Classic Rock 1967: Blowin' Your Mind

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 1990

Labels: Warner Special Products, Time Life Music

Volume 24 of a 30 volume set.

Track durations obtained from software.

Complete liner notes:

Rock turned serious in 1967. Musicians took up political causes, and the significance of the rock revolution - as symbolized by such bench marks as the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper LP, the publication of Rolling Stone magazine and the musical Hair - was debated in college classrooms and in the media.

A sure sign that rock had turned self-conscious was that the Beach Boys stopped singing about surfing and cars. Inspired by the Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul, Brian Wilson produced the ambitious Pet Sounds LP in the first half of 1966 and followed this masterpiece with the groundbreaking single, Good Vibrations.

The Beach Boys' next record, Heroes and Villains, appeared in July 1967 after some delay. The first single on the Beach Boys' own Brother label, Heroes and Villains was the shortest of several different versions of the song assembled by Wilson and collaborator Van Dyke Parks. When its astrologically determined release date arrived, Wilson, traveling in a fleet of Rolls Royce limousines, delivered the record to Los Angeles radio station KHJ for an exclusive premiere. Wilson and his entourage were greeted by the station DJ, who reportedly said, "Can't play anything that's not on the playlist." The program director quickly corrected the misunderstanding, but by then the transcendent moment had passed.

Just as Wilson had been influenced by Rubber Soul, so Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of the Turtles reacted to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper LP by experimenting on the Turtles' recordings. Bassist Jim Pons, who had joined the group from the Leaves (Hey Joe), "freaked out" during this period according to Volman and Kaylan, thinking he was John Lennon. The group's producer, Joe Wissert, also exhibited weird behavior, eating gingerbread bats and reciting poetry. She's My Girl reflects the group's fascination with psychedelia.

The Young Rascals' How Can I Be Sure, their fourth top-10 hit, marked the end of a series of songs - begun with Lonely Too Long - that band member Felix Cavaliere wrote for the same woman, though co-writer and vocalist Eddie Brigati sings the song as if the love affair were his own. The Young Rascals were growing more serious - changing their name to the Rascals in 1968, exchanging their trademark knickers for paisley outfits and scoring hits with socially conscious songs such as People Got to Be Free.

The Lovin' Spoonful emerged from the Greenwich Village scene, a home for political folk music, but concentrated on an eclectic range of pop music. Although John Sebastian of the Spoonful once vowed never to write a song about the loneliness of a musician's life on the road, he succumbed with Darling Be Home Soon. The song, which appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's film You're a Big Boy Now, added a twist, however, by taking the perspective of a lover waiting at home for the traveling musician to return.

Folk musicians-turned-rock stars Jim McGuinn (who changed his first name to Roger in 1968) and Chris Hillman (who later formed the country-rock group the Desert Rose Band) wrote So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star for their group, the Byrds. McGuinn recalls that after looking through a stack of teen-oriented fan magazines such as Tiger Beat, they contemplated the shallow and transient character of pop stardom. Their discussion inspired the satirical lyrics of the song. McGuinn recorded the crowd noise heard on the record at a Byrds concert in England.

For all the new seriousness of pop, the charts in 1967 contained plenty of music about romance and fun. Songs from the South continued to find favor with pop music lovers. Everlasting Love, by Nashville songwriters Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden, was released on the Rising Sons label owned by Cason and Bobby Russell, composer of Little Green Apples and Honey. The recording featured a powerful vocal performance by Robert Knight of nearby Franklin, Tennessee. Knight had sung with the Paramounts, one of the many bands active on the Southern fraternity circuit, before recording Everlasting Love as a solo artist. Russell produced a later hit version of Everlasting Love with soul singer Carl Carlton in 1974.

Another Nashville songwriter, John D. Loudermilk, provided the Cincinnati-based Casinos with their biggest hit, Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye. Lead singer Gene Hughes heard Johnny Nash's rendition of the song and convinced his bandmates to record it for Fraternity records. In Memphis, the Box Tops followed up their smash The Letter with another Wayne Thompson creation, Neon Rainbow. Lead singer Alex Chilton, who was only 16 years old when he recorded it, went on to achieve cult status as vocalist in the power-pop group Big Star in the early '70s and then as an eccentric solo artist in the '80s. Fellow Memphians the Hombres, a punk-garage combo, expressed absurdist social commentary with Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out) produced by the legendary Huey P. Meaux. (John Cougar Mellencamp cut Let It Out in 1989, releasing his version of the song on the Big Daddy CD.)

Beginning in 1966, Florida cousins James Purify and Robert Lee Dickey - known professionally as James and Bobby Purify - usually recorded at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. However, their cover of the Five DuTones' 1963 R & B song Shake a Tail Feather came from Chips Moman's American Sound Studio in Memphis where the Box Tops also recorded their hits. At American, the duo worked with guitarist Reggie Young, keyboardist Bobby Emmons, bassist Tommy Cogbill and drummer Gene Chrisman - the crew that played on hits for Neil Diamond, Dusty Springfield and Elvis Presley.

Joe Tex, born Joseph Arrington Jr. in Rogers, Texas (he nicknamed himself after his home state), won a trip to New York in a Houston talent show and then won a talent competition at New York's Apollo Theater. Tex recorded for King records in 1955, and later for the Anna and Ace labels, but his real success came in 1961 after he met Buddy Killen, an executive with the country music publishing company Tree Music. Killen formed Dial Records, with Tex as principal artist, and the two worked together throughout Tex's career.

However, Tex and Killen almost dissolved their relationship in 1964 when Tex grew frustrated with his prospects for major stardom. In what was to be their final session, Tex recorded Hold What You've Got but made Killen promise not to release it. Convinced that he had a smash, Killen went back on his promise, and the song became Tex's first pop hit. His first million seller, though, was Skinny Legs and All, a novelty song featuring Tex's trademark preaching.

Herbert Feemster of Washington, D.C., made his first record for the Date label in 1966 as Herb Fame. Francine Barker, who had also recorded for Date, joined Fame on a nightclub bandstand one evening, and the chemistry seemed promising. The duo approached Van "The Hustle" McCoy, who dubbed them Peaches and Herb. Their first record, Let's Fall in Love, charted, and their follow-up, a recording of the Five Keys' Close Your Eyes, catapulted them into the top 10.

- Jay Orr