It’s getting near to the end of the month so it must be time for another one of my compilations looking at the Psychedelic Years. It is also the last one in the series and this one focuses on the latter period of this genre. The majority of these songs come from 1969 with the odd song coming from either side of that year. What this compilation does is show the progression psych musicians made towards the Prog Rock era.
Between their first recording session in October 1966, and August 1968, the Jimi Hendrix Experience packed a lot in. Numerous tours, non album singles, three LPs (including one double), tv and radio appearances. These guys were really busy. This schedule, coupled with Hendrix’s increased perfectionism in the studio caused tension. Chas Chandler, the man who had brought Hendrix to the UK and produced the Experiences first two albums walked out of the session for ‘Electric Ladyland’, the bands third LP because of it. Hendrix would also invite friends and hangers on to the studio which also contributed to Chandler leaving. He had had enough of these people clogging up the control room. Bass player Noel Redding had also formed the band Fat Mattress, which meant he could not spend as much time in the studio with Hendrix. This would lead Hendrix to play a number of the bass parts during these sessions himself.
With all of this going on, it is a surprise that anything would be released, let alone an album that would be eventually be hailed as a classic. Using studio techniques such as echo, back masking and flanging, the album took the template of the bands previous albums and expanded them beyond the psychedelic blues of their earlier efforts. There were blues jams, a sci-fi influenced side long studio production, hard rock, social commentary as well as a couple of notable cover version, including ‘All Along The Watchtower’, one of the few occasions where the cover is significantly better than the original.
Today, it stands as Hendrixs’ defining LP and it was the last studio album he released in his lifetime. However, when it first came out, not all of the reviews were positive. Medley Maker called it “mixed up and muddled”. Rolling Stone commented that the original songs sometimes sound unstructured. That isn’t to say that there were some positives but the double LP’s was still a new concept in 1968, and even today, there aren’t that many artists who put one out. Most suffer from the same criticism in that there is too much padding and substandard songs. With this in mind and to celebrate 55 years since the album was released, I thought I would have a look at turning ‘Electric Ladyland’ into a single LP.
Side A
And The Gods Made Love
Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
Crosstown Traffic
Come On (Part 1)
Long Hot Summer
Still Raining, Still Dreaming
Side B
Gypsy Eyes
House Burning Down
All Along The Watchtower
Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
Playing this through, this is a tight album that dispenses with the jams (Voodoo Chile) and the science fiction ramblings of “1983…(a Merman I Should Turn To Be)”. Removing both of these save up to around 30 minutes of playing time. That does still mean that a couple of other songs need to go so that the playing time would fit comfortably onto a vinyl record. ‘Little Miss Strange’ is very lightweight 60s pop and does stand out on the album as being one of, if not the weakest track. A B-Side at best. Last to go is ‘Burning Of The Midnight Lamp’. Nothing wrong with this song but it does sound a little out of place as it was already a year old by the point the LP came out, and it had already been released as a single in 1967. It sounds a little different from the rest of the album because it was produced by Chas Chandler. The rest of ‘Electric Ladyland’ was produce (and directed) by Jimi Hendrix. This was also the era were singles tended not to be included on albums so that is why this one has been dropped.
All in all, a pretty good single album. The front cover was used for the 50th Anniversary Box Set but this is what Hendrix wanted before his record company ignored his wishes.
For the second in my look at the career of The Beach Boys, I am posting this on the 60th Anniversary of the release of ‘Little Deuce Coupe’. This album came out on 7th October, 1963 and was the third album the group released in that year which meant that this was a very busy time for The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson especially.
First up was ‘Surfing USA’, released in March of 1963 and then in September, out came ‘Surfer Girl’. That meant there was only a months gap between that and ‘Little Deuce Coupe’. Considering an artist in the current climate does well to release a new album every two years, this is quite a turn over in product. This last album was clearly an LP too far because if we look at the track listing for ‘Little Deuce Coupe’, you can see that there was plenty of original material on it, but four of the twelve tracks had appeared on earlier albums. If you consider that their first album came out just over a year earlier on 1st October 1962, Brian Wilson was also writing and producing material for artists outside of The Beach Boys. It is not a surprise that he decided that he wanted to stop going out on the road and concentrate on working in the studio. He was not going to get his wish straight away because even though Al Jardine came back into the band to cover for his, David Marks was not far off leaving.
So what do we get in this period of The Beach Boys. There are a few covers, which is not a surprise considering how many records the band was releasing as well as Brian Wilson’s side projects. There are a number of instrumentals and when it comes to the ‘Little Deuce Coupe’ LP and recycling of some old material. As a side note, it could be argued that ‘Little Deuce Coupe’ is an early concept album as the majority of the songs on it are about cars. There is also a major step up in the quality of songs that Wilson was writing and the instrumentation he was using. Take ‘In My Room’ a song from the ‘Surfer Girl’ album. It has some harp playing on it, and an early appearance by studio player extraordinaire Hal Blaine on percussion. The song is not about surfing, cars or girls and has melancholy theme. A massive hint on where Wilson would go in a few years time culminating in the masterpiece that is ‘Pet Sounds’. This is also one of the few Beach Boys recordings where David Marks and Al Jardine both perform before the 2012 LP, ‘That’s Why God Made The Radio’.
Sources for the songs included on this set.
1 – Surfin’ U.S.A.
2 – Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace Of A Musical Legacy
3 – Unsurpassed Masters Vol.2 (Bootleg)
4 – Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys (Box Set)
5 – Made In California (Box Set)
6 – Unsurpassed Masters Vol.3 (Bootleg)
7 – Surfer Girl
8 – Stack O’Tracks
9 – In The Beginning (Bootleg)
10 – The Big Beat 1963
11 – Endless Harmony Soundtrack
12 – Surfer Girl (1990 Reissue)
13 – Rarities Vol.1 1962-1968 (Bootleg)
14 – Little Deuce Coupe
15 – Unsurpassed Master Vol.4 (Bootleg)
16 – Shut Down Vol.2
17 – Christmas Sessions (Bootleg)
18 – The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album
19 – The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album (1991 Reissue)
20 – Alternative Dumb Angel Vol.1 (Bootleg)
21 – Legends Of Christmas Past
22 – Christmas Sessions Vol.1
23 – Sounds Of Summer: The Best Of The Beach Boys (Expanded Super Deluxe)
Disc 4 which are the songs exclusively on ‘Shut Down Volume 2’ is a little sparse when it come to outtakes. It would seem that the bootleggers were not able to get their hands on those session tapes or possibly they have gone missing.
Ballad Of Old Betsy (Demo) – 10
Ballad Of Old Betsy (Instrumental Takes 1, 2 & 3) – 3
Ballad Of Old Betsy (Instrumental Take 4) – 3
Ballad Of Old Betsy (Mono) – 14
Ballad Of Old Betsy (Stereo) – 14
Be True To Your School (Mono) – 14
Be True To Your School (Stereo) – 14
Be True To Your School (Mono Single Version) – 5
Car Crazy Cutie (Mono) – 14
Car Crazy Cutie (Stereo) – 14
Cherry, Cherry Coupe (Mono) – 14
Cherry, Cherry Coupe (Stereo) – 14
Spirit Of America (Mono) – 14
Spirit Of America (Stereo) – 14
No-Go Showboat (Mono) – 14
No-Go Showboat (Stereo) – 14
A Young Man Is Gone (Mono) – 14
A Young Man Is Gone (Stereo) – 14
Custom Machine (Mono) – 14
Custom Machine (Stereo) – 14
I Do (Demo) – 10
I Do (Instrumental Take 1) – 15
I Do (Instrumental Takes 2 & 3) – 15
I Do (Instrumental Takes 4 & 5) – 15
I Do (Instrumental Take 6) – 15
I Do (Instrumental Take 7) – 15
I Do (Vocal Overdub Takes 1 & 2) – 15
I Do (Vocal Overdub Take 3) – 15
I Do (Vocal Overdub Take 4) – 15
I Do (Vocal Overdub Take 5) – 15
I Do (Unknown Take 1) – 15
I Do (Master) – 16
Back Home (Take 1) – 13
Back Home (Take 4) – 13
Back Home – 5
Disc 5
Disc 5 is made up mostly of the two sides of the Christmas single that band put out that year as well as tracks that I did not have room for anywhere else. “Little Saint Nick’ in its single configuration is the same recording as would appear on the 1964 album ‘The Beach Boys Christmas Album’ but the later version is stripped down of some of the production due to the fact that the album had been recording quickly and the original mix would have sounded out of place on that LP.
Punchline (Instrumental) – 4
Gonna Hustle You (Demo) – 10
Little Surfer Girl – 4
Chopsticks Boogie – 13
Things We Did Last Summer – 4
Let’s Go Trippin’ (Take 8) – 3
Let’s Go Trippin’ (Mono) – 1
Let’s Go Trippin’ (Stereo) – 1
Side Two (Instrumental Take 1) – 3
Side Two (Instrumental Take Unknown) – 3
Side Two (Instrumental) – 10
The Baker Man (Instrumental Takes 1 & 2) – 3
The Baker Man (Vocal Take) – 3
The Baker Man – 24
Little Saint Nick (Takes 2, 3, 4 & 5) – 9
Little Saint Nick (Take 6) – 9
Little Saint Nick (Vocal Take Stereo Mix) – 17
Little Saint Nick (Alt. Mix – More Sleigh Bells) – 17
Little Saint Nick (Vocals & Music Rechanneled) – 22
Thirty years ago, someone in some department at record label PolyGram TV decided that what the world needed (or the UK at least) was a CD compilation of prog rock songs. Prog rock (or progressive rock to give it its full title) was born out of the late 60s psych scene. It was characterised by lyrics that were designed to tell stories (or concepts), taking inspiration from fantasy along with extended soloing (designed to show off the musical prowess of the player involved), outlandish costumes and ever more elaborate stage sets. The album covers were works of art in themselves and the LPs become ever more overblown with double and even triple albums being released. It all came crashing down by 1976 but prog never really went away with bands such as Marillion and arguably Radiohead taking the genre on after its heyday. What is forgotten is that even though prog was (in)famous for its LPs, many bands in the genre actually released singles.
Back to the aforementioned compilation. What the compiler of that CD had looked to do was produce a compilation of singles by a number of these prog bands. What I didn’t realise until years later is that some of these singles were the bands biggest hits, others were not. What I have done here in an update of this CD is to only include the biggest UK hit from each band during the heyday of the prog rock era. That is the years 1971-1976 but you will notice that some of these singles pre and post date this. To qualify, the single had to be released after the starting point of prog, which (as far as I am concerned) was the release of ‘In The Court of the Crimson King’ by King Crimson which came out on 10th October 1969. The band in question also needed to have a genuine top 40 hit in the UK. There were more prog bands than I have included here who released singles but none of them was actually a hit, so they don’t count.
One last point. Like other genres, the scope of what is prog is quite wide. Some of the artists on the list might not be considered progressive now (or that progressive then), but many were on the progressive labels set up by the record companies in the late 60s to be the home of bands not considered pop. Some prog rock was not that far removed from rock, jazz or the blues so the boundaries can be a little blurred. Prog folk and other versions of prog were considered. Essentially, anything where the artists is progressing from what went before was fair game e.g. Kraftwerk.
Witches Promise – Jethro Tull (No.4 – Jan 1970 (1))
Sympathy – Rare Bird (No.27 – Feb 1970)
Who Do You Love? – Juicy Lucy (No.14 – Mar 1970)
Question – The Moody Blues (No.2 – May 1970 (2))
Love Like A Man – Ten Years After (No.10 – Jun 1970)
Paranoid – Black Sabbath (No.4 – Aug 1970)
Black Night – Deep Purple (No.2 – Aug 1970)
The Witch – The Rattles (No.8 – Oct 1970)
I Hear You Knocking – Dave Edmunds (No.1 – Nov 1970)
Apache Drop Out – Edgar Broughton Band (No.33 – Mar 1971 (3))
Standing In The Road – Blackfoot Sue (No.4 – Aug 1972)
Whiskey In The Jar – Thin Lizzie (No.6 – Jan 1973)
Fanfare For The Common Man – Emerson, Lake & Palmer (No.2 – Jun 1977)
Virginia Plain – Roxy Music (No.4 – Aug 1972 (6))
Sylvia – Focus (No.4 – Jan 1973)
All Because Of You – Geordie (No.6 – Mar 1973)
One & One Is One – Medicine Head (No.3 – May 1973)
Radar Love – Golden Earring (No.7 – Dec 1973)
I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) – Genesis (No.21 – Apr 1974 (7))
Seven Seas Of Rhye – Queen (No.10 – Mar 1974 (9))
Down Down – Status Quo (No.1 – Dec 1974)
Autobahn – Kraftwerk (No.11 – May 1975 (9))
Delilah (Live) – The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (No.7 – Jul 1975)
Pandora’s Box – Procol Harum (No.16 – Aug 1975 (10))
Portsmouth – Mike Oldfield (No.3 – Apr 1976)
Blinded By The Light – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (No.6 – Aug 1976 (11))
Wonderous Stories – Yes (No.7 – Sep 1977)
Northern Lights – Renaissance (No.10 – Jul 1978)
This isn’t Jehtro Tull’s biggest hit. That was ‘Living In The Past’ that came out in May 1969 and is just before the self imposed cut off point for this compilation.
The Moody Blues did have a number 1 hit in December 1964 with the distantly not prog, ‘Go Now’.
This entered the charts three times but its highest placing came on the third and last time.
John Kongos had another hit with ‘He’s Gonna Step on You Again’ which also reached number 4 in May 1971.
Not their biggest hit but it was the only one ELO had when Roy Wood was in the band which is arguably their progressive period.
Like ELO, this was not Roxy Music’s biggest hit but I would argue that they stopped being progressive once Brian Eno left the band.
Once again, this was not the bands biggest hit but the only one when they were at the most progressive. This was before Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett left.
Queen had a number one with the very pro ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. However, I chose this song as it was the only hit single from the bands first two albums, when they were at their most progressive.
Kraftwerk’s only hit during the 1970s which is arguably their most progressive period, before other bands and technology caught up to what they were doing later in the decade.
Procol Harum had two bigger hits than this, but they came up before the progressive era.
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band had another number 6 hit with ‘Davy’s On The Road Again’. I went with ‘Blinded By The Light’ as it is a lot more prog, especially the full length LP version.
Disc 1
Jig-A-Jig – East of Eden
Living In The Past – Jethro Tull
Who Do You Love? – Juicy Lucy
Love Like A Man – Ten Years After
The Witch – The Rattles
Paranoid – Black Sabbath
Black Night – Deep Purple
Apache Drop Out – Edgar Broughton Band
Question – The Moody Blues
Sympathy – Rare Bird
Devil’s Answer – Atomic Rooster
Backstreet Luv – Curved Air
I Hear You Knocking – Dave Edmunds
In My Own Time – Family
Tokoloshe Man – John Kongos
Silver Machine – Hawkwind
Hold Your Head Up – Argent
Standing In The Road – Blackfoot Sue
Side 2
Whiskey In The Jar – Thin Lizzie
10538 Overture – Electric Light Orchestra
Fanfare For The Common Man – Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Lady Eleanor – Lindisfarne
Virginia Plain – Roxy Music
Sylvia – Focus
I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) – Genesis
All Because Of You – Geordie
Radar Love – Golden Earring
One & One Is One – Medicine Head
Autobahn – Kraftwerk
Seven Seas Of Rhye – Queen
Down Down – Status Quo
Pandora’s Box – Procul Harum
Delilah (Live) – The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
Portsmouth – Mike Oldfield
Blinded By The Light – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
Wonderous Stories – Yes
Northern Lights – Renaissance
I wanted to use the original artwork of the compilation used back in 1993, but I could not find one of sufficient quality on line so I made my own, adapting a compilation that had been produced by Classic Rock magazine.
One or more of these version were not available on Spotify.
