Mark Eric — California Home

from A Midsummer’s Day Dream (1969)

Meet Mark Eric, the Beach Boy who never was. He’s central casting for the California boy: blonde salt-bleached hair, tan chiseled face, surfer, rocker, part-time actor. (He even appeared on The Partridge Family)

And yes, for all you who were wondering, this is what California’s really like. Lush harmonies, happy days, and sunshine… tempered with heavy traffic, smog and endless sprawl.

Word has it Eric is still performing on cruise ships!

Richard Twice — If I Knew You Were the One

from Richard Twice (1969)

Richard Atkins and Richard Manning formed a band… and called it Richard Twice. The rest is psychedelic history. Really, really dusty history. This is their sole release, but it’s a gem… is that a harp I hear? Yes son. It is.

Stay tuned for a modern-day track that samples this with gorgeous results.

White Noise — Your Hidden Dreams

from An Electric Storm (1969)

Wow. Spectacular find by the folks over at Broken Lyres. (Whom you should follow if you don’t already…great, eclectic selection of tunes.)

At any rate, this is some out-there, sine-wave style synth pop, created with this beautiful monster, the Electronic Music Studios’ VCS3:

This synth later became a workhorse of the music industry, appearing on albums by Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, Stereolab and Aphex Twin, among others. And it all started right here… Read on for more, including the Dr Who connection, below.

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If you even loosely follow modern trends in experimental music, you may be a little confused as to where it all came from.  Labels such as Not Not Fun, Ghost Box, and Olde English Spelling Bee have been pushing these tunes that all feel like the decaying tones of a somewhat remembered song.  Artists like Forest Swords and Hype Williams (now Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland) purposefully use heavily manipulated and damaged sounding instruments to try to recall a warped soundtrack to an old VHS you may have.  So where did it all come from?

Early traces can be seen in the works of White Noise, a very early electronic group that partially emerged out of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop of the 60’s.  The band’s debut album, An Electric Storm, is an utterly unique piece of electronic pop, which artists to this day feel indebted to.  The group’s unique sound is mostly the work of Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson, two sound enthusiasts who composed works for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (fun pieces of Dr. Who trivia - Hodgson is responsible for the sounds of the Tardis and the way Daleks speak; Derbyshire created the electronic version of the Dr. Who theme).  Derbyshire and Hodgson were early proponents of synthesized sounds, creating their early electronic pieces entirely of manipulated tape loops of electronically generated tones.  The tones they created are still eerie even this day, and their pieces are laden with effects that just weren’t heard outside of experimental music.

White Noise’s uniqueness draws from the combination of those odd sounding tones with very loose pop songwriting.  Synthesizer based rock tunes will slide and echo off into a realm of pure reverberated sound and then return again in a different form.  Sounds of cars (or perhaps spaceships) drift by while an angelic voice sings sweetly just for you.  And  everything becomes disorienting yet alluring.

Garland Green — Jealous Kind of Fella

from Jealous Kind of Fella (1969)

“Hello baby, please don’t be too mad at me, because I punched that guy last night. Well, let me explain before you say anything…”

Great single from Chicago soul singer Garland Green. Here’s what Ayana has to say over at Chicago arts/music site Dark Jive:

Someone who could “never lose” at the South Side Talent Shows that local record execs scoured for fresh talent, Chicago’s own Garland Green made a name for himself in the late sixties as a growling, burgeoning soul star to be reckoned with. Ironically, he wasn’t discovered at a Talent Show, but playing pool. Legend has it that a local Barbecue Magnate named Argia B. Collins overheard Green’s distinctive growl while the singer was playing pool, and that he ultimately funded Garland’s turn at the Chicago Conservatory of Music.

Wow. Thank you Mr. BBQ. You can also listen to interviews with Green and Collins’ daughter there. Might also want to sneak a listen to ‘You Played on a Player.’

Jimmy Takeuchi — Soulful Strut

from R&B Drumming (1969)

Jazz drummer and drum break king Jimmy Takeuchi’s take on the smooth jazz classic ‘Soulful Strut,’ recorded in 1968 by the Chicago jazz group Young-Holt Unlimited. [original here]

There are some nice breaks in this version, but the thing that really sets Takeuchi’s version apart is, of course, the VIBRASLAP. Niiiice…

Puff — Go With You

from Puff (1969)

This is what happened when the Rockin’ Ramrods tuned in, turned on, and dropped out: Puff (as in the Magic Dragon). Beautiful Acid-Test-worthy psych-pop balladry.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say this track has the best organ sounds ever. (Sorry, Ray Manzarek) First, a chunky, gritty garage organ, then halfway through, hallelujah-worthy church pipes that’ll have you as blissed out as Jim Morrison riding the snake…

Jimmy Takeuchi — La Pioggia

from Drum Drum Drum (1968?)

Yesterday we heard Gigliola Cinquetti singing her San Remo entry ‘La Pioggia.’ Here’s an instrumental version, as performed by Japanese R&B/soul/surf drummer Jimmy Takeuchi and his group The Exciters.

Gigliola Cinquetti — La Pioggia (The Rain) (1969)

Italian pop with an identity crisis, from a girl from fair Verona, Gigliola Cinquetti. She hit the big time when she was just 16, taking first place at San Remo in 1964.

Five years later she sung this bizarre track, ‘La Pioggia,’ which alternates stylistically between polka, circus music, 60s beat and spy movie soundtrack, but she lost out to the Roman Elvis wanna-be, Bobby Solo, with his track ‘Zingara’ (Gypsy).

Sam Taylor Jr. — I Heard It Through the Grapevine

from The Tunnels of My Mind (1969)

I know what you’re thinking—“I’ve heard ‘I’ve Heard It Through The Grapevine’ way too many times.”

Well let me assure you that you’ve never heard Grapevine swing like this. Sam Taylor Jr., a bluesy soul singer and guitarist from Long Island via Mobile, Alabama, put out this smoking album in 1969, and this version of Grapevine makes the rest shrivel up in shame.

Later in his career Taylor provided guitar duties for musicians on the ‘chitlin circuit,’ including The Isleys and Otis Redding. A friend recently gave me an excellent book on these influential clubs called The Chitlin’ Circuit: And the Road to Rock’n’Roll. So far, it’s a fascinating history.

Album via last week’s Motherlode.

Howard Tate — Girl from the North Country

from Howard Tate (1972)

Rarely does a cover song break the mold from which it was cast. Tate, though, pulls it off, with his unrecognizable soul rendition of Dylan’s ‘Girl from the North Country.’ Dylan’s 1969 version from Nashville Skyline is still my favorite. Tugs more at the heartstrings. And who doesn’t love that reverb, and Johnny Cash’s throaty growl?

americanroutes:

Howard Tate’s rich, soulful cover of Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country.”

Learn more about Howard Tate, from his start as a teenage gospel singer to his late-career rise out of hard times and back to recording, on this week’s American Routes.

Eduardo Araújo — Pressentimento

from A Onda é Boogaloo (1969)

This Brazilian soul LP is really an oddity—this is one of only three original tracks on the album, writen by Araújo and his songwriting partner Chil Deberto. The rest of the tracks are all reworkings of American soul classics by Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Smokey Robinson and James Brown, some of them quite good. (Aretha’s ‘Baby, baby sim baby’—‘Since you’ve been gone’).

Why so many covers? The album’s producer, funk master Tim Maia, had spent a year or two in New York City, where he became acquainted with the soul scene. His deportation back to Brazil served to turn him into a sort of soul ambassador, and he convinced his old friend from Rio’s Clube do Rock, Araujo, to give soul a shot.

Araujo, on the other hand, was a country boy from a farm in Minas Gerais, who moved to Rio in 1960 with dreams to become a veterinarian. But he got swept up in rock’n’roll mania instead, recording his biggest hit, the bubblegum rock number ‘O bom’ in 1967. This soul album, recorded several years later, sounds light years apart in style.

After the decline of Brazil’s teenybopper Jovem Guarda movement, he was back on the farm, where years later he recorded a tribute to the horse race Mangalarga Marchador, effectively relaunching his career—as a country singer. He’s now a mustachioed country singer with a white Stetson, and raises horses.

Grab the album over at Mining the Audio Motherlode.

Tony El Gitano — Dolores

from Acid Rumba: Spanish Gypsy Grooves 1969-76 (2011)

This is what happened when flamenco and rumba got busy one night—fuzzed-out funk with hand clapping and flamenco yay-yay-yaying—a love child born in the gitano communities of the Gràcia in Barcelona, christened rumba catalana.

It hit the next level in the studio, when leisure-suited flamenco crooners like Tony El Gitano laid down tracks like this, backed by electric-guitar-toting longhairs with time and hash to burn. This terrific compilation was lovingly put together by the folks at Spain’s Hundergrum label, masterminds behind the Spanish hard psych collections ‘Andergraun Vibrations.’

As sexy as these rhythms are (how deep in the pocket is that bass?!), you’ll see that the genre’s practicants weren’t immune from the ever-popular Spanish mullet. Doesn’t quite inflame the corazon… but I’m sure Dolores felt differently.

Kaleidoscope — P.S. Come Back

from Kaleidoscope (1969)

What could be more psychedelic than a kaleidoscope? Right. Not even a rainbow. That’s why every band in the 60s wanted to name themselves after a children’s toy—like LA’s psychedelic string band Kaleidoscope, or the London Kaleidoscope.

But here we have a lesser-known exemplar of that multicolored genre, and the one with the hardest-hitting rock’n’roll: the Mexican Kaleidoscope. To my ears, they’re the most timeless of the three, almost proto-punk at times, with a swagger in the vocals that sounds more Joey Ramone than flower child. It’s only the fuzzbox guitars and garage organs that key you in to the fact that these guys were hanging around Mexico City’s El Salvation Club, not CBGBs.

There’s a reason the vocals have that American-sounding jeer—because even though Kaleidoscope gigged a lot in Mexico City (and later Cuernavaca), none of them were actually from Mexico. That’s Frank Tirado, of Puerto Rico, on vocals. His countrymate Orly Vázquez covered bass, while Spanish transplant Pedrín García commanded electric guitar, and Rafael Cruz and Julio Arturo Fernández of the Dominican Republic handled drums and organ. They recorded the album in 1967 at Fabiola Studios in the Dominican Republic, before moving to Mexico together. The album wasn’t released until two years later by the Mexican label Orfeón, in a pressing of just 200 records. Thank god Germany’s Shadoks has reissued it—because you really need to give this Kaleidoscope a twist.

Lots of great interviews with the band (in Spanish) at Encontrando A The Kaleidoscope.

The Flying Burrito Brothers — Christine’s Tune (live)

from Gilded Palace of Sin (1969)

Country Sunday continues with this nice live performance of ‘Christine’s Tune,’ an ode to Sunset Strip groupie Miss Christine, and peerless competitor for “most unflattering song ever.” (She’s a devil in disguise/You can see it in her eyes/She’s telling dirty lies)

Devil or not, Miss Christine had quite miserable luck (apart from her Hollywood hijinks), spending nearly a year in a full-body cast to correct her crooked spine, and then overdosing shortly after, in November 1972, at a house outside Boston rented by none other than Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.

The Flying Burrito Brothers — Sin City

from Gilded Palace of Sin (1969)

Sin was clearly on Gram Parson’s mind (or his deeds) when he and bassist Chris Hillman left The Byrds and holed up in their San Fernando Valley estate, “Burrito Manor,” to write the first Burrito Brothers album.

For the cover shoot, Gram duded up in his sinfully gaudy Nudie suit, embroidered with marijuana leaves and opium poppies—mental seasonings most likely to be in ready supply at the old Gilded Palace—and naked ladies stitched on the lapels. Quite inexplicably, the back is emblazoned with a huge, radiant Christian cross… a nod to “the Lord’s burning rain”?