THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
877) The Truth — “Baby You’ve Got It”
Roger Dopson calls this ’66 B-side a “fearsomely good — if wholly uncharacteristic [for the band] — slice of Freakbeat” (liner notes to the CD comp Freakbeat Freakout) while Vernon Joynson calls it an “uncharacteristically [for the band] rough soul-rocker” (The Tapestry of Delights Revisited) and the liner notes to the CD comp English Freakbeat! Vol. 5 call it a “gruff soul-rocker”. OK, I get it, uncharacteristic, rough and gruff!
As All Music notes:
Hairdresser Steven Gold met future singing partner Francis Aiello while cutting the latter’s hair. Taking their name from a favourite Ray Charles’ song, “Tell The Truth”, the duo scored a UK Top 30 hit in 1966 with their debut single, an opportunistic cover of “Girl” from the Beatles’ Rubber Soul album. Although the Truth drew plaudits for “I Go To Sleep”, written by Ray Davies of the Kinks, it emphasized the Truth’s inability to acquire exclusive material. Subsequent singles included “Walk Away Renee” and “Sueno”, originally recorded, respectively, by the Left Banke and Rascals, but when such releases failed to chart the duo abandoned their brief pop career.
Aiello and [Gold, later] Jameson . . . . were faces on the mid-’60s U.K. mod scene, frequenting the right clothing stores and hitting the right nightspots. . . . [But t]he record industry didn’t put much stock in the Truth’s mod persona, and ended up treating them like any other pop group trying to make their way onto the charts. While [Aiello and Gold] wanted to model the Truth after Sam & Dave or the Righteous Brothers, the closest they got to a hit was a polished cover of the Beatles’ “Girl,” and though they could handle pop as well as blue-eyed soul (in some cases better), their belated reputation as mod heroes is the product of a few stray tracks rather than the entirety of their catalog. The Truth released just seven singles during their five-year lifespan . . . . “Baby You’ve Got It,” “She’s a Roller,” and “Baby Don’t You Know” suggest the Truth were not at their best trying to sound like soul shouters . . . . Meanwhile, Aiello and [Gold] sounded very much at home harmonizing on slicker pop productions, and their covers of “I Go to Sleep,” “Walk Away Renee,” and “I Can’t Make It Alone” are more than satisfying.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
876) The Cops ‘n Robbers — “I’ve Found Out”
This ‘65 B-side is a “Real UK Beat Group gem, a Subtle Soulful Ballad Gem with a Lotta Magic, Dreamy Psych mood.” (Vintage Vinyl Via Valves, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvybezASxLk) It inexplicably starts with a musical quote from “Moon River”!
Donovan was a fan, as was Pete Townshend. Vernon Joynson writes that [t]his R&B band . . . was a popular act on the club circuit during the mid-sixties. . . . Mike Stax [revealed] that Donovan was an early fan of the band and later helped set up their deal with Pye.” (The Tapestry of Delights Revisited)
Richie Unterberger elaborates:
A little-known but quality group from the R&B wing of the British Invasion, the Cops ‘n Robbers (named after a Bo Diddley song) issued just three singles in the mid-’60s, as well as a French-only EP. Their chief claim to fame is recording (and writing) the original version of “You’ll Never Do It Baby,” a cool, nasty R&B-rock raver that was covered by the Pretty Things on their second album. Cops ‘n Robbers were indeed rather similar to the Pretty Things in their punky R&B-rock approach, yet even punkier . . . Singer Brian “Smudger” Smith had an unrefined, sullen leer in his delivery, and the band was picked up by the same management team that signed Donovan . . . . They issued a good version of “St. James Infirmary” on Decca in late 1964, but after its failure moved to Pye for the rest of their meager recorded output, which included a bizarre, ill-chosen cover of the My Fair Lady standard “I Could Have Danced All Night.” Drummer Henry Harrison joined the New Vaudeville Band (“Winchester Cathedral”), an act which could have been hardly any more of a polar opposite from his previous group.
[They had an] appealingly grimy British R&B stance.
Vintage Vinyl opines that the Cops ‘n Robbers was a “[s]trange group, their . . . . Their B sides strong, but the A sides Suck… [T]he A side [to ‘I’ve Found Out’] is Dylan’s ‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue’ . . . a clunky version, much better versions than this.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvybezASxLk)
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[“Junkie John” came from Penrod, an album that was] an enigmatic mixture of psychedelia, early singer-songwriter moves, almost crooning troubadour folk, baroque classical influences, and inventively florid arrangements and orchestration. . . . Perhaps the standout cut . . . is the seven-and-a-half-minute “Junkie John,” a brooding downbeat tale set against haunting funereal organ, wailing backup vocals, and a languid yet mordant jazzy groove.
But, as Dawe rued, “Junkie John was getting nationwide airplay until the FCC sent around its infamous notice to radio stations essentially banning all songs dealing with drugs.” (https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/penrod.html)
Dawe reminisced:
Zappa was my mentor. My first album, PENROD, was released on Straight Records in late 1969. Those were heady times. We were going to change the world. Herb Cohen managed my band, Zappa executive produced. Read Zappa’s last interview in Playboy. Straight Records was going to be the first of many great independant labels that would change the music business forever. As we know, that didn’t happen. But Zappa tried. Visions of Nirvana. His vision was smothered by the mega record companies and a paranoid government. . . . But I had a great fifteen minutes while it lasted. Thanks to Frank. Later I did other things, musical and otherwise. . . . Help keep Frank alive . . . .
Had he recorded his best-known tune, “Junkie John,” a few months earlier, Tim Dawe . . . might have been a star. . . . [I]t had begun getting radio airplay when the FCC began to crack down on drug-oriented recordings. Stations stopped playing the single, while Dawe faded quickly into obscurity. An early member of Iron Butterfly, Dawe was managed by Frank Zappa’s manager, Herb Greene. His debut album, Penrod, released on Zappa’s label, Straight-Warner Bros., in November 1969, was produced by one-time Lovin’ Spoonful member Jerry Yester. Zappa served as executive producer. Dawe had a long relationship with San Francisco band It’s a Beautiful Day [see #56].
Timothy Thorne Dawe was a theoretical nuclear physicist who in his youth dabbled in experimental rock music. His 1969 album Penrod featured a psychedelic-inclined, jazz-steeped, semi-orchestral freak folk band . . . . Dawe at the time was mainly playing solo folk clubs around LA and northern San Diego circa 1968-1969 . . . . The harpsichord-heavy LP was produced by former Lovin’ Spoonful guitarist Jerry Yester, who’d produced Cohen’s client Tim Buckley for the label and would also produce the first album by former San Diegan Tom Waits . . . . Zappa executive-produced the album. The band was signed under the name Penrod to Herb Cohen’s management company, and they were among the first bands signed to Straight/Bizarre . . . . [T]he seven-plus minute “Junkie John,” received occasional underground radio play and was notable for incorporating early synth electronics, but its length and subject matter kept it from widespread exposure, especially after the FCC essentially banned radio stations from playing music that overtly referenced illegal drugs. . . .
[Dawe later] become a physics professor . . . . As of 2010 [Dawe passed away in 2016], he was teaching physics at City College of San Francisco. “He’s an old hippie and will play guitar if you ask,” wrote one of his CCSF students on the RateMyProfessor.com website, “and he has found that each planet lies along the same intervals as nodes on a guitar soundwave.”
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
874) Tina & David Meltzer — “Hungry”
Yesterday I featured a lovely song off of Serpent Power’s sole LP, and today we turn to Tina & David’s solo LP, not 69’s Poet Song, but rather the one that stayed in the can for decades. “Hungry” is a rollicking romp about being hungry . . . . “all your life”. As Eileen Hack says, it is a “[w]ry, raga-infused track from Green Morning, an album recorded in 1969 which was never released. Gentle, bittersweet psychedelic-tinged folk-rock tunes.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SwXMyHVTk4)
“I’m standing before the supermarket drooling on my shoe . . . .”
Patrick Lundborg adds:
An obscure follow-up to the Serpent Power LP by the main duo . . . . is an unreleased album from the Meltzers . . . recorded at substantial cost for Capitol in 1970, but due to producer Vic Briggs getting fired shortly after, it never went beyond the acetate stage. Green Morning continues the path from Poet Song, but favors the rock music over David’s poetry readings . . . . Clearly superior to Poet Song, [it] must rank as one of the best unreleased albums cut by anyone in 1970, and will dazzle any fan of the Meltzers’ earlier album.
The Acid Archives: The Second Edition
John McMurtrie wrote of David Meltzer upon his death that:
Fellow Bay Area Beat poet Diane di Prima called Mr. Meltzer “one of the secret treasures on our planet. Great poet, musician, comic; mystic unsurpassed, performer with few peers.” His friends Greg and Keiko Levasseur wrote . . . that “We have lost a great poet, scholar, musician, and jazz historian.[“]… Mr. Meltzer wrote more than 40 volumes of poetry . . . . Lawrence Ferlinghetti . . . wrote that Mr. Meltzer was “one of the greats of post-World War II San Francisco poets and musicians. He brought music to poetry and poetry to music!”
Raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Meltzer got an early start as an artist; he entered a competition at age 11 with a poem about the New York subway system. “I owe my own fluency with language to Brooklyn,” Mr. Meltzer said . . . . “Everyone talked about everything, from the Dodgers to the revolution.” . . . Pushed into exile in California,” as he put it, living “as an alienated teen in L.A.,” Mr. Meltzer met artists who fueled his creativity. By age 20, he was recording poetry with jazz musicians in Los Angeles…. [He] was the youngest poet to be featured in Donald Allen’s anthology “The New American Poetry, 1945-1960.” He also wrote fiction. “I wrote 10 novels for a company run by gangsters,” Mr. Meltzer told The Chronicle. “The books were pornographic and political, too. I call them ‘agit-smut.’ … From 1977 to 2007, he taught in the Humanities and Graduate Poetics programs at the New College of California in San Francisco.
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Think of the Serpent Power as the Bay Area’s version of the Velvet Underground. Led by poet David Meltzer, with Meltzer on untutored post-folk guitar, Meltzer and his wife, Tina, singing his songs . . . their music was minimalist folk rock with noise . . . . Some songs began as poems, others didn’t, but all feature notable lyrics – some romantic, some gruff, some both. And all but a few are graced by excellent tunes . . . .
Fronted by San Franciscan poet David Meltzer, the Serpent Power was a sunshiny folk-rock group, whose songs were musical translations of Meltzer’s poetry. They were first noticed by Ed Denton, manager of Country Joe and the Fish, when he saw them perform at their first-ever gig, a benefit for the Telegraph Neighborhood Center. This was in November of 1966 — Denton recommended them to Vanguard Records (Country Joe’s label) and by 1967 the band was signed and had released their first and only album. The Serpent Power was formed by Meltzer and his wife Tina (who sang both lead and harmony vocals). . . . The album . . . received a somewhat limited pressing and, despite featuring some excellent examples of folk-rock, the band never got that big, known mostly within the San Francisco area. . . . Although they continued reaching in ever-more exploratory directions, the band didn’t record another album, and disbanded in 1968. David and Tina Meltzer went on to record another album, Poet’s Song, under their own names.
The Serpent Power is a good example of the ways in which the “San Francisco sound” had coalesced into a recognizable trend by 1967: music set to beat poetry, a combination of bluesier rockers and wispy, folk-influenced tunes with male and female harmonies, and meditations about drugs all date the album somewhat, but the songs themselves are quite good, with excellent band interplay and nice electric guitar work. The heavier songs pack a good punch, while the lighter songs set a very airy, flowing mood, the epitome of what was then becoming known as “flower power”.
An interesting link with San Francisco’s bohemian past, David Meltzer was a published beat poet, boasting a rare spoken word/jazz album recorded . . . in 1959. In addition, he and his wife Tina had exposure to the North Beach folk scene of the early 1960s. A distinct folkish quality was therefore audible within Meltzer’s compositions, prompting the formation of an electric band, The Serpent Power — after the yogic concept of Kundalini — in the fall of 1966. . . . The Serpent Power was around long enough to record an [album] for Vanguard . . . . The group had a strong melodic sensibility, showcased especially on those tracks sung by Tina . . . . Not longer after the album came out in July 1967, however, the personnel that had recorded it broke up, and with 1969’s Poet Song the Meltzers reappeared as a duo only.
liner notes to the CD comp Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets: 1965-1970
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
872) George Harrison — “I Don’t Want to Do It”
Bob Dylan wrote but never recorded this “lost gem” (Andrew Grant Jackson, https://solobeatles.com/2015/06/02/harrison-revives-an-unfinished-gem-by-dylan/) about not wanting to go on the road and leave his family. Dylan gave it to George Harrison, who demoed the song during the All Things Must Pass sessions. Harrison didn’t record and release an official version until the pre-Cloud Nine 80’s, when it was added to the soundtrack of the cinematic classic Porky’s Revenge! I’m not making this up!
Tony Attwood explains:
“I Don’t Want to Do It” was written by Dylan after “I threw it all away” in 1968 and was seemingly given to George Harrison who demoed it for “All things must pass” but then passed up on it. However although Dylan did not record it Harrison returned to [“It”] later and recorded the song again in 1984 and released it in 1985. The song was produced by Dave Edmunds . . . . It was the only song Harrison released between 1982 and 1987. Dave Edmunds’ involvement came about because he was helping to select the music for the soundtrack of the film, Porky’s Revenge! (itself a sequel to “Porky’s”) and this movie then contained the song. The version of the song released as a single is different from the version heard in the movie but in both cases the vocal harmonies as well as the lead vocal are performed by Harrison. . . . It has been suggested that Dylan was writing about leaving his wife and young family in order to go touring, and the fact of being torn between the two – as we now know he stayed at home.
About that soundtrack, Stephen Thomas Erlewine muses:
Who knows what Dave Edmunds was thinking when he agreed to produce and assemble the soundtrack to 1985’s Porky’s Revenge! It’s easier to see the motives of the movie’s producers — they were flush with cash after two successful teen-sex comedies set in the ’50s, and who would be better to create a new soundtrack of old-time rock & roll than Edmunds, who was not only well-known for his retro-rock, but was riding a wave of popularity . . . . That makes sense. What boggles the mind is that Edmunds, after accepting the job, decided to treat this soundtrack — which, let’s remember, is the second sequel to a film best known for a scene of horny teenage boys spying on the girls in a gym shower and for a female character called “Lassie” who howls like a dog during orgasm — as a prestige project, recruiting such superstars as George Harrison, Carl Perkins, Jeff Beck, Willie Nelson, and Robert Plant (performing under the Crawling King Snakes moniker with Phil Collins on drums!), along with the up-and-coming, Fabulous Thunderbirds, to record new material for this exploitation film! And they agreed to do it! Most amazingly of all, they wound up with a neat little record, something that’s far more fun than the accompanying film. Edmunds keeps it simple here, never straying from his own aesthetic of modernizing classic rock & roll, hiring a house band and letting his guest stars do their thing. . . . [A]ll the performances are infectious . . . . [How a ] third-rate sequel like Porky’s Revenge! could produce a soundtrack this good . . . is a mystery for the ages.
[“It”] was written by Bob Dylan circa 1970 but never recorded by him. Harrison laid down an acoustic demo during the All Things Must Pass sessions. Structurally, the song was pretty much in place then, but Harrison dropped it for fourteen years. Out of nowhere, [“]It” was revived through the prodding of Dave Edmunds. . . . commissioned to put together the soundtrack of the ignominious Porky’s Revenge (1985), sequel to Porky’s (1982), which, along with Animal House (1978) instigated the ’80s wave of raunchy teen sex comedies. Edmunds did his own songs for the movie and also got others to contribute. Somehow it was decided to revive Dylan’s understated, melancholy composition for the occasion [which] has a unique place in Harrison’s oeuvre, with a sound different from any other period. It’s a little more rich, deep, and organic than Gone Troppo and without the pop sheen of 1987’s Cloud Nine. The piano matches the poignancy of the lyrics, accompanied by an organ, perhaps in honor of Dylan’s mid-sixties classics. . . . It’s too bad this very appealing sound with Edmunds was a one-off. Dylan’s lyrics are unusually generic and seem to be not quite finished, which could be why he never released it. It opens with the singer wishing he could have another day of youth, back when he knew what was true and all he had to do was play in the yard. It was probably written in the late ’60s by Dylan when he was under pressure to resume touring, which would mean leaving his wife and young children, now playing in the yard themselves. The singer takes his woman into his arms and reassures her he doesn’t want to make her cry by saying goodbye. Ultimately Dylan decided not to leave his home and family for another half decade. Harrison could certainly relate, as this was the only song he released in the five years between 1982’s Gone Troppo and 1987’s Cloud Nine, except for a few songs for the movie Shanghai Surprise (1986).
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
871) Nick Garrie — “Stephanie City”
Another song about a prostitute (see #41) by Nick Garrie (see also #3, 19, 65, 104, 137, 245, 362, 493), unforgettable, wry and delightful. The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas is one of the great lost albums of the 60’s. If Nick’s French record company’s owner hadn’t committed suicide on the eve of Stanislas’s release, who knows what might have been. Stunning songs — I was transfixed the first time I heard them and I have been a huge fan of Nick and his music ever since. My wife indulged me when I turned 50 and we made a pilgrimage to Gstaad, Switzerland to meet Nick and hear him perform at a ski lodge. He tried to teach me to ski properly, but told my wife I was a lost cause! Oh, and I later learned that Madonna was in Gstaad at the same time!
John Clarkson writes:
Nick Garrie’s 1969 album, ‘The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas’, is now seen to be a psychedelic folk/pop masterpiece. It has, however, only recently gained this reputation and for over thirty five years was largely unheard. The son of a Russian father and Scottish mother, Garrie’s early years were divided between Paris, where his Egyptian stepfather worked as a diplomat, and Norwich, where he attended a boarding school. He recorded ‘The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas’ at the age of twenty in Paris with Eddie Vartan, who was a then fashionable French producer and the brother of the actress Sylvie Vartan. Garrie originally intended the album to have a sparser sound, but when he turned up at the studio on the first day of recording he found that Vartan had employed a 56-piece orchestra to expand on his more tender arrangements. The finished result is a compelling oddity and merges together Garrie’s wistful melodies and often abstract lyrics with Vartan’s colourfully extravagant orchestrations. It is . . . much deserved of the cult status it has since come to gain. Lucien Morrisse, the owner of Disc AZ, Garrie’s record label, committed suicide before ‘The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas’ was ever released and for years it languished in obscurity, eventually starting to attract fan interest when tracks from it began to leak onto the internet. . . . only finally s[eeing] official release when it came out on CD on Rev-Ola Records in 2004. . . .
Here are excerpts from a vintage interview (2010) that Clarkson conducted with Nick:
JC: What did you feel troubled about when you were writing ‘Stanislas’?
NG: I wrote most of it when I was between nineteen and twenty. I was at Warwick University at the time, but I had spent so much of my life living in France that I had been called up for the French army as a national. Although I was eventually released from it, for a year I couldn’t go in to France and so I was essentially homeless.
. . . .
JC: The suicide of Lucien Morrisse led to ‘The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas’ remaining unheard for over three decades. Even before he died, you, however, imply again in your autobiography that Disc AZ didn’t know quite what to do with you and how to promote you. Do you think that too was a factor in ‘Stanislas’ remaining undiscovered for so long?
NG: Absolutely, because it was never released at all. It was not as if it came out. No one ever heard it. I would go in to see them. We would talk about it. They would say that it would be in the shops next month and it never was. It went on like that for about six months, at the end of which I had had enough. To be honest as well at that stage I didn’t really like it much either. I didn’t like the arrangements, so after his suicide I gave a couple of copies to my stepfather and for me it was finished. I didn’t listen to it again or even really talk about much for years.
JC: How do you think it stands up now? Do you like it better?
NG: I do like it now, but I still don’t hear it through everybody’s ears. I have had a lot of correspondence with people who really love it, people from all over the world who say how much it has moved them, so it seems a bit churlish to say now that I didn’t really like it. They were songs, however, that I didn’t really recognise at the recording stage and again for a long time afterwards. . . .
JC: There is the story about Eddie Varden introducing you to a fifty six piece orchestra which you didn’t know about until you turned up at the studio. What did you expect the songs to sound like? Were they going to be just you and your acoustic guitar or were they going to involve a band?
NG: . . . . I knew that it wouldn’t be my guitar work because I wasn’t a good enough guitarist. I am still not, but I suspected that would be the basis of it. The first song that I started recording was ‘Stanislas’. I had no idea that was what we were playing though. [Eddie] would shove me in the booth and prompt me when and what I had to sing. He was using these mainly classical musicians who were all wearing cardigans and who didn’t think much of me anyway because I was a pop artist. But having said that he was really, really nice and was in many a sort of uncle or father figure to me.
JC: It seems that you had quite an odd relationship with him really because at one level he was very praising and told you that he thought that you would be the next Bob Dylan, but at another level he would do something like that and not tell you what was going on.
NG: I realised years afterwards that it was a terrific investment for them, this orchestra playing for two weeks with this guy who completely unknown completely unknown. I just never expected it and didn’t feel in a position to say very much about it. I think as well that it was just the way it was in those days. . . .
JC: How did ‘The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas’ gain it audience? Do you know ?
NG: I had just started teaching when I found out about it. I had done a PGCE course late in life and I typed in Nick Garrie as a joke because I hadn’t used the name since ‘Stanislas’ and I couldn’t believe it when there was all these pages on it. I don’t know for sure, but I believe there was a company called Acid Ray who were in Korea and they must have bootlegged some tapes as they put out a compilation album called ‘Band Caruso’ with ‘Wheel of Fortune’ on it. I think that was the first thing on the web and it did quite well, so that is probably how the name got about. Things went from there.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
870) Perpetual Langley — “Surrender”
How was this ’66 A-side not a hit?! It is a “rare R&B treat”, “sung . . . with raw passion” (Joe Marchese, https://theseconddisc.com/2017/07/07/anyway-anyhow-anywhere-ace-collects-shel-talmy-productions-from-the-who-david-bowie-more/) by a teenager from Belfast named Perpetual Langley (real name: Mary Langley). And the song is an early composition by Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson and Joshie Armstead! Well, it was a hit — half a decade later in revised form by Diana Ross (#38, #16 R&B and #10 in the UK). It was also done by the Carrolls from Liverpool.
Oh, and it was produced by Shel Talmy, who gave “it a perfect New York girl-group treatment”. (Richard Williams, https://thebluemoment.com/tag/perpetual-langley/) As to Talmy, Williams goes on:
Of the handful of Americans who landed in the UK in the 1960s to try and reverse the tide of the British Invasion, none had a more profound impact than Shel Talmy. A 25-year-old studio engineer with virtually no experience as a record producer but with a handful of Beach Boys and Lou Rawls acetates given to him by his mentor, Nik Venet, in order to persuade prospective employers of his bona fides, Talmy arrived from California in the summer of 1962. Dick Rowe, Decca’s A&R chief, was impressed enough to assign him to work with the Bachelors. It wasn’t really his idea of pop music, but when “Charmaine” was a hit, he was on his way. And after that came a handful of sessions that changed the way British pop records sounded. Talmy had worked as a studio engineer in Hollywood, miking up the Wrecking Crew. He knew how to make records that didn’t sound as though the desks were being manned by men in lab coats who regarded distortion as a form of heresy. The results, when he was let loose on a new generation of English bands, included the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”, “All Day and All of the Night” and “Tired of Waiting for You”, and the Who’s “I Can’t Explain”, “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” and “My Generation”. He knew how to use session men like Jimmy Page and Nicky Hopkins while retaining the raw energy that characterised the young bands in their club appearances.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
869) Rare Earth — “Long Time Leavin'”
Chris Rizik perfectly sums up Rare Earth in one extraordinary sentence: “Whereas a number of white acts spent the 50s stealing hit blues and soul songs and sanitizing them for pop audiences, Rare Earth largely made a career out of taking hit Motown songs and giving them an even funkier rock sound – and doing it as Motown’s first major white act.” (https://www.soultracks.com/rare_earth.htm) “Long Time Leavin'”, from their ’70 album Ecology is a perfect melding of rock, soul, and funk. Wikipedia says — without attribution to anybody, that:
“Long Time Leavin” was similar in feel to Crosby, Stills & Nash’ [s] “Long Time Gone” [I can see that — but only for the first 25 seconds of “Long Time Gone”!] and received a fair amount of attention on the newly burgeoning FM radio format. This succeeded in giving the band further credibility. Ever since 1967, the Summer of Love, songs like . . . “Long Time Leavin'” were descriptive of the nomadic teen and college youth culture sweeping across the United States and Europe. This gave the album contemporary gravitas. Ecology was possibly Rare Earth’s most consistent album, showing the band at the height of their artistry and credibility.
Rare Earth’s music straddles genres and defies categorisation, slipping seamlessly between the two seemingly disparate worlds of classic rock and R&B. This careful balancing act is a rarity even now, and was a near impossibility in the colour-segregated 60s when Rare Earth began their journey. . . . “When we first started playing, Motown Records . . . had the radio locked up, especially here in Detroit,” says [saxophonist Gil] Bridges. “That’s what we were listening to when we started out, that was our roots. That’s where the R&B came from. People were astounded that a white group could play black music, but that’s where we learned. That’s what we loved, listened to and played. Later on we had to deal with that kind of stuff – “You guys sound too white on this record” – but we never even thought of that back then. We just loved the music.”
In the beginning they were The Sunliners, a teenage garage band [see #400]. And, frankly, they were kind of square. They formed in 1960 and gigged around Detroit for eight years; they were local heroes, but had yet to make an impact outside the city. Then, in 1968, the ‘dawning of the age of Aquarius’ hit. And The Sunliners decided it was time for a change. “There was a radical shift in the music,” Bridges remembers. “Bands had these crazy names like Iron Butterfly all of a sudden. ‘The Sunliners’ just wasn’t making it any more.” They changed their name, choosing Rare Earth because it sounded significantly ‘with it’. The change worked, and the band were soon signed to Verve Records who released their debut album, Dreams/Answers, in 1968. The album flopped, but Rare Earth’s reputation as one Detroit’s preeminent live bands continued to grow. . . . Rare Earth had a knack for improvisation, and could jam on a song for, literally, hours. “We hardly ever recorded anything under seven minutes long,” Bridges laughs. “We were a jam band, a street band. Some of the songs on our albums are absolute jams, we created them in the studio on the fly. We took the same approach when we played live.” Rare Earth soon caught the ear of Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records. “There were other white bands that signed to Motown prior to us,” says Bridges, “but they didn’t go anywhere because Motown had no promotion in the white market. That’s why when they approached us they told us they were starting a whole new division, one that catered exclusively to white acts. They were also planning on bringing on some British bands as well. . . . 1969’s Get Ready, a masterpiece of gritty, bluesy dance music that included covers of Traffic’s Feelin’ Alright and the Nashville Teens’ stomper Tobacco Road, and was anchored by the ecstatic title-track, a 21-minute, ode-to-joy jam on Smokey Robinson’s Motown classic that took up the whole of side two. . . . Initially, much like the band’s first album, Get Ready stalled at the gate. “The record didn’t do anything for the first six months, and we thought, ‘Uh-oh, we’ve got a dud on our hands.’ And then all of a sudden a black DJ in Washington DC spun the record. At that time, ‘album-oriented radio’ was just coming out; it wasn’t just three-minute singles any more, the DJs could play longer songs and they had the choice of what they wanted to play. “The DJs really liked our song because they could take a coffee break or go to the bathroom or whatever, because they had 20 minutes on their hands. People went wild for it in Washington and it just spread out from there. The record broke in the black market first, and the first concerts we played were to black crowds; they were all shocked and surprised when a bunch of white guys got on stage.” Eventually Get Ready caught on with white audiences as well, and the band struggled to keep their sound as open-ended as possible. Not an easy task when you’re signed to Motown. . . . The band settled in with producer Norman Whitfield, a pioneer of ‘psychedelic soul’, and together they scored another US hit in 1970 with (I Know I’m) Losing You, which had already been a hit for Motown royalty the Temptations.
Hailing from Detroit, Rare Earth were a band inspired by the Motor City’s twin legacies in hard rock and soul. Their biggest hits saw them covering classic Motown songs of the past, while their sound found a middle ground between full-bodied rhythm & blues and tough bar band rock & roll. This dichotomy was reinforced by the fact they were the only white act signed to the Motown Records organization that regularly achieved chart success, and their tight musicianship found room for them to transform their songs through extended jams . . . .
Motown Records . . . had little luck breaking into rock & roll, which was dominated by white acts. Motown founder Berry Gordy decided to create a subsidiary label devoted to rock bands, and was looking for a band to launch the new venture. Rare Earth’s sound, which straddled rock and R&B styles, appealed to him and he signed them; when he asked the group to help brainstorm a name for the new label, they jokingly suggested calling it Rare Earth, and Gordy took them up on the suggestion. . . . Album number four, Ecology, arrived in stores in June 1970, and produced [the] hit . . . cover of “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” while “Born to Wander” racked up significant airplay in the Midwest.
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It’s a question that has long been the subject of intense and often bitter debate: where exactly did punk rock begin? . . . Few would imagine the genre that revolutionised music was actually born at a cinema matinee in the Peruvian capital of Lima. . . . Los Saicos . . . were screaming, speeding and drinking their way to local notoriety. . . . Their signature tune, Demolición (Demolition) has been revived as an anthem for political protesters and, reportedly, for drug barons. In the Lima district of Lince, a marble plaque has been erected with the provocative claim etched in marble: “The global punk movement was born here. Demolish!!!”
Los Saicos burned brightly and briefly in the mid-60s, performing together for a few years and recording no more than a dozen songs. They were inspired by Elvis and the Beatles to play rock’n’roll but thanks to a frenetic effort to make up for a lack of training and equipment . . . with energy and attitude they ended up with a sound that was 10 years ahead of its time. . . . “There was no name for that at the time, but the riffs are definitely punk,” said José Beramendi, the producer of . . . a documentary about the band. “You expect this sound from North America or Europe, but it’s not something you expect to hear in the 1960s in Latin America.” . . .
Los Saicos were raised on a musical diet of Harry Belafonte, Peruvian criolla and classical waltzes in the conservative and hierarchical society . . . . Elvis and the Beatles changed their lives. Their early shows were at cinema matinees, where bands were hired as an extra draw for the screenings. Most groups performed covers of syrupy pop songs, but Los Saicos revved up the energy by mixing original love ballads with hoarse, souped-up tracks about prison breaks, funerals and destruction. “Compared to other bands of the time, we had a bad-boy image. They turned up with their aunts, we had girls on each arm,” recalls the drummer Pancho Guevara. They were detained several times by the police, mostly for speeding but also for taking a sledgehammer, axe and fake TNT to the railway station for a record cover photo shoot.
Guevara said the label was unimportant. “I don’t know what ‘punk’ is,” he said. “We wanted to play rock’n’roll but this is the sound that came out. I don’t know where it came from. It was just something that emerged when we started playing.”
They were together only from 1964 to 1966 in their initial run—they released only six singles and never put out an album, but their “Demolición” was the biggest hit in Peru in 1965, and they had their own national TV show while they were still active. They had a raw, garage-y sound, apparently achieved without ever hearing any authentic garage rock from America—they did, however, know about all the big British Invasion bands. Plenty of people have claimed that they really invented punk—I’m not so sure about that . . . . According to Flores, their first show in front of a posh audience was initially met with stunned silence—and then, after a pause, rapturous applause.
In 1966 they broke up. . . . After two years or so of close proximity, the four members had gotten sick of each other, and after breaking up they weren’t in contact with each other for decades. (It appears that there was no great conflict, in truth—just fatigue and a desire to move on to other matters.) Their great shouter Erwin Flores ended up moving to the Washington, DC, area, where he got a job at NASA . . . .
Chilean critic Vladimir Garay opines (courtesy of Google translate) that:
Los Saicos, the first cult band made in Peru. It was 1964 when the brothers Roberto and Rolando Carpio, Edwin Flores, Pancho Guevara and Cesar Castrillon gave life to the group that would forever change the history of Peruvian rock and why not, Latin American (and perhaps even worldwide). Los Saicos were not the first to appear, but they were the first to develop a primitive and noisy sound in these latitudes, which was accompanied by aggressive and anarchist lyrics that were shouted with adolescent violence. Without a doubt they left an indelible mark both for their contemporaries (groups no longer imitated foreign bands, they imitated Los Saicos) and for future generations. Comparable perhaps to their contemporaries The Sonics [see #230, 231], Los Saicos is one of those unique bands, which they seem ahead of their time . . . . Their songs were made forty years ago and they still sound fresh, you still feel all that dangerous energy when listening to any of their compositions and that’s something only great bands can do, those that go on to immortality. Los Saicos is one of them.
[Flores explained that] “[t]he primitive nature of our songs is something that came spontaneously out of my head. The band had no problem with assimilating and arranging it. We thought of ourselves as bad boys and that must have been a driving force.” . . . Who ever thought there could be a combo out there in Peru that would make The Sonics sound like Simon and bloody Garfunkel? There is quite possibly some other music out there, someplace, that could well make us re-address this consideration, but until then, cherish this short course of Saicotherapy.
Finally, Gaspar Vieira Neto (courtesy of Google translate): “We can be proud of having such a band here in South America, before punk emerged in England or in the United States. Long live Los Saicos, a hug here in Brazil because we love Los Saicos.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV82DU_kj94)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
867) The Original Caste — “Highway”
This ‘70 B-side to the Original Caste’s Canadian hit “Mr. Monday” (see #659) is pure pop pleasure that gives the listener a portal into the Fifth Dimension. Band founder Bruce Innis says “I wrote it for Dixie [Lee Stone] to sing, so it was probably a girl’s perspective of being on the road and wishing she was home[.]” (liner notes to the One Tin Soldier CD reissue)
Of the Caste, Betty Nygaard King writes:
The five-member band grew out of the Calgary folk trio The North Country Singers, formed in 1966 by songwriter and guitarist Bruce Innes . . . . They moved to Vancouver and added the singer Dixie Lee Stone . . , who married Innes. After playing western Canadian and US coffeehouses and resorts, in 1969 they signed with Bell Records, adopted a pop sound, and changed their name to The Original Caste.* Their first release with Bell was the 1969 pop LP The Original Caste . . , from which the moralistic tale “One Tin Soldier” (written by US producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter [who produced Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy”]) became a No. 1 gold record in Canada and Japan, was No. 1 in several US cities, and reached No. 34 on the US Billboard charts in 1970.** Also from this album, “Mr Monday” hit No. 3 on the CHUM charts in May 1970, was No. 1 in Japan, and sold over 2 million copies. At their peak, the band was based in Los Angeles. They toured North America and Japan, performed with Glen Campbell and B.B. King, and made television appearances . . . . After the band’s dissolution in 1972, Bruce and Dixie Lee Innes continued to perform as The Original Caste, releasing the country-influenced album Back Home [in 1974] . . . .
* Bruce Innes: “Someone at Dot records . . . presented us with three or four different names. It’s hard to imagine that it seemed the least stupid now, but that did seem the least stupid at the time.” (liner notes to the One Tin Soldier CD reissue)
** Bill Dahl notes that the Caste “saw an inferior cover inserted into the soundtrack of the ’71 movie smash Billy Jack. . . . [Bruce Innes recalls that “w]e were pretty good friends with Tom Laughlin . . . . [W]hen he was cutting Billy Jack together, he’d just play our album. But somehow our management team and he couldn’t get it figured out, so he ended up just hiring another producer and getting that band Coven . . . and recut it.” (liner notes to the One Tin Soldier CD reissue)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
866)The Dovers — “What Am I Gonna Do”
This is a song in “the pantheon of sixties garage rock classics. . . . [f]ew tracks of the decade are so plaintively innocent, and almost none are so perfect.” (Matt Ryan, http://strangecurrenciesmusic.com/on-distant-stations-the-dovers/) Its “seductive melodies and writer Tim Granada’s quavering, emotional vocals re-encased in a vibrant, Spector-esque production . . . elevate the single from mere pop jangle into something positively transcendent”, and it “became a big hit in Santa Barbara and Ventura County”. (Mike Stax, liner notes to the Nuggets CD comp)
Matt Ryan puts it atop the Nuggets heap:
Nestled among scuzzy Stones knock-offs and nascent punk sides, “What Am I Going To Do” is a breath of fresh air – practically ethereal in comparison to what surrounds it. Led by a simple 12-string guitar riff, and punctuated by a (Wurlitzer?) organ embellishment, it is easily one of the most appealing songs on a truly indispensable set. . . . [with a] uniquely atmospheric sound.
The Dovers (see #386) were Santa Barbara garage greats — “a group everyone agrees should’ve been big stars. Their four [’65-’66] singles are classics one and all. Yet, although one was picked up for national release by Reprise, nothing came of it . . . .” (liner notes to the Pebbles comp, Vol. 8: Southern California 1)
Richie Unterberger writes that:
The[y] are rightly revered among collectors for having released a few of the finest obscure pop-oriented singles in the ’60s garage rock style. . . . The best of the songs [including] “What Am I Going to Do” — were all among the best such singles to combine heavily Beatles/Byrds-influenced guitars, melodies, and vocals with a distinctively self-pitying teen garage sullenness.
Few groups from any era have managed to leave behind so much brilliant music yet remain so shrouded in mystery. Formed in Santa Barbara, California, in 1964, the Dovers had several members who had been in an earlier band called the Vandells, which dated back to ’61. . . . The Dovers quickly developed an original, hauntingly melodic sound.
liner notes to the Nuggets CD comp
Matt Ryan tells us:
By 1964, the[ Dovers] had been joined by Tim Granada (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Robbie Ladewig (bass), the latter of whom convinced a friend, Tony Cary, to act as the group’s manager/producer. It was Cary who chose the name The Dovers, suggesting that its “British” sound would play well in the wake of the British Invasion.
Granada [recalled] that they were mobbed during a performance in Fresno, such was their popularity. At the time of the interview, the Dovers were riding high with a regional hit record, “She’s Gone,” that was getting regular air play throughout California, especially in the Los Angeles market. He was hoping the Dovers would have enough material to put out an album soon. His, and the band’s newfound popularity, meant long hours of practice and songwriting. “As long as people enjoy my music, I don’t mind all the work I put into it,” said Granada. The Dovers’ time in the limelight, unfortunately, was short-lived, not lasting even a year. In-fighting and drug use short-circuited their path to fame.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
865) The Kinks — “Mr. Pleasant”
This “[i]nsanely catchy Music Hall whimsy” (Thomas Martinussen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwpJGewUyYk) by the Kinks (see #100, 381, 417, 450, 508, 529, 606, 623, 753) displays Ray Davies “penchant for sarcasm. Even before the end of the song, with all those weird chord changes, it sets about a rather cloudy feeling, which really tells you something isn’t right.” (Elirosen1391, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwpJGewUyYk) The ’67 A-side reached #80 in the U.S. and was only released as a B-side in the UK months later.
Anorak Thing writes that:
Like most of their ’66-’68 material it was incredibly “too English” in the words of one scribe to make any impact in the U.S. T he lyrics are another brilliant Ray Davies exercise in people watching, this time our protagonist is a well to do guy who has everything he could want but his money and popularity mean nothing because he has a cheating wife. It’s all very un-1967 style with bar room piano and mild brass farting along giving it a neo-Edwardian feel (session piano player Nicky Hopkins would later cut his own version with whistling instead of singing coming across as an odd companion for Whistling Jack Smith).
Musically, Nicky Hopkin’s OWNS this track. To say piano features prominently in this song is like saying a string quartet merely gives Eleanor Rigby texture. No, this would be a completely different song without that Western Saloon road house piano feel. If they edited out the guitar intro and the trombone flourishes it would still be the same song, but you could never lose the keys without this becoming something else. Could Ray or [Shel] Talmy have conceptualized this any other way? Nicky deserves a “Get Back featuring Billy Preston”-like credit on this one. . . . Leave it to Ray to juxtapose that kind of 1890’s musical imagery with lyrical imagery that suggests mid-20th century Mister button-down conformist business suit.
The single was recorded, and then pressed up, at least at the “Advance Promo” stage, by Pye for the UK.
It was gonna be the next single. Then Ray wrote and recorded “Waterloo Sunset.” This was such an obviously more important song, and Pye felt it had so much more commercial potential, that the label decided to skip “Mr. Pleasant” for the British market, to give the best chance to the new song. . . . But they had all these advanced promo records pressed and ready to go. So those ones were sent to Denmark and mixed in with those already pressed up for the Danish market:
The following is from Doug Hinman’s book. I think we now know that it was released in many more places than just the Netherlands. Turkey, Greece, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Italy. In the US with “Harry Rag” as the B-Side:
Kinks ’67 – April – Friday 21st
Mister Pleasant” / “This Is Where I Belong” single briefly planned for UK release is instead released in The Netherlands. Plans for the British release are apparently advanced enough that copies have been pressed ready for sale, but once “Waterloo Sunset” appears as a contender it is decided to hold back UK release and export copies instead to sell on the Continent – where it becomes hugely popular.
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Steve Simels says of “Going to the Country” — no, not the Steve Miller Band song! — that:
My new favorite song. . . . [is the] hilarious and oddly haunting “Going to the Country.” Featuring acoustic lead guitar by Ry Cooder and genuinely astounding piano work by the late great Larry Knechtel. “Sock it to me, rock it to me, Periwinkle Blue…nicest knockers this side of Malibu…” . . . . [It] simply slays me, especially that single note bass-line climb at the end of every verse.
Of the album — Pilgrim’s Progress — from which it comes, Simels says:
Despite the stellar personnel, the album was originally released on Hogfat Records, which must have been either a vanity label or the least heralded indie imprint in rock history. . . . The album itself is uneven; as somebody over at Redtelephone66 said, some of it sounds like Levine was trying to make the greatest rock record of all time and some of it sounds like he was just goofing around with some friends.
Songwriter Mark Levine was hanging out with some cool cats at the time, including a bunch of West Coast show biz heavyweights. Studio pros Mike Deasy, Larry Knechtel and Joe Osborn — all members of the fabled, A-list “Wrecking Crew” — anchor these loose-limbed psychefolkedlic sessions, along with drummer Toxey French and . . . roots music superpicker Ry Cooder, who was just finding his legs in the LA music scene, and a couple of years away from busting out as a solo artist.
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[Embryo’s debut album Opal is o]ne of those historically important albums, one of those that made Germany the third force in 70’s rock after UK and US and second in prog (after UK and before Italy and France kicked in). . . . Embryo became internationally reknowned for their particularly free and ever inventive jazz-rock often tainted with world music . . . . Christian Burchard is of course one of the founding members of Amon Duul II but also the leader in this band.
Embryo’s almost more of a jazz fusion combo than a progressive rock . . . . This record’s maybe a bit more down to earth, with slightly shorter songs and more focus on fuzzy guitars – yet the overall approach still points to the skies with a really well-fused sort of energy, and this strong sense of imagination that really packs a lot into a small amount of space.
Jean Jacques Perez expands (into the ether, courtesy of Google translate):
One of the emblematic figures of the German progressive scene, between krautrock and jazz rock and even ethnic music. . . . Far from commercial pressures, EMBRYO will allow itself great musical freedom.
Created in Munich in 1969, the group . . . . quickly entered the studio to publish its first album entitled Opal on the Ohr label the following year. . . . [which] unveil[s] a strange and experimental album of jazz influence with a good dose of psychedelia, rock, blues and soul. Let’s call it kraut-jazz.
Starting with the eponymous title, the disc goes into a crazy rhythm’s & blues where the violin immerses us in a disturbing and hypnotic atmosphere, reinforced by a guitar under acid and heavy. . . . a dazzling and fascinating moment of music which explodes in our face and invades our brains with a trance that takes our temples by the fingers. EMBRYO . . . showed that Germany was the third producing force in pop, behind the USA and England.
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Had it been up to the band, OTM wouldn’t have been the A-side. Drummer Jimmy Walker explains:
We didn’t want “One Track Mind” to be the follow-up. [Guitarist] Beau [Charles] had written another song called “Just One Girl”[, which] was similar to “Lies”. It was in the same key. It was the same voice, voicing as far as the harmonies went. It was a real exciting song. We thought we did a real good job on the recording of it, but the record company again second-guessing us, put out “One Track Mind”. It was a good song. We did a good job on the record and it did fairly well. I still wonder if “Just One Girl” had been released, had it been better received… That’s what we wanted to do. It had been written by one of the members of the band. We wanted to write our own material. We didn’t want to do other people’s stuff.
One Track Mind” was a hit in Vancouver that peaked at #6. . . . It climbed to #8 in San Antonio, Texas, but stalled in the upper reaches of the Top 30 or Top 40 where it got any airplay in America. Unfortunately, the Knickerbockers label, Challenge Records, mishandled the distribution for the single. The outcome was “One Track Mind” got stuck at position #45 on the Billboard charts and #52 on the Cashbox Record chart that calculated record sales. With “One Track Mind” and “Lies” rumors were spreading that The Beatles had actually released these two singles under a pseudonym. AM Top 40 radio stations would play a Knickerbockers disc and then play a Beatles disc in the winter of 1965 and spring of 1966 and ask listeners to phone in their comments.
He then takes maybe too deep a dive into the song:
“One Track Mind” is about a guy who is hung up on his ex-girlfriend. She’s all he can think about and he refuses to consider anyone could ever take her place. He’s been crying and won’t believe that she’s actually left him. In fact, he wants those around him to confirm that she hasn’t left him. He wants others to tell him what to do. But it’s likely anyone who knows him, given the state of denial he’s in, knows he only wants to be reassured that she hasn’t actually left him. His request to have “somebody please tell me what to do,” is most likely going to result in an argument should anyone suggest he move on and find someone new. He’s making it clear to others if they offer that another will take his ex-girlfriend’s place that he will not have any of it. After all, as the singer admits, he’s got a one track mind. So his friends better take note that he only wants to hear what he wants to hear.
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[D]uring the 1969 split between . . . Robin Gibb and his two brothers . . . . Maurice Gibb did begin work on a solo LP, and released a single, “Railroad,” co-authored by Billy Lawrie, a songwriter and singer, and also the brother of the British pop/rock legend Lulu, who became Maurice’s wife in 1969. Gibb handled all of the vocals on the single, covering the high harmonies and the lead in a manner that was impossible not to compare with the Bee Gees — he later described it as “anticlimactic” . . . but he did begin work on a solo LP to have been called “The Loner.”
[When told by Roxborogh that “Railroad is one of my all time favourite songs”, Maurice responded] “I’m glad somebody liked it!” Maurice cracked up as he said this, laughing at the fact his debut solo single from April 1970 had flopped all over the world. Well, not entirely, because unknown probably to even the man himself, Railroad had done well in Southeast Asia, charting as high as #6 in Malaysia and #9 in Singapore. Still, it was hardly enough to ignite significant transatlantic interest in him as an entity separate to the Bee Gees. Confusing matters further was that Railroad’s release inexplicably coincided with I.O.I.O – the latest single [see #594] from the two-man, Barry and Maurice incarnation of the Bee Gees. With Robin having quit the band in 1969, and Barry and Maurice working on solo projects in conjunction with the spluttering continuation of “the Bee Gees”, most people thought it was over for one of the biggest, most creative bands to emerge in the late 60s. And yet I.O.I.O’s success across Europe, Asia and Australasia showed there was still a commercial appreciation out there for the Gibbs, and by the end of 1970 all three of the brothers would reunite . . . . Railroad was an absolutely sensational little song, even if it initially slipped through the cracks. . . . It was the violins on Railroad’s chorus that first got me. The song was playing on our car stereo and that six-second violin line that starts at the 59-second mark and goes through until 1:05 made my ears prick. What a hook. And I loved how the vocals were kind of buried within that orchestral hook. I turned the volume up and I’ve been addicted ever since. The quiet intro, the quiet outro, the intervening verses that trot along with the kind of country-influenced Americana that Maurice and Barry adored, the deep vocals that contrast with the upper-register harmonies, the piano lines, the bass run and wobble at the 47-second mark, the extra layer of strings that’s introduced at 1:33, the final repetition of the rousing chorus; this is a simple song put together extremely well.
Railroad’s lyrics – cowritten with Maurice’s then brother-in-law, Billy Lawrie (Lulu’s brother) – tell a mostly non-specified tale of someone who’s leaving – perhaps controversially – their adopted town to return to where they grew up. Once there, they’ll be back into the arms of their “woman”, as well as having the support of their family. . . . Maurice always did have the most swagger of the Gibb brothers, but “I ain’t juiced none of that glory”, is cool even by his standards. The question is though, are the lies told by the protagonist or by the people talking about him? And those lies would have to have been about the bad things he’s done if he insists he hasn’t exaggerated – or “juiced” – any of the good stuff. Unless, of course, the bad stuff is the glory and Maurice is pitching himself as some kind of loveable rogue a la Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. Which would then make “served my time” a literal reference to jail time instead of just the spending of time in another town or city chasing dreams. Like countless Gibb songs, there is a feel that surpasses the lyrics. This is a song that feels like the proud announcement of a come back, as much as a simple proclamation of coming home.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
Ah, the team of Pete Atkin and Clive James (see #263). It’s as if Gilbert and Sullivan woke up in Swinging London. And I’m not talkin’ Gilbert O’Sullivan!
Christopher Evans:
In the early ’70s, the songwriting partnership of Pete Atkin and Clive James was held in high esteem by the British music press, yet commercial success proved much more elusive. Their unique attempt to fuse the discipline and craftsmanship of Tin Pan Alley with the self-expression of rock, while refusing to accept any limitation on what constituted appropriate subject matter for lyrics, inevitably set them on a collision course with their record companies’ marketing departments. . . . James’ points of reference took in the full panoply of art, cinema, literature, and poetry, sometimes leaving his work open to accusations of being wordy and pretentious. In its own way, Atkin’s music was just as erudite, drawing on every form of popular music from show tunes through folk, jazz, and rock. . . . The pair first met in 1966 as members of the Cambridge Footlights Revue that spawned so much British comedy talent, from the satire of Beyond the Fringe to the surrealism of Monty Python. . . . James recently emigrated from Australia, was a postgraduate student, six years older than Atkin . . . .
Though they managed to finance a couple of private recordings of their earliest songs, it wasn’t until 1970 that a full-fledged record emerged in the form of Beware of the Beautiful Stranger. In fact, the album had been recorded as a collection of demos to showcase the pair’s talents as songwriters for other artists, but producer Don Paul was a friend of popular BBC DJ Kenny Everett, who took a shine to the album’s opening track and began playing it on daytime Radio 1. As a result, Philips agreed to issue the album as it stood, and Atkin’s career as a recording artist was launched. . . . [But] British record-buyers were having none of it. By the time the pair’s second album, the more rock-oriented Driving Through Mythical America, arrived in 1971, their beyond-the-mainstream status was confirmed. . . . Exhausted by all the ceaseless wrangling with RCA, Atkin went on to find a new career in radio production with the BBC, though he continued to make the odd appearance in small folk clubs. Meanwhile James quickly became one of the most familiar figures on British television, where his lacerating wit and coruscating wordplay secured him a seemingly endless sequence of programs tailored to his unique style . . . .
Atkin’s deadpan and very English voice was the perfect vehicle for James’ wryly melancholic musings, most of which focused here on an infinitely sensitive young aesthete’s quest for eternal love and his endless capacity to screw it up when he found it. . . . Musically, the album finds Atkin still in an MOR no man’s land between folk and tasteful acoustic pop, a little too eager to please and reluctant to offend. . . .
I’d sung a few of my own silly songs at [Cambridge] Footlights . . . concerts, and one day Clive simply handed me a lyric and said “Hey, sport, do you think you can do anything with this?” . . . [W]e soon started turning out songs . . . . [W]e did imagine our songs being sung famously by successful singers, which is partly what led me to organize some amateurish recordings . . . and to assemble a couple of privately-pressed LPs. The idea was to sell enough of them to unwitting friends . . . to cover the costs and use the rest as demos. . . . [T]he demo LPs did lead us in late 1969 to the publishers Essex Music [and] some proper studio sessions to record some of the songs. And those, amazingly, are the recordings you have here. . . . [The producer Don Paul was] a mate of Kenny Everett, at that time the most famous and influential DJ in the land with his Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 1. Don played him a couple of the tracks, and he . . . played them on his show several weeks running. . . . And so I became a recording artist, which hadn’t originally been the idea at all . . . . At that critical point Kenny . . . notoriously got himself sacked by the BBC for what was considered in those days to be an inexcusable and intolerable joke, something to do with the Minister of Transport’s wife having just passed her driving test. . . . Although the album didn’t, as they used to say, trouble the charts, it did pretty well really, perhaps partly because it didn’t sound much like anything else. It might have done even better, but the trouble was it didn’t sound much like anything else.
liner notes to the CD reissue Beware of the Beautiful Stranger . . . Plus: The Songs of Pete Atkin & Clive James
858) Pete Atkin — “Girl on the Train”
Christopher Evans writes that “‘Girl on the Train’ finds ‘the leading poetic hope of the whole Planet Earth’ alone in a railway carriage with a beautiful young woman whose spiritual depth is signaled by the fact that she’s ‘reading obsolete Monsieur Verlaine.’ The poetic hope, of course, says nothing and is left ruing another lost opportunity.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/beware-of-the-beautiful-stranger-mw0000844411)
Pete Atkin informs us that:
This is the other track that Kenny Everett latched on to. Clive says that the events it describes (or a version of them — they do seem to recur) occurred on the Cambridge-to-Oxford train . . . and that the girl was in fact reading Lamartine and not Verlaine, a change made for the sake of the rhyme. Sadly, as someone pointed out . . . “Verlaine” doesn’t strictly rhyme with “train” either. The three sided knife . . . turns out to be a particularly nasty kind of stiletto . . . .
liner notes to the CD reissue Beware of the Beautiful Stranger . . . Plus: The Songs of Pete Atkin & Clive James
Clive James chimes in: “[N]othing beats the erotic charge of a beautiful woman reading a book. . . . [F]or me ‘Verlaine’ and ‘train’ still rhyme. I speak Australian French. Tant Pis.” (liner notes to the CD reissue Beware of the Beautiful Stranger . . . Plus: The Songs of Pete Atkin & Clive James)
859) Pete Atkin — “The Original Honky Tonk Night Train Blues“
Atkins recalls:
I had a phase of being fascinated by the way the likes of Jon Hendricks, King Pleasure, and Eddie Jefferson, for instance, were writing hip lyrics to improvised jazz solos, and I foolishly wondered if I might be able to do the same for Meade Lux Lewis’s Honky Tonk Train Blues. As you’ll hear if you check this against the original, I kind of ran out of (ahem) steam after about eight bars of what was in any case a fairly approximate attempt. But not wanting to waste those eight bars, I filled out the rest of the lyric, with steam engineering knowledge which I did not possess but derived from a cutaway drawing in Odham’s Modern Encyclopedia for Children, and finished the song with musical ideas nicked from just about every train blues there’s ever been. I have been told condescendingly by some unnervingly friendly steam engine enthusiasts that, apart obviously from some lamentable anthropomorphism, the song is surprisingly accurate.
liner notes to the CD reissue Beware of the Beautiful Stranger . . . Plus: The Songs of Pete Atkin & Clive James
Christopher Evans was less impressed: Atkins’ “two attempts at lyrics, however — [including] the comical memory feat of ‘The Original Honky Tonk Train Blues’ . . . suggest he was right to hand over the literary side of the operation to James.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/beware-of-the-beautiful-stranger-mw0000844411)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
John Williams (see #402, 784) was Jimmy Page’s partner in folk. As Corbin explains:
John Williams was an artist in the mold of Donovan a sort of traditional folk artist with a twist. . . . He hailed from Bedford, England, a town about 30 miles north of London, and in 1964 was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist in a band with his brother Brian known as The Authentics. . . . Jimmy [Page] met Williams when Williams was a member of The Authentics[, ] an early 60’s British pop outfit who regularly performed gigs at the famed Marquee Club in London. The group had been signed to a record deal by Jimmy’s manager Giorgio Gomelsky. Jimmy would go on to sit in with the band on a few recording sessions, even co-authoring one of their songs, a number titled “Without You”. Williams and Page soon struck up a friendship that revolved around their mutual love of folk music, and Jimmy would pass around songs written by Williams to groups he worked sessions for, notably “Little Nightingale” performed by The Mindbenders.
John Williams will probably be more famous for being the one that put together the rare 1968 Maureeny Wishfull album, a shimmering, and enchanting slab of strange folk excellence that features significant contributions from Jimmy Page, Big Jim Sullivan [see #817] and John Paul Jones. Williams was also responsible for a wonderful, more folk-blues styled, self-titled album which appeared on the Columbia label in 1967. Something, however, that will forever tie him to the then burgeoning psychedelic pop scene (albeit not in any commercially successful way) is the truly excellent single composition ‘Flowers In Your Hair’ [see #784].
I was 18 and by that time we were playing at American bases and supporting London bands such as Neil Christian & the Crusaders. That is when I first linked up with Jimmy Page who introduced us to the London scene. For two years, as The Authentics, we played regularly at the Crawdaddy and Rikki-Tik clubs, held a residency at the Marquee supporting the Yardbirds on Friday nights and did a short tour backing Sonny Boy Williamson. I had written a lot of songs by then and had recorded some with The Authentics, Julie Driscoll and Paul Samwell Smith and this seemed to interest Jimmy who contracted me to write for his publishing company and later for Immediate Records. This led to recording the “Maureeny Wishful” tracks and a number of other recordings with Jimmy, Big Jim Sullivan and John Paul Jones.
This lovely song cabooses the legendary Maureen’s Wishful album. Williams recalls that:
[I wrote] a few songs with a train theme, perhaps because my favourite recording was and still is the Elvis version of ‘Mystery Train’. I did sometimes write very quickly in the studio to match a strong guitar riff or just to make the most of any recording time left. ‘C’mon Train’, on the “Maureeny Wishful” album was written like that . . . .
It’s so loaded. The songwriting has depth but there are also so many catchy & accessible moments with simply an acoustic guitar. John Williams is singing, Big Jim Sullivan is playin guitar, and, none other than freaking JIMMY PAGE, plays guitar/sitar. . . . The songwriting is so damn beautiful, it’s crazy to me that this record kinda slipped through the cracks and is mostly unknown. . . . ‘Come on Train’ [is] such a pleasant way to close out the record.
Scott Swanson explains the saga of the album’s release:
Williams recorded two albums worth of material for Immediate, but Oldham pulled the plug — and confiscated the master tapes! Williams then signed a solo contract with EMI/Columbia, releasing a self-titled folk album and two 45s in 1967. The album contained some of the material from the Immediate sessions . . . . Meanwhile, Williams recovered some of the master tapes from “Maureeny Wishfull” project. He arranged to release 14 of the songs on a privately pressed album (supposedly limited to 300 original copies). . . . [A]ll of the songs were written by Williams. Williams quietly disappeared from the music scene in the late ’60s, and went on to work as a probation officer in Britain.
After The Authentics disbanded, largely due to John Williams burgeoning interest in folk music, Williams began to write more extensively, ultimately brought in Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan along with other noted session guitarist Vic Flick to work on an album. Williams’ brother Brian told the story of what happened once the album was completed: “My brother had written a lot of songs. Andrew Oldham took us on, and my brother wrote and recorded a double album called ‘The Maureeny Wishfull Album’ for Immediate Records. I did the cover art – but unfortunately[,] Andrew Oldham disappeared with the master tapes! John eventually got one of the master tapes back and pressed the record himself… Jimmy Page plays sitar and Vik Flic, Big Jim Sullivan . . . and all the good session artists of the time are on it. The master tape of the other album, which I’m playing on, was unfortunately never recovered.” Jimmy is credited with playing guitar as well as sitar on the album, with John Williams doing the vocal work. There isn’t any credited producer, but one can assume that Page had a large amount of input upon how the sound of the album was crafted.
Finally, Jimsue says: “I lived next door to John in 1967 and helped finance the printing and pressing of the 300 mono albums. . . . [T]he release date which I recall being early 70’s, since I didn’t have any money in 1968! . . . John had other work on a separate master tape both of which were stolen but only one got returned.” (https://forums.ledzeppelin.com/topic/19880-maureeny-wishfull-lp-how-to-teii-if-its-og-or-a-re/)
857) John William — “Train
The acetate for this stunning song was discovered a few years ago and finally released.
Lenny Helsing tells us:
“Train” really zips along at a fair pace, its solid groove and simple, yet so effective breakdown passages built around a relentless driving bass figure, and the kind of propulsive blueswailin’ guitar riff which the Yardbirds would’ve made good use of. The guitarist here was Dave King, who also wrote and played guitar on some songs that were recently found on a 1968 acetate credited to the group Spell . . . . [W]e hear a series of descriptive, scene-painting lyrics that tell of the immediate surroundings of the traveller, and continue with some musings on the probable thoughts and longings of those whom the writer is observing on this “8.39 train … never on time train”, which, we’re told, constitutes a “long and boring ride” through the endless, nameless places the train passes through.
Yes, I would have loved to hear the Yardbirds do this song! Williams recalls:
Although I recognised it straight away, I have no memory of recording ‘Train’. I love the track, particularly Dave[ King]’s guitar work. It’s clearly me singing but it was recorded many years after the “Maureeny Wishful” tracks. All the songs for “Maureeny Wishful” were written for that album and had a folk feel. When Immediate Records folded, I made the “John Williams” album with a few new songs and then left the London scene and returned to Bedford, linking up with Dave King again. It must have been Dave that encouraged me to write more songs and keep singing as I guested with his bands a few times. I recall joining him for the evening/night session that produced “Train” but other than that, I don’t recall any plan or expectation for a release. It was just an enjoyment and done to record our work together, after such a long time going our separate ways. . . . I love “Train” and I am proud of all the work I have done with Dave as I rate his sound together with all the other guitarists I have played with, including Jimmy Page, Jim Sullivan and Mick Green.
John Williams was a friend of mine from the age of 17! I played piano with his band the Authentics at the Marquee supporting the Yardbirds. John was a major influence on me and turned me on to Dylan, and many other people at the time. I have recorded with him many times since. . . . With regard to ‘Train’ it’s all a bit hazy … I think John played bass on it, but neither of us can remember the drummer.
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The Los Angeles ’60s folk-rock scene was crowded with burgeoning singer-songwriters, some of whom never became too well known or had too much of their work recorded. Two of them were Tom Campbell and Linda Albertano, who penned “2:10 Train,” recorded by the Stone Poneys with Linda Ronstadt on lead vocals on their debut album. A lot of young White singer-songwriters schooled in folk tried to write folk-blues songs in the 1960s, and often they sounded unduly derivative or immature, as if they were writing about heavy worldly-wise topics they had yet to fully experience. “2:10 Train” is an excellent exception, using the imagery of leaving on a train — common to so many folk and blues songs — as one that marks the end of a romantic relationship. Although Ronstadt was herself quite young when she sang it, she did so with reasonable conviction, though it was really the knowing world-weariness of the song itself that carried the day. As performed by the Stone Poneys, though, this wasn’t a folk song; it was folk-rock, albeit folk-rock of the milder sort, with curling, slightly questioning acoustic guitar riffs serving as the track’s engine.
Tom Campbell and Linda Albertano and I started showing our efforts to each other and collaborating in twos and threes very early in the game. This song is one that Tom and Linda wrote. I think I had something to do with its evolution musically, and I believe I filled out the copyright form, but the song has moved into its own incarnation of the folk process and has found many interpreters. The folk process refers to the natural give and take of traditional music sung and played in families and communities, and to some extent free of the influence of what was to become the corporate media. . . . Tom and Linda and I were swimming in the rich sea of collected folk music which was spilling out of our FM radios and record stores as the small labels began to navigate the market place. It was a burgeoning time, and exciting time. Some of the elements of the song are from traditional sources. The one that has most often come to mind is a very old song called “Shorty George.” It contains the line, “He’s taken all the women and left the men behind.” The idea that it referred to an engineer on a train was a connection that Tom and Linda made which got them started on their casting of the song. The train and prison connection could also be attributed to traditional songs like “The Midnight Special,” again a Lead Belly influence. For me the chords are the distinctive feature of the song. Again using ‘borrowed’ chords from related keys, the chords set the melody off in a context of unexpected notes that give it a strong bluesy character.
Paul Kerr notes that “[t]he story goes that Linda Ronstadt heard The Rising Sons [with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder] play Linda Albertino’s ‘2:10 Train’ in a club and asked them for permission to use their arrangement for her version of the song on the 1967 Stone Poneys’ album.” (https://americana-uk.com/auks-chain-gang-rising-sons-210-train)
As to the Stone Poneys, Nik opines that:
The Stone Poneys should be much more than a footnote. Forever eclipsed by Linda Ronstadt’s latter-day success, the band has found itself set down in history as little more than an early backing group for the singer – hardly a fair assessment, especially considering the strength of the material recorded by the band, of which Ronstadt was only one contributor. In fact, Poneys Ken Edwards and Bob Kimmel were remarkable singers in their own right . . . . The Poneys’ self-titled debut is perhaps their strongest statement as a band. . . . [T]he album typifies the slow and hazy L.A. sound . . . . [They were] recent Tucson immigrants with several other players on the local folk scene, most notably Tim Buckley, whose songs they would soon go on to record, and the band Hearts & Flowers, who Linda would sing with on their 1968 record Now Is the Time. . . .
Ronstadt met and performed with Bob Kimmel while in high school and after a semester of college moved to Los Angeles to form a band with him. Lead guitarist Kenny Edwards quickly joined and after playing the local club circuit, they adopted the name The Stone Poneys. They were quickly signed to the Capitol label and released their . . . debut album in January of 1967. At this point they were basically a folk group and their initial album reflected that style. While Ronstadt would quickly become the focal point of the band, this album is a group affair. Kimmel and Edwards wrote seven of the ten tracks and the vocals are shared with a great deal of harmonizing. The album was a commercial failure upon its release . . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊 