrics/Velvet-Underground-I-m-Waiting-for-the-Man.html

The Rolling Stones - Jumpin' Jack Flash

 #The Rolling Stones #Kieth Richards #Mick Jagger #blues rock #hard rock #classic rock #British blues rock #rock & roll #folk blues #garage rock #R&B #British invasion #1968 music video

Long before the advent of MTV, music videos (then referred to as promotional films, or “promos” for short) were few and far between, with very limited outlets to air them. The most popular bands, such as The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Who, made these “promos” with the intent of allowing broadcast in several different countries without the bands having to travel to perform in TV studios where there were “genuine security issues” according to Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who directed pioneering videos for all three acts. Top of the Pops, the aforementioned Ready Steady Go!, Shindig!, Hullabaloo and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the US were early participants in broadcasting such materials. The Rolling Stones, who were already international superstars by the mid-1960s, now had another tool to help push a single such as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Before capturing The Rock and Roll Circus on celluloid, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg had helmed many of The Rolling Stones’ promotional video clips: “She’s a Rainbow,” “2000 Light Years From Home,” “Child of the Moon,” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” as well as The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer,” “Rain,” “Hey Jude” and “Revolution.” Lindsay-Hogg is the legendary music video director behind The Beatles’ Let It Be feature film and many of The Rolling Stones’ seminal video clips.  From: https://www.musicconnection.com/kubernik-the-rolling-stones-jumpin-jack-flash-restored-in-4k/ 

Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven

 #Donovan #folk rock #psychedelic folk #psychedelic rock #acid folk #British psychedelia #singer-songwriter #1960s

Rock music's first two-LP box set, Donovan’s A Gift from a Flower to a Garden overcomes its original shortcomings and stands out as a prime artifact of the flower-power era that produced it. The music still seems a bit fey, and overall more spacy than the average Moody Blues album of this era, but the sheer range of subjects and influences make this a surprisingly rewarding work. Essentially two albums recorded simultaneously in the summer of 1967, the electric tracks include Jack Bruce among the session players. The acoustic tracks represent an attempt by Donovan to get back to his old sound and depart from the heavily electric singles ("Sunshine Superman," etc.) and albums he'd been doing - it is folkier and bluesier (in an English folk sense) than much of his recent work.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-gift-from-a-flower-to-a-garden-mw0000691015

This very psychedelic song is a nod to the divine, conjuring up images of nature's colors and invoking both God and Allah. Heavy stuff. In our interview with Donovan, we asked how he came up with the vibrant images that appear in the lyric. Lines like:

Color sky Havana lake
Color sky rose carmethene
Alizarian crimson

Donovan explained that like many great songwriters - Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Bob Dylan among them - he dabbled in art and thought in terms of paintings. This song is an example of translating images on a canvas into words. "'Wear Your Love Like Heaven' was really a paint-ily song - watching a sunset go down," he said.

From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/donovan/wear-your-love-like-heaven

The Youngbloods - All My Dreams Blue

 #The Youngbloods #Jesse Colin Young #folk rock #psychedelic rock #roots rock #blues rock #West coast psychedelia #1960s

The Youngbloods' sophomore release Earth Music is an uncommonly solid follow-up, expanding upon the musical directions introduced on their debut LP. The infectious "Sugar Babe" (also featured in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Zabriskie Point) is one of the group's most popular tunes, while such numbers as "All My Dreams Blue," "Dreamer's Dream" and "Fool Me" demonstrate the strength of the band members' songwriting skills and customized covers of Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe," the Holy Modal Rounders' "Euphoria" and Chuck Berry's "Monkey Business" demonstrate the Youngbloods' talent for seamlessly integrating a broad array of influences.  From: https://www.roughtrade.com/us/product/the-youngbloods/earth-music

The Youngbloods' second long-player built on the strength of their self-titled debut by once again creating a blend of captivating songwriting with an infectiously fun delivery. Although the album failed to produce a definitive single - as "Get Together" had done on their previous effort - there are a handful of equally definitive sides scattered throughout Earth Music (1967). Featuring Jesse Colin Young (guitar/bass/vocals), Jerry Corbitt (lead guitar), Joe Bauer (drums), and Lowell "Banana" Levinger III (piano/guitar), the Youngbloods recall the uptempo good-time sound of their East Coast contemporaries, the Lovin' Spoonful, on the opening cover of the Holy Modal Rounders' "Euphoria." The first of several stellar compositions from Young follows with the laid-back "All My Dreams Blue." In addition to the affective songcrafting, Banana's upfront piano fills provide a jazzy counterpoint to the interlocking Bauer/Young rhythm section. This refined power trio would become the mainstay of their later post-Corbitt recordings. "Dreamer's Dream" highlights Corbitt's inimitable contributions to the band with a highly affective melody as well as his unencumbered vocals, which effortlessly intertwine with Young. The countrified interpretation of the traditional "Sugar Babe" is a precursor to the direction that the band's sound would take after their relocation to the West Coast. The track became an international hit no doubt due to its inclusion in the Michelangelo Antonioni film Zabriskie Point (1970). Other standout tracks include the high-steppin' "Wine Song" and one of the better revisitations of Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe."  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/earth-music-mw0000074392

Blind Faith - Sea of Joy

  #Blind Faith #Eric Clapton #Steve Winwood #Ginger Baker #blues rock #hard rock #psychedelic rock #supergroup #1960s

Not long after Cream broke up late in 1968, Eric Clapton had started to jam frequently with Steve Winwood, formerly of Traffic (who disbanded shortly after Cream), and soon the thought of forming their very own band was tempting. Somehow former Cream drummer Ginger Baker caught notice of this and was eager to be involved. In short, he joins the band, they invite Ric Grech to become the bassist, and the group is officially formed. Rumors of this 'supergroup' start to spread like wildfire (to the point of them actually being called a 'Super Cream'), and thus this group of lads (unnamed at first; the name Blind Faith allegedly comes from the cautious optimism Clapton felt about the band) are now usually recognized as the first act to be christened with the tag of 'supergroup'. An album is quickly written and recorded (these guys liked to jam more than actually make crafted songs, even though the songs on the album are quite good), and they make their debut at Hyde Park in June 1969 (well received). A quick tour of Scandinavia follows, as a 'warm up' for the bigger gigs to come in the US. By the time their US tour finished up in August 1969, Blind Faith as a band were no more. Like any normal supergroup, they simply collapsed under the pressure that most supergroups succumb to.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/blind-faith/blind-faith/

The Zombies - She's Coming Home

 #The Zombies #Rod Argent #Colin Blunstone #psychedelic rock #blues rock #pop rock #baroque pop #psychedelic pop #British invasion #1960s

Q: Since the Zombies were formed so early on in the ’60s, do you think that allowed you to form a more distinct sound that was not as heavily influenced by other British Invasion bands?
Colin Blunstone: Well, in 1961, we were 15 years old. You know, we weren’t professional musicians at that time, but that’s when the band first got together. The very first rehearsal, I was the rhythm guitarist and Rod Argent was the lead singer, but we swapped ’round very early on. I heard him playing piano, and even at 15, he was sensational as a keyboard player, and I said to him, “You have to play keyboards in the band.” And then he heard me singing a Ricky Nelson song and said, “Well, okay, I’ll play keyboards if you’ll be lead singer.” So right from the beginning, we were a keyboard-based band, which was quite unusual in those days, when you think of it. It was a time of three-guitar bands, but we had a keyboard-based band. And also, we always tried to include harmonies in everything that we did, which again, was quite unusual for bands, and that was from the time we were 15.
We were very aware of the Beatles and thought they were absolutely fantastic, but up until our first recording session, we played the same thing: rhythm and blues classics. In fact, the Zombies were at one time called the Zombies R&B. But just before the first session, which was at Decker Studios in West Hampstead in London, our producer, who’s called Ken James, he was having a chat with us and just said, “You could always write something for the session if you wanted,” and then went on and talked about other things. It wasn’t a big speech. Quite frankly, I’d forgotten he even said it. But Rod just went away and wrote “She’s Not There” and came back about two days later and said, “Guys, I’ve got a song. Listen to this.” And I think we all knew that it was special as soon as we heard it. And Chris White wrote the B-side, “You Make Me Feel Good.” I didn’t know either of them could write songs. I was in deep, deep shock when they came back with these songs written. And so, from then on really, we sort of trod our own path because, up until then, we’d been using the same influences that most of the other bands of the British Invasion were using. The Beatles, the Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals: they were all using rhythm and blues classics as the basis of their songs, and we were doing the same thing, but in a very amateurish way. We were still very young. But as soon as Rod and Chris started writing, that really was our musical identity. Whether you like the Zombies or not, we weren’t like anybody else because we had these two prolific and quite sophisticated writers in the band, and we followed their songs.  From: http://www.rebeatmag.com/colin-blunstone-and-the-odessey-of-the-zombies-part-two/

Vanilla Fudge - You Keep Me Hangin' On

 #Vanilla Fudge #psychedelic rock #heavy psych #acid rock #hard rock #proto-metal #Supremes cover #1960s

It's fair to say nobody had heard anything quite like Vanilla Fudge when the band burst onto the scene in August 1967 with their cover of The Supremes’ hit You Keep Me Hangin’ On. In contrast to The Supremes’ sparkling, syncopated rhythms propelling the song at a gallop, the Fudge version begins with a single organ note that appears to be struggling to hold its pitch against unseen forces. Gradually, the note is joined by other notes – it would be stretching things to call it a chord - which are also being buffeted by the elements. Just as you’re beginning to wonder whether it may be some musical code trying to tell you something - a bit like that sequence in Close Encounters - what sounds like the noise of a drumstick splintering against a hi-hat jolts your senses, and suddenly you’re engulfed in a clattering musical cacophony that finally erupts into the classic You Keep Me Hangin’ On riff. Except that it’s played at a quarter of the speed and with a fearsome, heavyweight, pile-driving intensity. The vocals come in at the same crawling tempo, and the singer is clearly desperate to keep hangin’ on. Indeed when he gets to that throwaway line in the original "And there ain’t nothing I can do about it", he sounds like he’s in the throes of a full-scale nervous breakdown. After he’s finished pleading for release - “Set me free why don’t you babe" - the instrumental introduction is repeated, except this time the riff gets a bludgeoning quality that threatens grievous aural harm, before a sweeping organ cadence brings sudden, and merciful, relief.  From: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5067836177008380097/612365453995572163

The Jeff Beck Group - I Ain't Superstitious

 #The Jeff Beck Group #Jeff Beck #Rod Stewart #blues rock # hard rock #British blues rock #British R&B #heavy blues rock #proto-metal #classic rock #1960s

Despite being the premiere of heavy metal, Jeff Beck's Truth has never quite carried its reputation the way the early albums by Led Zeppelin did, or even Cream's two most popular LPs, mostly as a result of the erratic nature of the guitarist's subsequent work. Time has muted some of its daring, radical nature, elements of which were appropriated by practically every metal band (and most arena rock bands) that followed. Truth was almost as groundbreaking and influential a record as the first Beatles, Rolling Stones, or Who albums. Its attributes weren't all new - Cream and Jimi Hendrix had been moving in similar directions - but the combination was: the wailing, heart-stoppingly dramatic vocalizing by Rod Stewart, the thunderous rhythm section of Ron Wood's bass and Mickey Waller's drums, and Beck's blistering lead guitar, which sounds like his amp is turned up to 13 and ready to short out. Beck opens the proceedings in a strikingly bold manner, using his old Yardbirds hit "Shapes of Things" as a jumping-off point, deliberately rebuilding the song from the ground up so it sounds closer to Howlin' Wolf. There are lots of unexpected moments on this record: a bone-pounding version of Willie Dixon's "You Shook Me"; a version of Jerome Kern's "Ol' Man River" done as a slow electric blues; a brief plunge into folk territory with a solo acoustic guitar version of "Greensleeves" (which was intended as filler but audiences loved); the progressive blues of "Beck's Bolero"; the extended live "Blues Deluxe"; and "I Ain't Superstitious," a blazing reworking of another Willie Dixon song.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/truth-mw0000262744

The Beatles - Cry Baby Cry

 #The Beatles #John Lennon #Paul McCartney #George Harrison #British invasion #pop rock #psychedelic rock #blues rock #classic rock #British psychedelia #folk rock #1960s

"A piece of rubbish!" This was John Lennon's reaction in 1980 when asked about his "White Album" composition "Cry Baby Cry." Why would he react so negatively about this song? Those who take the time to examine the writing style of John Lennon through the years will easily notice the changes within the context of the time period. For instance, his output in 1967 generally used imagery to paint a picture that didn't necessarily make sense but sounded as if it did, such as with “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and “I Am The Walrus.” By 1968, he put this aside for the most part and dealt much more with real occurrences in his own life and/or his interpretations of real events, such as with “I'm So Tired,” “Sexy Sadie” and “Revolution.” It is within the context of his 1968 output that we experience a “throwback” of sorts with “Cry Baby Cry,” a song which started to take shape the previous year and exuded the obscure but effective lyrics Lennon was known for at that time. Concerning John's negative opinion of the song in 1980, Beatles writer David Quantick offers the explanation that he “might have dismissed the song for not being about anything concrete.” This appears to make sense in light of the fact that, when looking back at his career as a songwriter, he would cite autobiographical songs, such as “Help!” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” as his best work. If that was the criteria he used in his later life, songs about imaginary characters involved in nonsensical activities could be seen as useless to him, or “rubbish.” Most Beatles fans and authors would wholeheartedly disagree, however. Ian Mac Donald, in his book "Revolution In The Head," describes "Cry Baby Cry" as “one of the most evocative products of that creative channel.” “An underrated Lennon royalty satire; it's his most accomplished Lewis Carroll pastiche,” writes Tim Riley. “A song with an air of a particularly dreamlike ghost story - one of the strangest and most beautiful lyrics on the 'White Album,'” writes David Quantick. “Alice trips gently through Lennonland for just about the last time. It ranks among his most magical,” writes Nicholas Schaffner.  From: http://www.beatlesebooks.com/cry-baby-cry

Fairport Convention - Doctor Of Physick

 #Fairport Convention #Richard Thompson #Dave Swarbrick #folk rock #British folk rock #progressive folk #1970s

The Fairports recall the making of 1970's Full House, the band's first album without founding member Ashley Hutchings and with new boy Dave Pegg “On my 22nd birthday - November 2, 1969 - I went to Mothers club in Birmingham with my ex-wife Christine to see Fairport Convention,” says the group’s current bassist Dave Pegg. “I had never seen them before but I knew [violinist] Dave Swarbrick from his work with Martin Carthy and I had played with him in the Ian Campbell Group.
“It was a new approach to traditional music,” he recalls. “It was such a great band: the interplay between [guitarist] Richard Thompson and Swarbrick instrumentally, and of course Sandy Denny’s singing and the great rhythm section of [drummer] Dave Mattacks, [rhythm guitarist] Simon Nicol and [bassist] Ashley Hutchings. I was blown away and said to Christine, ‘I would love to join that band.’ And bizarrely I got a call next day from Dave Swarbrick saying, ‘Ashley is leaving the band, would you come for an audition?’” Pegg, who had played in rock bands in the Birmingham area including The Uglys with Steve Gibbons and The Way Of Life with future Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, landed the job. The following month, Fairport released the epochal British folk rock statement Liege & Lief, but its release coincided with Sandy Denny also quitting the band.
“It was a blow to lose them both but the mood was optimistic,” Richard Thompson recalls. “We thought it would be hard to replace Sandy, so let’s not replace her. We knew that the vocals would not be as strong, but instrumentally we were a very strong band. In the history of Fairport there had always been personnel changes. This was a big one, but our attitude was to soldier on.”
“It removed the rudder and the best part of the engine room of the Good Ship Fairport,” says Simon Nicol.“But at the same time we’d got this incredible energy coming from Dave Swarbrick. He was a born-again musician because he was a full member of a band for the first time in his life. There was a sense of, ‘I really like this and I’m really going to make it work.’ He made up for the loss of the engine room in many ways. And so we became a boy band.”
On Liege & Lief, Fairport had made the decision to incorporate more traditional British and celtic elements into their music, an approach they carried on to their next album, 1970’s Full House. Stylistically, much of this was essentially still uncharted territory. Musicians had long been playing medleys of traditional jigs and reels, but not in an electric rock band. Fairport were effectively learning on the job and were all in their early 20s, except Swarbrick who was 28, and Nicol who was still just 19.
Before he joined Fairport Convention the summer of 1969 Dave Mattacks had played in a dance band and various pop groups. “On Liege & Lief I was very much, on an aesthetic level, the deer in the headlights. I had no idea what I was doing,” he says. “I was responding to the music around me and starting to grasp it. Then I had a huge light bulb moment when I got what the band was about, and it had a profound effect upon how I wanted to play and how I heard music. But even on Full House, I can still hear a very green drummer.”
Speaking to the four surviving members who played on that album, it’s striking how much they respect each other’s playing. “Ashley had a very distinctive style that contributed to the early Fairport sound,” says Thompson, “but Peggy was much more funky, more solid. And it was astonishing that he started to play jigs and reels on the bass an octave or more under everybody else. That virtuosity became a part of the Fairport sound and was unveiled on Full House.”
Pegg describes Swarbrick as a “walking library of tunes” and for Full House he had put together the dazzling instrumental medley Dirty Linen, on which the bass player came into his own. “I knew something about traditional music from having played with the Campbells,” he adds “On Dirty Linen I play the bass in unison with all the other guys and was able to keep up with them. It got me a bit of a reputation, but to be honest, the only reason I played in unison was I hadn’t got a clue what else to play on it! The Flatback Caper medley is another thing that hadn’t been done before. That was kind of proggy, with Swarb and I both playing mandolin.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-of-fairport-conventions-full-house

Jefferson Airplane - Mexico

 #Jefferson Airplane #Grace Slick #Jorma Kaukonen #psychedelic rock #acid rock #folk rock #hard rock #West coast psychedelia #1960s

President Richard Nixon engaged in anti-drug measure that went into effect from September 21 to October 11 in 1969 in order to fulfill a campaign promise, which resulted in a near shutdown of border crossings between Mexico and the United States.  He wanted to seal the border to stop the steady flow of marijuana into the states and he was determined to prove that he could establish law and order in a nation that seemed to be spinning out of control.  He called it Operation Intercept, and it did not sit well with Jefferson Airplane.  In the early part of 1970, the Jefferson Airplane released a single entitled ‘Mexico’ that was written and sung by Grace Slick.  The song was not played on some radio stations at the time because the lyrics referred to Operation Intercept, but this song became a classic on many of the so-called underground radio stations and it did reach #102 on the Billboard charts.  Five months after the release of ‘Mexico’, President Nixon requested that songs relating to drug abuse not be broadcast.
The Jefferson Airplane single ‘Have You Seen The Saucers’/‘Mexico’ was their last release for RCA before assembling their own subsidiary label, Grunt and it would be the only new material in 1970 that they released as The Airplane.  That year Paul Kantner released his epic Blows Against The Empire album and Hot Tuna’s self-titled live acoustic debut marked a separation for the band.  The single was recorded by Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Marty Balin, Jack Casady, Jorma Kaukonen, Spencer Dryden and Joey Covington.  1970 was a year of total chaos for The Airplane, as Jack and Jorma played countless gigs as Hot Tuna, both Dryden and Balin quit and Paul and Grace would become a couple, but yet their live recordings from this period rank as some of their most aggressive and raw.
Grace Slick starts out this song by dropping the names “Owsley and Charlie”, and I knew right away who Owsley was, but I was curious about Charlie.  My first thought was Charlie Manson, but he was only arrested in October 1969 on unrelated charges, and his trial didn’t begin till July 15, 1970, so I don’t think that Grace knew who he was before she wrote this song.  Near the end of this song Grace mentions Charlie again saying, “But thanks Uncle Charlie” and other than discovering that drummer Spencer Dryden’s half-uncle was Charlie Chaplin, and that Charlie is often a reference to cocaine, I have no clue who Charlie is.  Maybe he was a marijuana dealer who inspired Grace Slick to write this touching and heartfelt tribute, but the only other name that popped us was a journalist and hippie named Charles Perry. Grace seems infuriated saying, “donde esta la planta”, which translates to where is the plant and it is very clear that the lyrics in the song ‘Mexico’ are about pot.  She says that Mexico is under the thumb of Richard who she says is a small-headed man.  Nixon’s anti-drug stance, and his advocacy for conservative values did not sit well with many of the nation’s youth, especially the revolutionary Grace Slick.
In April 1970, Slick received an invitation to attend a tea party at the White House being thrown by the president’s daughter Tricia.  Tricia and Slick were both alumni of Finch College, an all-girls school located in upstate New York.  Tricia was a recent graduate and this would have been like a ten-year reunion for Slick, who attended under her maiden name, Grace Wing.  Slick invited Abbie Hoffman as her date to the April 24 event.  Slick had 600 micrograms of LSD powder in her pocket, more than enough to provide a powerful hallucinogenic experience for anyone who ingested it.  Her plan was to tuck the powder into her long fingernail and drop it into Nixon’s tea cup during some polite conversation.  When Grace and Abbie were on line, a security guard wouldn’t let them in.  He told Grace that Abbie had been branded as domestic security risk for his anti-establishment views and actions.  Hoffman then took out a black flag with a multicolored marijuana leaf and hung it on the White House gate.  From: https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2020/05/03/airplane-protest-song/

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #2

 #The Flying Burrito Brothers #Chris Hillman #Gram Parsons #country rock #rock & roll #R&B #soul #psychedelic country #1960s #1970s

The Flying Burrito Brothers was an American popular musical group of the late 1960s and ’70s that was one of the chief influences on the development of country rock. The original members were Chris Hillman, “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow, Gram Parsons, and Chris Ethridge. Later members included Michael Clarke, Bernie Leadon, and Rick Roberts. Parsons and Hillman, former members of the Byrds, founded the Flying Burrito Brothers in Los Angeles in 1968, appropriating the name from a group of local musicians who gathered for jam sessions. Earlier that year, Parsons had been the driving force behind the Byrds’ pioneering country rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The Burritos’ first album, The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969), also displayed Parsons’s guiding hand: he contributed most of the songs and shaped its combination of classic country and western - punctuated by Kleinow’s pedal-steel guitar - and hard-driving southern California rock. Even after Parsons left the Burritos in 1970 (replaced by Roberts), his songs continued to appear on the group’s albums, including the live Last of the Red Hot Burritos (1972), which also prominently featured bluegrass musicians. Numerous other personnel changes - including the arrival and departure of Leadon, who helped found the Eagles - and the group’s limited commercial appeal outside a small, devoted following contributed to its dissolution by 1973. Kleinow and Ethridge re-formed the band in 1975, and there were other short-lived incarnations into the 1990s. Parsons is often called the originator of country rock. Although he disdained that moniker, his work provided the link from straight-ahead country performers like Merle Haggard to the Eagles, who epitomized 1970s country rock. Numerous performers have cited Parsons as a major influence, notably the singers Emmylou Harris (who collaborated with him in 1973) and Elvis Costello and the alternative rocker Evan Dando.  From: https://www.britannica.com/topic/the-Flying-Burrito-Brothers

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell - Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing

#Marvin Gaye #Tammi Terrell #Motown #R&B #soul #gospel #ballads #1960s

Over a span of just 12 months beginning in April 1967, the duo of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell enjoyed a string of four straight hits with some of the greatest love songs ever recorded at Motown Records. Sadly, only the first two of those four hits were released while Tammi Terrell was still well enough to perform them. In October 1967, just six months after the release of the now-classic “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Terrell collapsed onstage during a live performance at Virginia’s Hampden-Sydney College. Two-and-a-half years later, on March 16, 1970, Tammi Terrell died of complications from the malignant brain tumor that caused her 1967 collapse. Terrell’s illness was at first downplayed by the Motown Records publicity machine while new material by the duo of Gaye and Terrell was still being released. Many of the singles released under their names were created by laying Marvin Gaye’s vocals over existing recordings of Terrell made prior to her illness. Gaye scored one of his biggest solo hits ever during this period with “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” but following Terrell’s death in 1970, he stopped performing live for the next three years.  From: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/motown-soul-singer-tammi-terrell-dies