Classic Rock - Rock Renaissance

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 1989

Labels: Warner Special Products, Time Life Music

Volume 17 of a 30 volume set.

Track durations obtained from software.

Complete liner notes:

Like an adolescent who wakes up one morning to find that nothing fits and his voice has changed, rock 'n' roll music underwent rapid changes in the mid-'60s. AM radio struggled to keep pace. The British Invasion groups and assorted American garage aggregations had thrown programers for a loop, which brought a healthy confusion to the airwaves between 1964 and 1966. The Kingsmen's bar-band approach to Barrett Strong's Money showed that not everyone had given over to the Fab Four. On the other hand, I'm Gonna Love You Too, a giddy version of a Buddy Holly song by England's bleached-blond Hullaballoos, and Sugar and Spice, a Searchers remake by the Cryan' Shames from Chicago, reinforced the notion of transatlantic exchange.

However, as rock songs became longer and more topical, AM radio proved an unreliable barometer for what was really happening. Three pivotal events in 1967 helped the music break free so that it was, in a sense, reborn. On April 7th, Tom Donahue inaugurated the progressive FM radio format over KMPX in San Francisco. His heady mixture of rock, blues, folk and jazz took off, eventually sweeping the nation. In June, Capitol released the Beatles' landmark Sgt. Pepper's, an album filled with heavy tracks that even AM jocks played. And the first rock festival, held at Monterey June 16-18, gave important public exposure to Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Who and the Grateful Dead.

Jimi Hendrix, one of Monterey's showstoppers, literally set the night on fire with his exciting guitar playing and lighter-fluid antics, reminiscent of Jerry Lee Lewis' legendary piano immolation in the '50s. Although this was Hendrix's first major U.S. gig, he had kicked around for years under the name Jimmy James, backing Sam Cooke, the Isley Brothers and Little Richard, among others. Animals bassist Chas Chandler "discovered" Jimmy in New York and convinced him to move to London, where the Jimi Hendrix Experience was assembled. Fueled by the jazz drumming of Mitch Mitchell, the thunderous bass of Noel Redding and Jimi's otherworldly blues extrapolations, the Experience developed a wild stage act. "We don't always destroy our amps," Redding explained. "But if they begin to buzz or give us any trouble we do an instant repair job. . . . We kick them in."

Warner Bros. cautiously marked the tape boxes of the group's first LP, Are You Experienced?: "Deliberate Distortion - Do not correct." Purple Haze, taken from the album, blew away post-Monterey America. Hendrix quickly became the ultimate hipster - a swaggering, left-handed guitar slinger, cool in his hussar's jacket and felt hat, cosmic with his "kiss the sky" lyrics. Jimi, the most influential rock musician of his day, harnessed technology to an incredible technique that allowed him to open up his instrument and expose its human ability to cry, sing, or roar. At the time of his death in 1970, he was headed toward jazz-rock fusion, a genre British guitarist John McLaughlin explored successfully in the early '70s.

While Hendrix was a potent '60s icon, he took a backseat to Bob Dylan. When Scottish-born singer Donovan Leitch made his recording debut in 1965 with Catch the Wind, his nasal delivery, blue denim cap and harmonica stand betrayed his inspirational source. Less overt were the Byrds, whose cover of Dylan's All I Really Want to Do was issued after Mr. Tambourine Man did well. A competing version by Cher, a Byrds fan since their days at Ciro's on the Sunset Strip, won the chart battle, settling in at No. 15. Roger McGuinn's Ballad of Easy Rider (used in the movie Easy Rider), despite following years of Byrds raga- and country-rock, reveals unmistakable Dylan overtones.

"What's happening?" was an oft-posed question in the '60s. For one Los Angeles garage band, the question inspired a name. "The leaves are really happening," answered drummer "Ambrose" Ray. The Leaves owed their record deal with the Mira label to Pat Boone, their poster art to the marijuana leaf and their fame to Hey Joe, which every L.A. group worth its leather and fringe played at the time. The song survived renditions by Cher, Deep Purple and the Arbors and a ridiculous parody titled Flower Punk by Frank Zappa. Variously attributed to Chet Powers and Dino Valenti (Powers' stage name), Hey Joe was in fact penned by obscure West Coast songwriter Billy Roberts.

Another L.A. proponent of Hey Joe was Love, fronted by the outrageous Arthur Lee, who, like his buddy Jimi Hendrix, stood out as one of the few black men operating in the predominantly white psychedelic style. Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer supposedly required 60 takes to get the militaristic drum part down on 7 and 7 Is, a bizarre Lee concoction capped by an atomic bomb blast.

Rock promoter Bill Graham's intro ("four gentlemen and one great, great broad") to the San Francisco sound of Big Brother and the Holding Company's Combination of the Two, captured live at the Fillmore, barely suggests the stardom awaiting Janis Joplin, who had officially arrived after Monterey. Audiences latched onto this hard-drinking outcast from Port Arthur, Texas, handing her bottles of Southern Comfort, perhaps hoping to see her self-destruct on stage. Combination of the Two, featuring Joplin and Sam Andrews on vocals, kicks off Cheap Thrills, a sloppy but honest collection that topped the album charts.

Across the bay in the free-speech environment of Berkeley, Country Joe and the Fish raised political consciousness with satire such as I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag. A Navy vet named for Joseph Stalin by his leftist parents, Joe McDonald achieved the honor of being the first to receive $10,000 from Ed Sullivan not to appear on his show. Joe's crowning moment occurred in 1969 when he led the peace-love Woodstock nation in his infamous F-I-S-H cheer, respelled as everyone's favorite expletive deleted.

A more militant protest emanated from the Motor City's MC5, pawns, at first, for John Sinclair's White Panther party, a coalition that tried to cash in on the growing countercultural angst of white kids in America's suburbs. The MC5, known for its profanity-spiced sloganeering, espoused its politics at the 1968 Democratic Convention riots in Chicago through songs like Kick Out the Jams. The message, however, was all but lost behind the MC5's crude sonic onslaught, which anticipated '70s punk rock.

For many of the less volatile British groups, the late '60s were business as usual. Procol Harum repeated the classical propriety of A Whiter Shade of Pale in Homburg; Deep Purple again charted by covering someone else's song, this time Neil Diamond's Kentucky Woman; and the Kinks recycled one of their tough guitar riffs in Till the End of the Day. Traffic, formed in 1967 by 19-year-old Steve Winwood and friends Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood, provided a breath of fresh air to the Summer of Love when Paper Sun grazed the U.S. charts to the tune of flute, sitars and tablas. One of Traffic's more commercially viable songs, Feelin' Alright, clicked for Joe Cocker in 1969.

Guitar heroes, both in England and America, flourished throughout the '60s. When Jimmy Page joined the Yardbirds in June of -1966, fans were treated briefly to the "stereo" leads he devised with Jeff Beck. Their siren rave-up on Happenings Ten Years Time Ago is one of the few Beck-Page guitar duels recorded. In 1967, Peter Green unveiled his stone-cold blues band Fleetwood Mac, named for drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, renegades from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Green's chilling Black Magic Woman seems almost primitive next to Santana's hit cover version and to subsequent Mac efforts with Green spearheading a triple-guitar attack.

The most fully realized guitar tandem, however, belonged to the Allman Brothers' Dickey Betts and Duane "Sky Dog" Allman. On a good night, these Southern boys could easily stretch Whipping Post to a half hour, without the monotony of most epic-length jams. Duane's lyrical slide guitar work, smoothly executed with a pill bottle, was the best around, as he proved conclusively with Eric Clapton on his Layla album. "Sky Dog" was just 24 when his motorcycle crashed on October 29, 1971, making him the fourth casualty in a 14-month period that saw the passing of Hendrix, Joplin and Jim Morrison - all aged 27. They buried Allman in Macon, Georgia, with his Gibson guitar and a Coricidin bottle placed on his ring finger. Just in case.

- Charles McCardell