THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
665) The Spike Drivers — “Blue Law Sunday”
Does anyone remember blue laws? Well, Chick-fil-A closes on Sunday, doesn’t it? Blue law Sundays were not quite immortalized by this folk psych song by the Spike Drivers. As Jason Ankeny says, “[m]id-sixties Detroit psych-popsters the Spikedrivers were fronted by Ted Lucas, previously known to local audiences as a leading light of the Motor City folk music scene.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/spike-drivers-mn0003463526) This “Hendrix-gone-folky” number (ANKH, https://savagesaints.blogspot.com/2011/08/spike-drivers-60s-folkrocking.html) went unreleased, though the song came out as a B-side a year or two later as done by Lucas’ new band the Misty Wizards (in a version that Acid Revolver calls “a personal favourite psychedelic raver”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExZHlzKPEQk).
Jason Ankeny also tells us that:
[T]he Spikedrivers debuted in 1966 with the single “High Time;” originally recorded for the Om label, it was soon snapped up for national distribution by Warner/Reprise, but despite limited success on the East Coast and across the Midwest the record failed to chart. When their 1967 follow-up “Strange Mysterious Sounds” [see #530] met the same grim fate the Spikedrivers disbanded . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/spike-drivers-mn0003463526
Ted Lucas’ son talks of his father’s battles with mental illness:
Throughout his career Lucas struggled with mental illness and erratic behavior that weighed heaviest on his family until his death in 1992. . . . Lucas’ son, Tony, [talks] about his father’s legacy. “When people ask me about my dad, it’s weird, because when I was growing up most of my time was avoiding talking about my dad,” Tony says. “It always included some kind of insanity, right. Some kind of craziness, some kind of nuttiness. And when I talk about my dad now, I almost brag about him. You know, it’s such a different way of thinking about somebody.”
https://wdet.org/2018/12/20/remembering-ted-lucas-first-and-only-solo-album/
“Blue Law Sunday” is at 15:51:
Here are the Misty Wizards:
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