THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
2,061) The Blues Magoos — “Gotta Get Away”
The B-side to their #5 hit “(We Ain’t Got) Nothing Yet” is as “[c]ool as it gets. Punk, garage, psych all beautifully rolled up together. Best B-side ever?” (hdew77, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewco-kNBPaw) Joseph Taylor enthuses:
[I]f DJs had turned the record over it might have been the hit. [The] Lowery organ sounds menacing, [the] lead guitar solo slashes deeply . . . . [I]t’s a cry from the heart of every kid who would soon join the counterculture.
https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/feature-articles/on-music/250-the-blues-magoos-on-sundazed)
The counterculture? It was co-written by Alan Gordon, who co-wrote “Happy Together” and other hits for the Turtles!
Steve Leggett tells us of the Blues Magoos:
A Bronx [New York City] based quintet, the Blues Magoos were formed in 1964 and were originally known as the Trenchcoats before changing their name to the Bloos Magoos and then subsequently adopting the more conventional spelling as they became fixtures on the Greenwich Village club scene. The band released singles for the Ganim and Verve Forecast imprints before signing with Mercury Records in 1966, and after an intense makeover and a marketing blitz, they emerged as a sort of East Coast answer to the then-emerging San Francisco flower power psychedelic scene with a big single, “(We Ain’t Got) Nothing Yet,” that same year, and attracted further attention with the album Psychedelic Lollipop, which also charted. Really more a blues-rock band with a garage band’s approach and intentions than they were a Summer of Love band, the Blues Magoos nonetheless continued with psychedelic trappings for the album Electric Comic Book, which appeared in 1967, and the similarly constructed Basic Blues Magoos a year later in 1968. At this point the group restructured its membership and approach, signed with ABC Records, and returned to its blues roots for 1969’s Never Goin’ Back to Georgia and 1970’s Gulf Coast Bound, which added some Latin touches to the blues and featured mostly session players.
Here is Sounds Unlimited (’66 — unreleased):
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