I used to be an avid collector of 60s American music, all those psychedelic compilations and box-sets; the only I have left is a four CD set entitled “Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets, 1965-1970”, but I am pretty familiar with most of this music. There are the predictable choices of course: the collection starts off with The Byrds’ ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ and there are other ‘hits’ and regular apparitions on 60s compilation CDs like The Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Do You Believe in Magic’, Barry McGuire’s ‘Eve of Destruction’ and Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’. But here is the compilation’s strength: its’ inclusion of lesser-known songs like Judy Henske’s ‘High Flying Bird’, The Beau Brummel’s ‘Sad Little Girl’ and singles like Tim Hardin’s ‘Hang on to a Dream’ popularised by The Nice (and yes I had that one as well) and The Leaves’ ‘Hey Joe’, popularised by – you know who! Also, and this is just CD one, “Jingle Jangle Morning” has more obscure collectors’ items like Mouse’s ‘A Public Execution’, The Ashes ‘is There Anything I Can Do?’, a number from Mama Cass Elliot’s early days with The Mugwumps and Blackburn and Snow’s ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’.
CD two again has a few predictable and rightly well-known songs by The Buffalo Springfield (‘For What It’s Worth’), Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’ and Scott McKenzie (I think you can guess). In the middle ground are tracks by Jefferson Airplane, Gene Clark and Tim Buckley whilst the rare gems include The Blue Things, The Rising Storm and The Sunshine Company. CD three has more than its fair share of obscurities by Steve Young whose amalgam of country-folk-blues-swamp-pop-soul-gospel-rock defied categorisation on his ‘Rock Salt and Nails’ album, epitomising just how eclectic music could be back then; The Lemon Drops and a group called Lamb. The more predictable choices are, well, not that predictable, covering artists like Linda Ronstadt (who also appears with The Stone Poneys on CD one) and Tom Paxton. More familiar might be Dion’s ‘Abraham, Martin and John’ and Judy Collins’ ‘Both Sides Now’. There are also 10,000 words from Richie Unterberger, the renowned music historian who has written, amongst many other things, an enormous book about The Byrds and a two-volume tome entitled ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!/ Eight Miles High’ (neither song is included on this compilation by the way).
If you are not that familiar with some of the artists on this compilation, I had drafted a book on the history of U.S. pop and rock music and society in the vein of my “Within You, Without You” book. Disappointed by the distribution of sales of that book, I am nearing completion of a similar book but more focused on The Beatles right up to the year of their dissolution in 1970. This one will be entitled “Why The Beatles?” and I will be self-publishing it. So, the material I researched and wrote about in the aborted U.S. book will be shared on DISS in the coming weeks, starting with The Beau Brummels, a group well worth investigating, and represented by two songs on the “Jingle Jangle Morning” compilation.
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