when they took that with that but I mean because you know they were well known for
that team Bobbers though. Who are you talking about? The turtles.
Flow and Eddie the guys who sing so happy together Howard Katelyn and Mark
Boland. They joined Zappa and then it was starting to bring their career because
they were clean. They were the turtles you know. Well that was a big hit of that
year right? It's the number two. Number one biggest seller of the year. I
said you guys what song do you think we should start with? Oh well do you
want to start with the Motown kind of stacks? No why don't we try this one?
That sounds good. Nah if we're gonna do that then we should probably take you
know the iconic song from that album don't you think? That's not it.
Better. No every band in high school did that. I mean God well that's where we
learn how to play it. Try something else.
Come on what is the most iconic song of 1967? Well it's certainly purple haze
you think or the end might be by the doors. Well I think they're the most
important. Yeah but you know I get some stuff here about the radio FM radio in
the doors because basically nobody would play their stuff until they could play a
whole you know cut and then you know everything in the day was two minutes
and 30 seconds and then here's the end which is right right so I know I never
played on the radio. Well they did that's the thing. KMPX actually started in
San Francisco in April of 1967. Hey you guys we've got a show going. Come on all on.
You agree with that choice. Yeah you do. Yeah. Well come on we can we can try one more.
When the two weeks down to be realized, no joy within you. This is KZSU Stanford.
This is entitled opinions we're coming to you from the Stanford campus.
And speaking of love the year is 2017 that makes 50 years to the day almost that
the summer of love began. We're here in the studio with Jake Cadus well known to
the entitled opinions audience from a couple of shows he and I did on music. My
brother Tom joins us as well from UCLA. The show we did on Pink Floyd is one of
the all-time favorites in our archives and we're here to speak about the great
albums of the year 1967. And let me just remind you of some of those albums that
year opens with the doors self-titled album in the same year they'll release
another one strange days. Donovan mellow yellow the rolling stones two
albums between the buttons flowers cream Israeli gears the birds younger than
yesterday. Jefferson Airplane whom we're listening to right now Sir
Realistic Pillow and later that same year after bathing at Baxter. What else
Otis Redding and Carla King and Queen Aretha Franklin I never loved a man the
way I love you. Grateful dead self-titled album the velvet underground from New
York. Their groundbreaking the velvet underground in Nico 1967 country Joe in the
fish a Bay Area band electric music for mind and body. What else? Moby grape
self-titled album and what Jay calls the 800 pound gorilla in the room the
Beatles sergeant peppers lonely hearts club band. James Brown cold sweat Pink
Floyd the Piper at the gates of dawn big brother and holding company. Jimmy
Hendrix experience are you experience as well as Axis boldest love later in
that same year two of the pillar albums of 1967. Prokal Harham with their
Prokal Harham album two albums by the Beach Boys smile smile and wild honey
I mentioned cream buffalo Springfield is here on my list. I have the Beatles magical
mystery tour which is another album that same year the moody blues great
moody blues album days of future past with nights and white satin. Those of
you old enough will remember that tune. Do you remember that one day? Yeah I'm old enough
you're old enough. I just mentioned one or two more love a LA band comes out with
their album forever changes and one more. Well there's Bob Dylan John Wesley
Harding and finally the who the who sells out. So welcome to the show.
Jay let me start with you because you are a Bay Area native and you were
around in 1967. What were you doing in 1967? Well I graduated from
high school and spent the summer in Golden Gate Park soaking up all the
great music. Yeah 67 if you listen to the list of albums that Robert just read I
can't think of another year that had that much not only great music but
really groundbreaking music and in all these different genres so I had
necessarily put this all together until you know all of the celebration of the
50th anniversary but it was a spectacular year for a lot of reasons. And since
we're you know broadcasting from Stanford University here
Peninsula. Why don't we start with the scene in the Bay Area in 1967 because that
is an important component of the of the larger picture right. Yeah so you know
we've mentioned there's Jefferson Airplane grateful dead
Moby grape and you know other bands. You know Quicksilver messenger service
Janice Joplin holding a big brother in the holding company. Right just
a fantastic country Joe country Joe. In fact let me remind our listeners that you and I
actually did a show on the psychedelic music of the 60s in the Bay Area so
they can go and get a more in-depth discussion of that in in the archives but
I'm playing a track here from one of your favorite albums from that year
which is Moby grape. Right and you think that that is one of the
at the very top of the list in your in your mind. So what what do you want to say
about Moby grape tell our listeners about? Well you know they're the greatest band that could have been
and their first album is you know arguably one of the best albums ever recorded
particularly for that year. In part because everyone in the band was a major
songwriter and singer on their own and so almost in a sense of the way the
Beatles or the Rolling Stones created by combining this unique combination of
different personalities and and people they had it going as well. Both instrumentally and also
in the writing and vocal executions their harmonies are terrific so you know if you think of
Crosby stills a Nash you can throw in young if you want. The vocal processing on this album
was was immensely better than than most of the San Francisco bands. Not all of the bands of that era
were highly skilled and particularly skilled vocalists. You got Jim Morrison who had a terrific voice
but you know a lot of the bands like The Grateful Dead you know they're an acquired taste for a lot
of people. Terrible vocalists. Because their vocals are very hot and cold. Yeah so you
you believe that Moby grape was a highly mismanaged band and yeah for that reason they didn't make
it as big as they should have. Well that's not the only reason you know when you have a lot of
very creative personalities you frequently have disagreements and some of these disagreements mixed
with drugs ended up in like a hatchet attack or I guess an axe attack. So yeah there's a lot if you
are really interested in the history of Moby grape I recommend that you look at the Wikipedia
listing for them because it's a really interesting and pretty representative story for a lot of
musicians in that era. So one or two things about how a band makes it by through their marketing
strategies. One is getting songs on the radio and having hit singles and I guess that someone decided
that six songs from this album were going to be released at the same time as singles right was
not a very intelligent. Well no one had ever done that before and no one has done it since
there's a reason why. Yeah and you know this brings up an interesting point which we're discussing
albums and albums really were available of course before 1967 but until the radio could actually play
cuts that were longer than two and a half minutes the singles were the only thing you heard on the
radio and the whole idea of albums at least in the San Francisco Bay area was greatly promoted by
the beginning of FM stereo broadcasting and AM radio at the time was highly commercial
played very shortcuts but would play a complete wide variety of different types of music rock
R&B, soul, Motown, all kinds of different rocks. So you would hear the Rolling Stones back with
the Supremes and so what people got was a sort of a snippet of this and that but you couldn't really
play a cut that was seven or eight minutes long and so the whole concept of the album really
caught on big time in 1967 when the FM stations were no longer locked into that short cut many
commercial broadcasting paradigm and KSNN actually was the first station in the Bay area
sorry KMPX was the first station in the Bay area to adopt that format they didn't last very long
and they basically sort of put into commission the idea of doing this on a commercial basis and
of course KSNN took that mantle and ran with it much longer than KMPX did but the point was that
you could hear a whole cut for example one of the things that motivated Tom Donahue to actually
start KMPX he was a DJ on KYA which was one of the F the AM stations that was you know doing the
standard rock playing of albums and he bought the doors album and was listening to it at home
and said well you know why can't we play this on the radio something like the end you mean yeah or
like my fire and any other songs were you know were much longer than the traditional two and a half
minutes so he wangled himself a show on KMPX and there was a lot of you know when you're trying to
break ground with a new style it didn't really end well for KMPX but KSNN picked up that format
and became for many years the basically FM voice so you're saying that the rise of FM encouraged
bands to create albums as holes and also to include tracks that went much longer than the standard
two and a half three minutes and that therefore the and the Bay Area bands in particular I think
they're signature what it's a longer song looser style is that correct yeah I think you know in terms
of the album I think we we still have to go back to the Beatles and and the the initial you know
changing of the idea of you know an album full of singles to a complete composition in on both
sides of the record right and we'll talk about Sergeant Pepper's a bit later in the show right but I
guess I'll bring in Tom Tom do you want to add something on the Bay Area scene before we talk about
other genres not really I mean the way I see it there's the Bay Area there's LA there's New York
and there's London yeah and they're almost independent or to a great extent even though the Bay Area
bands often if not almost always record in LA even the grateful you don't want to sell the South
short you know well that's why I wanted to mention that in LA which would be the Southern California
part there are the doors there's love the birds yeah Frank Zappa there's a huge
little Springfield Buffalo Springfield is a really fertile scene going on there that hasn't been
thematized the way the Bay Area music scene has been right and they show signs of resentment down
south about that as a matter of fact they still talk about you know why you guys always talk about
San Francisco we were we were there earlier than San Francisco and so on and so forth different
different sense of musicianship and in some cases but no the Bay Area that's a jace thing and
you're saying and well I find that some of those LA bands could very well be San Francisco
bands in terms of style sure I think the doors are just as Bay Area as I always thought of them
as a Bay Area band they played a lot they played a lot up here love also yeah has a very kind of Bay
area sound Zappa if you want to consider him Southern California LA where he was basically he's very
different you could never confuse Frank Zappa with the Bay Area no mellow sound no no in fact I mean
Frank Zappa who releases his first album with the mothers of invention in 1966 and it's the second
double album in history I mean just proceeded by blonde on blonde by Bob Dylan who was produced by
the same Tom Wilson from the very start Frank Zappa polymer sizes with San Francisco flower
children because they're getting all the media attention but the sunset strip where the doors used
to play and love and and Zappa and all the rest was was in a sense happening before the Bay Area
but the Bay Area kind of went crazy with music you caught on and there were the flower children
and it became a more of a culturally central scene than in LA where they tried to clamp bit down you
know the police and the institutions didn't like all those kids congregating on sunset strips so
they cleaned it up where yeah this is more liberal than it and it just kept you know multiplying
yeah well the film or really did change absolutely I mean in that like I say it really internationalize
the Bay Area's music scene correct and they came to the film more west from all over the world yeah
all English people went there so you think that freak out which is not a 67 album but a
66 album was crucial to the kind of expand expansive spirit of the 67 of the more innovative
yeah really using of the 67 albums right and it's incredible because nobody really listens to that
album and even when it came out it didn't have any commercial success but I have it I
apparently Paul McCartney and the Beatles but he and maybe John Lennon in particular said this
Frank's allies is unbelievable and so sergeant peppers could even be seen as a as a way of the
Beatles trying to come to terms with some of those really inventive experimental techniques that
were happening in California or maybe in particular in the Frank's album album of late 66
in freak out I mean there was nothing like it it was completely crazy rock had never done anything
even half that crazy and it really it spawned a lot of other folks you know trying to do that kind of stuff
so maybe we could listen to something from his 67 album called absolutely free
mothers of invention come out with their second album in 67 can we play something from that
which one do you want well almost anything would work but why don't you do call any vegetable
show how how much humor he puts into this is a song about vegetables they keep you regular the real good for
yeah
how many vegetable calling somebody call it the old car once a day call when you get out the train
call it the old car and the chances are good
all the best will will respond to you
some people don't go for prunes I don't know I've always found that they think
come on great song what's he like all that you gotta eat your beats and
yeah and all that stuff it's sort of like that making fun of the moms who used to tell the kids
to have a good balance by it and so the vegetables start singing back to him in the song
here's where the vegetable responds
a prune isn't really a vegetable
that's someone says on uncle meat one day will all be living in California I guess the record
that kind of thing that's right I guess only in California can you call any vegetable
and it'll respond to you too I don't know what to say thanks for playing that so you think
talking about sergeant peppers if sergeant peppers if it was the Beatles realizing that there
were some really hugely innovative things going on in music that they had to take account of if they
weren't going to become irrelevant Frank Zappo with freak out also the beach boys came out with
an album sounds and sixty-six and six and sixty six and that had a huge effect on I think
John Lennon and Paul McCartney because it very sophisticated harmonics a lot of multi-layered vocals
and so forth and Tom you say you think that they also realize that they have to raise their game if they're
going to yeah I think so you know Harold Bloom talks about the anxiety of influence you know about how
creative acts really spur other fellow creative acts when they heard that beach boys album seems to
me and the Frank Zappo freak out and Bob Dylan those would be in my mind a three American
events that spurred the Beatles to say you know we we've been talking about I want to hold your hand and
stuff we got it we got to get up oh and the fourth one which I think is equally important is
Jimmy Hendrix because he arrives in London in sixty six as well and when you hear things like
purple haze yeah of course everyone's doing acid and drugs too by this time including the Beatles
so by by early sixty seven they're changing their well act don't you think yeah and I think that
another contributing factor is the beginning of the four and eight track multi-track recording systems that
I know Zappo commissioned a multi-track recorder himself they just weren't available commercially
66 I think was the first was the year that the MCI 3M one inch eight track first came out and
before that Ampecs would still remain manufacturer and those things cost you know like a small
towns gross national income it was a very expensive proposition so there was basically I think two
main studios that had one inch eight tracks from Ampecs and so with other manufacturing you know
starting to produce these things for less money then they really became widely available and
the the Beach Boys and the Beatles both sort of pioneered using that technology so you know before
they had eight tracks they would the Beatles particularly on on Sergeant Pepper's bounced a lot of
tracks back and forth and you know created a really dense final product by doing you know by
using the multi-track capabilities that suddenly were available and pioneering their use I mean
I think Les Paul was you know the original user of that technology and there was a big gap between
him in the 50s and the mid to late 60s where everybody started to you know make use of that technology
so you think that's the primary contribution of Sergeant Pepper's is this use of this technology
because you do believe that if you have to select one album from the whole list of 67 that
you would put Sergeant Pepper at the top of that yeah I would because it changed the way people
thought about recording rather than trying to just document a performance then they could add all this
other stuff you know and then what would that be and so so the Beach Boys weren't using that when
they did their thing yeah well I think on the pet sounds yeah they definitely were but you know
before that it was again like trying to document their live sound as opposed to Brian Wilson you
know really you know breaking loose with what he heard in his head and here's a question for both of
you the Sergeant Pepper's they beatles take themselves out of off the circuit and they spend
months I don't know how six months in in studio you know is it so this is was a new phenomenon
about a band making music in the studio primarily rather than on the road is it one of the first
studio albums done well it's one of the it's it's the album that might have taken the band members the
longest in the studio six months in the studio is unheard of I mean the doors took six days to do
their first album and Jimmy Hendricks by the time of electric lady land is spending 24/7 in the
studio for months and months so it takes on the studio becomes a new instrument but don't forget
that they've got the bills have a fifth beetle which is George Martin so they come in with what's
typically pretty simple compositions you know the three four chord beautiful stuff but fairly
simple and much if not most of the innovation of the album seems to me to occur in the studio where
they pull out all the stops they're looking for all sorts of special effects and technological stuff
the sound engineers and I never had to come up with this for a recording before no I mean they weren't
even allowed to put a microphone into him into an amp I mean you know they had very strict rules about
what you were supposed to do and they broke all of them but you know they came in with enough money
to afford that and that really did change the way people approached the studio as an instrument
as opposed to you know this kind of shrine where you went in and performed and then you left and
that was it so yeah it really changed I think that album more than any and really I think the
maybe the the pet sounds is getting short shrift because I think that Brian Wilson did very much the
same thing but for some reason the beetles were noticed more for that you know application of the
technology yeah and how about Jimi Hendrix because he might have not used the same technology there
in those first two albums but musically speaking this was a kind of quantum leap into a different
kind of space no I don't know if he's the first one to open up the possibilities of psychedelic rock or
whatever you would call it but clearly there's something foundational that takes place with the
release of are you experienced and the singles before well so you know Hendrix is a is the fascinating
meeting point of America and England so he comes with all of his blues background and this
virtuosic guitar playing but there's already a formation of that in England there's the John
male bluesbreakers you've had Eric Clapton be there you've got Peter Green doing it yard burs you've
got the who you've got Jeff Beck so you know in England and in London when even though they're doing
the blues they loosen it up and they let it go other places for instance there's a great track
if we could play it it's from the John male album of 67 that's got Peter Green on guitar it's called
Supernatural it's got nothing to do with the blues you'd think because it's just Peter Green it's an
instrumental and and and yet it's very radical because he he does all this sustain let's let's play it
for a second
there you've got
the beginnings of Fleetwood Mac because
John McVee on bass
I think maybe
Fleetwood on
Nick Lee with our drums
Nick Lee with drums
you got a trio
with a organ
John male playing organ
now is that male or Peter Green playing
so Fleetwood Mac is born
out of this John male lineup and so there's my blues band but what they're doing here
is somewhere else and you see this is staying on the guitar the way the notes are held
in the panning from left to right which is the beginning of stereo
what do we do with it
your both Peter Green fans like that is my favorite me too like I couldn't live
without Peter Green
Jimmy famously said without music like this mistake
well I wouldn't be playing guitar if it wasn't for Peter Green
the
almost black magic woman there at the end
which he does right and
Carlos not only makes the fantastic version of it but he gets the sustain on his guitar
from Peter Green he talks about that often
you know holding a note for like five ten fifteen seconds
Santana I think is a year later maybe sixty eight sixty nine I don't remember when
their first album is but it's it's it's within the same junior
probably sixty eight yeah
so the Americans in the English are doing much the same thing but
Hendrix is the real deal so to speak as far as England they don't they have
seen many of these people from the states well he was unique I mean nobody
played like that
right he was totally crazy yeah one of the first weeks he was there and
story goes that cream were playing and he he asked to jam with them they
they didn't know what that really was the English didn't jam as
Peter Green used to say they didn't like the idea I like to be in the drill
but they let this guy up because chast Chandler and friends said let him play
with you
yeah and they played the killing floor which is an old holding wolf thing and he
just blew them away and they were absolutely furious and I think it was
Ginger Baker or Eric Claptor said never you never let that guy on stage again
you know because I liked them yeah yeah well you know he blew everybody's mind
he just did something so completely you know new and different even with
you know playing a strat I mean everybody played strats but at the same time you
see he finds a psychedelic scene there because in sixty six they're doing
raves pink Floyd is already doing these kinds of you know instrumental numbers
live that go on for 20 minutes there's a there's a swinging London is hugely
liberated for Jimmy who's used to playing you know kind of blues to an American
standard audience and then he goes to London so psychedelia meets blues yeah
and it's funny how to you you know you're not appreciated at home but you go
across the pond and suddenly you're the biggest thing and you let it all oh yeah
and then from then on it's all it's all good but yeah yeah but the thing about Jimmy
is that he wasn't just a virtuoso on the guitar and go up on stage and do
incredible things he was also a composer of songs the likes of which no one had
ever heard before and he could perform them in mesmerize the audience you
know just watching him so yeah it was and also he's not the first one to use
things like feedback but nevertheless he brings into the studio a kind of
sound and you know purple haze that iconic opening riff is if you analyze it
musically it's a very unusual very original it's not a blues progression
at all it's a very different thing though yeah yeah there's totally new but
even there you see he was encouraged because he was a big fish in a smaller
pond as opposed to being in the States he was encouraged to compose he started
with covers and in New York City where he's playing the clubs he's you know hey
Joe those are covers and his manager chess Chandler said you got to write the
stuff because we're gonna make more money you know the royalties right yeah
that's the always been worth a while so when he starts writing things like
purple haze and going crazy that's also because people are behind him saying
hey let it all out they marketed him as a psychedelic wild man from from this
other continent you know yeah right right part of what he started doing
musically I think a lot of people thought he was British when you looked at him
you couldn't tell because you know you're not all African-American
no no no and then you're right but the Indian Native American features so and
he didn't sound like anybody coming from America either I mean he would fight all
the categories even visually well in fact I I mentioned this on in title
opinion I must have mentioned it over the last 11 years of this shows
existence but Tom and I were what 13 14 in 12 in my
1968 and yeah Hendrix came to Rome he did one visit in Rome he spent like 24
hours or 36 hours and he gave a matinee show and an evening show and my sister
found tickets for Tom and me for the matinee show can you imagine here you are
14 years old and you could go in there wasn't even full at that point it was
a movie theater oh man we went right up in front of the stage with the the
Polaroid camera that Tom had and took a bunch of pictures just right under
this guy we didn't had never heard of him and it was like it was like being exposed
to some kind of extra terrestrial what your your life is never the same
again after you see how I mean how can you be a bourgeois after you've seen
Jimmy Hendrix that's right in person like that and then we got that album that
explains a lot about you right now
so could be coming clear so basically we got that are you experienced which is a
British version and right actually at different album in to a certain extent
than the one that was released in America a few months later yeah I don't think
people realize that but most of the releases were completely different between
the British releases and the American releases and you know this brings up the
question Jay that you were mentioning before how the Moby great album they
released simultaneously five or more songs as singles in England that was a
no-no. Well it was a no-no here too. Okay and it made sense. Now we know why. Even
Sergeant Peppers the producer regrets not having put strawberry feels in
penny lane on it because they had to release it as a single and in Hendrix's
cases they had released Hay Joe and Purple Hayes and stone for you
so in for you although so they're not on the album because you got two different
markets right and they were afraid they wouldn't sell the album yeah they had
the singles on them yeah so this was the case even with Pink Floyd that first
album which is still excellent and earth-shattering in many ways doesn't have all
sorts of singles that they had already done very well with so you got to keep
that in mind them in when the Americans repackaged this stuff they would they
would drop some songs from the album in order to put the hit singles on it and then
you've got only part of what you had before yeah I really messed up the flow of
everything yeah marketing so maybe say a few more things about the London scene
before we come back to the station but so what's going on in London here in
67 well you know the it's so rich there that's hard to even describe briefly
I think that there's probably three or four different scenes going on at
once this is a blue scene yeah that's pretty strong picked up steam for five or
ten years I'd say then there's this kind of psychedelic scene these these
raves clubs wear soft machine and and Pink Floyd they would play one night one
and the next night the other they just improvise and everybody's freaked out in
one way or another there's a lot of sort of jazz and then you've got of
course the the more commercial rock scene of the who the whole British invasion
you've had the animals you've had the yard birds and Morrison Van Morrison
as anyway this sort of blues commercial blues rock what's called it yeah
yeah all this is going on the same time they're all very closely all know each
other so do you think this rally gears is a great album I think it's a
fantastic album Jade you do yeah so sure in fact I've always thought it's
better than are you experienced if you had to listen just to the album put aside
you know Hendrix being what he is but as a trio you know cream they were amazing
unbelievable instrumentalists and those songs they're taking things from
Hendrix they're also taking things from Albert King yeah another album that is
unsung and comes out in 67 it's got a lot of the stuff that cream users on
this rally gears three or four months later the king is like in August and they
come out in November yeah so cream is taking a lot of stuff from first-rate
blues players and making it English and giving it a psychedelic twist just think
of the cover of the album yeah yeah well one thing about these albums like
this rally gears and I think even the doors the first two doors albums
release in 67 is that when you put them on from beginning to end there's a
kind of coherence between the songs and also in the sequence of songs so that
it's intended to be listened to as a whole which nowadays is a completely alien
concept well that's another thing that I think Sergeant Pepper's contributed to
was was the idea of an album as opposed to a collection of songs just you
know right and in that sense Israeli gears might be in a certain sense more
impressive than are you experienced because are you experienced as another
same sort of preconceived organic wholeness to it but that is very
important to yeah and as like you said that's over on you know you don't do
albums anymore I know even even being Floyd I think had to finally
relent and allow their songs to be sold separately on iTunes is that right
if it is it happened the last two years or so that's how strongly they held on
to it yeah because the idea not only the album but the concept album really
picks up here I mean yeah we saw you keep it up or something to dark side of the
moon as individual songs you can because one sideways right here yeah right
essentially yeah twenty twenty five minute single track on each side yeah and
that's why Hendrix wants to join the game too with electric lady lad by
68 you started starting in 67 he wants to make one album then although wouldn't
you say the axis boldest love is a pretty coherent hole yeah I think it's
coherent and he's making a transition there I think he already started to have
disagreements with chess Chandler who was producing him because axis is much more
ballad driven you know it's got a soft lyrical sense and it's not all these
wild man three minute singles and Jimmy felt frustrated that he couldn't
record songs that were longer than three or four minutes because they weren't
allowing it yeah well that that's another thing like I mentioned earlier that
that up until that point songs were two and a half minutes and that demanded a
real you know focus from the songwriters because you had to get the the
verses the courses any you know bridge or solo and it had all fit into an
half minutes and a lot of songs that we don't don't think of as being you know
two to three minute songs are just on and off I mean they just come in the
go but they seem like yeah you know really long production but then with
like you know with the genesis of FM radio and album cuts and stuff then you
could actually do ten minute to you know half hour long sides and I think there
was something positive about submitting to that discipline those kind of
I agree it did I mean you want both you want the occasion to let it breathe a
lot more yeah but if everything is 15 minutes long then it loses its impact
really well the the discipline of a 15 or 18 minute long track is even more
demanding yeah which is why once sergeant peppers and this this idea of of letting
yourself breathe takes on you end up with progressive rock right but it's very
difficult to have an album with say like too long sweets of 20 minutes each
that work you got to be extremely talented yeah and even then your audience is
pretty small you're audience is smaller because we got the attention deficit
yes yes which is with music is not 20 minutes it's more like well I think the two and a
half minute single probably is locked to something you know the nervous system
the natural that focuses on yeah yeah like the 102 beats per minute for
disco yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's been it's been proven to be the
right tempo what about Motown and Rithewin Blues were they held to the same
strictures because oh yeah most longer tracks no no those songs you think they're
longer yeah you know and I thought they were longer but when I go in you know we
do a lot of Motown covers and there are no songs over three minutes long so
cold sweat that you know I was just gonna mention it this cold sweat part one
and part two that's right yeah because even those guys they wanted to you know
once you're in the groove but they had to break it up right yeah I mean you
know there was only certain amount of time on a 45 RPM so and that's another
thing about the phonograph record too that you were really limited in how much
time you could you know put out on the side of a but this can still have any
base at all so you know 20 minutes or so is about the side the length of one
side of an LP and that really locked a lot of stuff in and so you know if you've
got a bunch of songs and you want them out then if you have two minute songs
you can get a lot of them on the side cold sweat great album oh yeah yeah I mean James
Brown you know it's just he was like from another planet you know it's kind of
like Hendrix you know they just just different from anybody else and and just
had an enormous amount of energy and showmanship and and just a stunning
voice I wanted to ask you something related to that Jay because you know much
more about that scene seems to me that sometime around 67 Motown is meeting let's
call it the white audience yeah because you've had the early 60s Motown's been
been big but then you get I don't know James Brown Otis Redding a Riesa Franklin
am I right that they start turning the the whites turned to the blacks and the
blacks turned to the whites in a well that was one of the things about the 60s was
there was kind of a you know a breakdown of some of the racial stereotyping and
stuff which I guess is weird it's ugly head yet again but in that period of time
there was an openness I think to listen to music and part of that may have been
am radio where like I mentioned earlier you would hear a Motown song and then
the Beatles and then a you know a bubblegum pop song and so everybody heard
everything and you it's you know rather than listening to like you know one
station that played all black music which I think KDA was one of those in the
Bay Area that played mostly soul and you know Motown stuff mostly soul really but
then the mainstream stations started playing everything and that really I
think changed the way people related to the the types of music that maybe weren't
their thing and I know I was you know big stones fan and into the blues but you
know when someone when James Brown or something like that would come on it was
just like whoa that's that's pretty high you know and so it kind of opened up
my you know appreciation for types of music that maybe weren't my exact thing and now
they of course you know Motown is awesome I mean it's just they had some of the
greatest songs ever done and so do you want to say a few words about Otis
writing Jay well you know I'm not an expert on Otis in particular but he just
you know and Rita Franklin and the whole you know kind of stacks Motown scene
they just produced so much great music Smoky Robinson I mean you know the list
is too long to even you know go into but and I at the time didn't really
appreciate that music but over the years I've gotten more and more you know
into it and so now I mean I really from like my band we you know and all the
covers we do are basically Motown songs that right yeah I thought you were more
a blues guy there's a lot of blues in that stuff so going back to the concept
album there's you mentioned electric lady land which is 68 so it's a year
later but never that that is a concept album of sorts right well of sorts yeah
for sure it's not one concept but electric lady land and you know the gods
made love and the UFOs there's like there's an attempt on Hendrix's part maybe
and you think it's Sergeant Peppers had something to do with that as well no doubt I
think that I agree with Jay that after Sergeant Peppers the anti had been
up in a sense I mean I personally don't think it's not one of the albums I
love by the Beatles I think that the stuff that came before was more true
Beatles authentic that's where they were good with those two three my total
agree with that incredible songs and fantastic hits there's no song on on the
Sergeant Peppers that I think measures up to their top ten or 15 perhaps but it
ups the ante as to what Canon should be done in the rock scene yeah the Beatles
let gave it legitimacy right because these guys are poppers and it kind of
pushed everybody to you know well they've done that so you know we got to do
something everybody has to outdo the other yeah so rock bands start using
classical orchestras too like deep purple and Pink Floyd themselves
right traffic takes off we have a traffic was amazing yeah we traffic was in 67
there were yeah in many ways were they in 67 yeah and that's Stevie
Wynn would there who goes on to do you know blind faith and other things yeah
there very much the beginnings at the beginnings of progressive rock as well
yeah in a very non-traditional rock using folk elements are using
yeah right so Tom was mentioning off air that maybe if you had to choose a
couple of let's say three songs of 67 that would be like the most important
not necessarily the most iconic but ones that you would point to and Tom
mentioned did you say purple haze and the end yeah those would be the two
that I would consider in some ways most iconic most revolutionary right we'll
talk about the end and a bit but I curious about you Jay if you had to choose a
couple of songs well that's really hard yeah yeah I I can't really point to any
specific songs that yeah there was a lot of bands that you know especially in
the Bay Area that was kind of the beginning for you know popularity for the
Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver which is another Quicksilver
messenger service which is another one of my favorite bands I think they
they there album came out in the next year in January or February so they
missed 67 by a little bit but yeah so those were my big influences in the Bay
Area but you know of course the you know cream and Hendrix and the Beatles
and the Stones the Rolling Stones were kind of my my guiding so up focus
regarding the end what what is it about that song that you think Thomas so kind of
path breaking and well so you've got the length to begin with and it's a kind of
it's very psychedelic but I think what's most revolutionary about it over
and beyond the sort of musical features in which you're kind of floating
everything is airy and unresolved because these these sonorities you hear on the
guitar their unresolved chords is the unresolved witness of the lyrics this is
about an edible conflict that entire generation was feeling when Jim
Morrison you know makes his way up there to kill his dad and you know well I mean
this is the era when the fathers are sending the sons off to be killed off
of Vietnam yeah well exactly so you've got all of the political background
that's built into this in a way that you don't find it in my opinion in
Sergeant Pepper's whatsoever yeah there's a drama the apocalyptic the worries
the the reasons for the for the flower children and so on is all in here now
this isn't a song that at the time probably had much of an effect I don't know
how many people actually listen this I certainly do oh yeah I had the
way everybody listen to it around yeah yeah but it's always way out there
it's post Freudian from a message point of view it's just crazy although it's
very different from any summer of love type of feel good make love not war
there's a dark yeah almost right the right thing I got the quality to it
Summer and love was a lot of flower masks on what was gonna happen they're
already by 68 by 68 is a popular yeah yeah well you know the people were
getting very hippie in December in Golden Gate Park and that was the end of
the hippie in San Francisco really and then the hippie drugs took hold and
and that scene just you know basically deteriorated so you know you've got the
human being and the nice Golden Gate Park stuff and then following that you've
got Eltonmont and that was kind of the end of that scene entirely so you have two
stories you've got a short story about the Summer of Love which is literally a
Summer of Love yeah in a specific part of the world right only and then you've
got the bigger story which is Vietnam the 60s and all the work that has to
be done and all the student proton in France as well as you can't
Germany yeah England you in the love sort of gave way to the anger and it was a
failed revolution if you want to use that you know cliche the 60s were to have
been a revolution and it was many ways failed and this pretty much every
other than the end in January of 67 so it's it's prior to the summer it's down
in LA you know there's a whole lot of stuff that's being forecast here I think
yeah it's interesting because there was that that hope you know and
ultimately you know that protest movement did interfere with the you know
the war but it took years and by then people were really angry and involved in
heavy drugs as opposed to you know potnasty you know they're not really paid a
price yeah yeah so yeah I think you're right it did it was failed in every sense
except the music yeah well it opened up it opened up the the minds of
American so on but it had a long list of casualties Jimmy was dead by 70 so
many Jim Morrison himself and so on and so forth so yeah although I would choose to
go back to 1967 if I could relive one year maybe if I could be five or six years
older I think 67 would be probably right my first choice what do you say J
I'll go yeah yeah this is the 50th anniversary of my high school graduation so
yeah how did that happen I go back to 72 or 73 musically yeah well in terms of
you know all the things that the 60s opened up for young people we were taking
advantage of it actually I'm gonna stay right here now listening to Morrison
brings to mind someone we haven't mentioned which is was Janice Joplin
because big brother in the holding company comes out with their album 67 as
well and I we own that album as of 68 I think I I always loved I still think
it's really under appreciated album in many ways what do you think J I was never a
big fan of big brother I just didn't think their musicianship was up to I
know everyone is knocking them for their musicianship but they well I mean
they had a sound there that was yeah yeah they did but it was I don't know I
didn't find it compelling personally I thought she was a lot better off when
she you know switched musicians and backing groups and then I got into the
her later stuff yeah I'm not I I that's still my favorite Janice's at
first house yeah I'd like it too I think it's very Bay Area it's very
prototypically Bay Area despite the fact that well it's very high school Bay
Area yeah that's what all the bands sounded like you know but so but could be
Joe in the fish they were a big I yeah and we haven't talked much about grateful
dead but they're kind of high school too yeah but no it's hard to say because I
don't know they were about expanded consciousness and just being in a
different zone I'm not sure you I would associate that with high school
they were incredibly hot and cold sometimes they were awesome and some nights
they just don't I mean you know and that's that's reality I mean I haven't
played in bands for for a long time you know some nights you just aren't on and
it doesn't work but sometimes that that loose conglomeration of you know of
personalities just I mean played some incredible stuff well what's going on in
the states as opposed to England if you if we can't generalize at all it seems
to me when I think about country Joe in grateful dad big brother there's this
kind of loose experimentalism that's even encouraged and being recorded
whereas in England you know with the kinks and with the who and the whole sort
of tradition of recording classical music by the sound engineers things are
much more tight and controlled I kind of liked that when they brought that to
the to the blues genre and come up with a kind of British version of that
where things are I think it enriched that tradition precisely because of the
precision and musical at on the one hand musical experimentation but with a
certain degree of discipline to it well this brings back the whole you know the
African-American and the meeting the white scene transatlantic way when
when the when the British inherit the blues in quotes if you will once they
the embrace some the stones and the animals and and later John mail and cream and
the Peter Green crowd that makes the blues listen to by the entire world and it
goes back to the US and it has the BB Kings get rediscovered an Albert King
and Freddie King
money water and howling wolf remember when the stones come to the states and
they want to have they're gonna get on TV and they insist that howling wolf
yeah join them they say who's howling wolf and then when they find out who
howling wolf is that we don't want that guy on stage yeah yeah and the stones
insisted yeah so yeah so taking the blues and making it British and tuning
the instruments finally making sure your solo has been rehearsed and so on
like Eric Claptor and and it really reinforced the careers of BB King and
money waters they made him rich yeah it did and they knew it and they they
were appreciative I they they didn't say all you white kids you know absolutely
know quite the contrary I think they were flattered yeah and the gratitude was both
ways I mean oh yeah Eric Claptor is just his reverence for the tradition and
for those musicians and he keeps you know using whatever clout and
financial resources he has to make sure they get their spotlight and and it's
but because both ways well there's something about also the stones were
just you know addresses the human condition and doesn't you know the
specifics are not all that important because everybody's human yeah yeah I
mean it would have it would have been heard and it would have reached out to the
entire world anyway it's just that the British were best position to
embrace it first you know yeah okay well I have a question about Jimmy Hendricks
in this regard because the the standard line is that he comes from the
blues tradition that he's a there it's a blues foundation but if you look at
his entire corpus he has very few blues songs at least songs that follow the
blues bar I think Red House is one of the only ones am I right about that there's
I don't know they yeah well what was his early career he was
it was rhythm and blues he was yeah it R&B guitar player yeah yeah so that you
know more along the lines of
a little Richard and you know yeah well yeah that's what he did for a living right
and that's I'm sure what you know what influences guitar playing was you know
you can't do that for years without that becoming part of your your take on it
so he did that for you know the chitlin circuit mm-hmm to pay the bills
yeah for what few bills though they would pay but when he gets to England if you
listen to what he's doing when he's sitting around he's he's working on
howling wolf type songs muddy water stuff and his bass player what was the
guy's name Billy Billy cop the guy from Cox Billy Cox yeah they used to play
together in army and he says Jimmy's love was always the blues the
straight blues so all of that muddy water stuff but when he gets to England he
goes into the psychedelia but he's always working on the blues on the side yeah
and by let's always land I mean Buddha child is nothing but the most brilliant
blues innovation yeah yeah he took it another step forward he did it but I'm
I'm suspecting that he also has a debt to the British blue of what what the
Brits brought to the blues and what he gets from from them in the way he
inflicted the blues tradition he didn't limit himself to what they call the
pentatonic scale which all the American blues
our players would have only used and when he gets to England if you analyze
purple haze the scales and the harmonies he's usually in that song
completely elsewhere yeah but he goes back to the pentatonic when he forms
his old black band band of gypsies oh yeah and when he's playing voodoo child
stuff then he's going back to pentatonic but he never limited himself to that
that's where he was yeah he the more than American more than you know that
that's where the English if you want to call it that effect yeah takes place
does either of you want to say a word about the velvet underground no no not
really but I could say this is an interesting case of production because
they were produced by the same guys who produced the Frank Zappas mothers of
invention
verve mgm yeah that's right and so
the producing velvet underground in New York
that's the New York scene whatever that is I mean it doesn't quite
travel the world so we don't know that much about it
but it's the same producers
who do freak out and who do the velvet underground both of which are radically
different and strange
and there was a lot of rivalry as consequence between Frank Zappas and
the velvet underground crowd which is basically a three-cord outfit it's very much
sort of
punk
uh... leaning
many many years earlier but it's leaning that way very simple and a
different field to it when all Zappas trying to be really
complex and sophisticated so they couldn't be more different
and yet they both had a change enormous influence wouldn't she say yeah
if not immediately develop it out of the ground
remain maybe not on me but no no but on a lot of people
sure of those gold bands like the early
sit-buried pink florida
yeah although there's more musically happening in pink florida
they're both achieved that status of timeless cult uh...
effect
it's a very original album even if
you you gotta have the taste for it
it has a dream quality as well
maybe it could be heroin induced but
their famous song but it is really yeah but it has that dream quality that
the end has in some of you also have the the importance of the female singer
unique or you know she's european right so that's where you're getting
she had been in felony movies and yes she's a real character
and uh...
and the war holes effect
so with velvet underground you're doing more than just
rock something like happens with that
band called united states of america that's also l_a_
and if you guys have very progressive band
yeah very progressive about them same time
well you guys we started with the jimmy we're gonna end uh... with the song
that we actually put we did a gig last night and not that our listeners would
know that but we we played this song you know just last night all together
so we're gonna leave our listeners with that uh...
want to thank j_k_d_s_ from karma here at standford in the music department
and tom here is my brother from u_c_a_ for coming up
and uh...
you stay tuned to entitle opinions i'm robert harris and believe you with halo
the
halo
we're going back to your
and you
i said where you're going back and got it on the end
i'm going out of shoot my old head
you know i'm gonna go on the other
i'm going out of shoot my old head
you know i'm gonna go around with another man
and a bit
and
(upbeat music)
♪ You know I'm calling myself around ♪
♪ and that's the brown town ♪
♪ And that's the brown town ♪
♪ And yes, my opinion of the auto ♪
♪ You know that's my brown ♪
♪ And that's the brown town ♪
♪ And I get to the good rock and music ♪
(upbeat music)
(lively music)
♪ Show 'em what I'm telling you ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ You're gonna run through the mountain ♪
♪ Hey, Joe, where you're running ♪
♪ Now, where you're going to go ♪
♪ We're leaving, I thought we'd have to go ♪
♪ We're now the Mexican throwing wave ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ I'm going with ourself ♪
♪ You wait down, I can see it green ♪
♪ You paint the point when it burns ♪
♪ You ain't just the rain in the water ♪
♪ Give it a brown town ♪
♪ You wanna live with us ♪
♪ I got your love ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Where you going ♪
(upbeat music)
[BLANK_AUDIO]