The year 1967 (the year I graduated from high school) arguably
saw the release of the most great rock albums in any one year (and I bought all
of the following).
Consider first just the debut albums from that year (in
order of their release):
The Doors, The Doors. The group was only a year old when it
recorded these 11 songs, with the romantic-influenced poetry of Jim Morrison
and the jazz-influenced trio of Ray Manzarek (keyboard), Robby Krieger (guitar),
and John Densmore (drums). Highlights are the forceful and wandering “The End”
and “Light My Fire” (the lengthy improvisation unfortunately cut for the
single).
Surrealistic Pillow, Jefferson Airplane. One of the first
psychedelic bands out of San Francisco (this was to become “the summer of love”),
Grace Slick had just joined the group, fortunately in time to record the
signature “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit,” both of which rose into the
Top Ten. (Apparently the album’s title came from Jerry Garcia, who while
sitting in on the sessions as an “advisor,” commented, “This is as surrealistic
as a pillow.”) The band I played in that spring hired a female singer and a
light show (movie, slide, and overhead projectors, a strobe light) and became
the first psychedelic band in Wichita, maybe in Kansas.
Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead. Another San Francisco
psychedelic-folk group that had been around the Bay for several years, The Dead’s
first album wasn’t their best but was their first and too-often overlooked.
The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Velvet Underground. This
album was neither a critical or commercial success, but that’s probably because
it was the antithesis to what was coming out of England to the East and
California to the West. But this album is the beginning of punk and alt-rock to
follow. I wouldn’t have known about this group if I hadn’t taken an art class
my last semester of high school and been introduced to Andy Warhol (the group
came from his Factory, and he did the art for the cover (a banana)).
Moby Grape, Moby Grape. Probably the best group ever to last so
short a time, this S.F. band had five members who could all write and sing, and
three guitarists who could play very different but complimentary styles. They
combined folk, country, and jazz with rock and psychedelic. “Omaha,” “Changes,”
“Hey Grandma,” “8:05,” and “Sitting By the Window” were all released as
singles, but only “Omaha” made the
charts (at #85) – they all should landed toward the top, but were released too
close, too fast. Apparently internal strife, combined with drugs and egos, led
to their untimely breakup.
Big Brother and the Holding Company, Big Brother and the
Holding Company. Yet another band to come out of S.F., this isn’t a great
album, but it’s the first Janis Joplin album, and that’s enough. Grace Slick
and Janis Joplin, two very different but very powerful female singers, emerge
from S.F. in the same year. And Joplin’s “Women Is Losers” hints at what’s to
come. Two years later I would meet Joplin when she played Wichita, a meeting
she probably had forgotten by the time she got back to her hotel that night.
Are You Experienced?, Jimi Hendrix Experience. Many consider
Hendrix to be the greatest electric guitar player ever, and while I could make
an argument for two or three others, I’m not going to do so. This is one of those
albums that changed music, with its fusion of rock and blues and jazz and
psychedelic, and Hendrix’s screaming-to-plaintive Stratocaster over it all on “Purple
Haze,” “Foxey Lady,” “Manic Depression,” and “The Wind Cries Mary.” Two years
later I would see the Experience play at Red Rocks in Denver, what would turn
out to be their last performance.
Procol Harum, Procol Harum. “Whiter Shade of Pale” reached the
Top Five in the summer of ’67, and remains in my top ten. I was at the
beginning of my English major career when this came out, and all English majors
were required to find all of the Chaucer references. And of course, living in
Kansas I had to be drawn to “The Devil Came From Kansas.” Oh yes, the music is
good too. (In 1972 I was in a strip club in Germany, and “Whiter Shade of Pale”
was the accompaniment to a sex film, an unnerving moment.)
Blowin’ Your Mind!, Van Morrison. This brief eight-song album
is not at all Morrison’s best, but it was his first solo album after the break
with Them (“Gloria”). And it does have one of my favorite songs of all time,
Brown Eyed Girl.” That’s enough for me. And Astral
Weeks was only a year away.
OK, in case there’s any doubt remaining, let’s add a few
other titles that were also released in 1967 (again, in order of their release):
Younger Than Yesterday, The Byrds. One of my favorite bands of
the ‘60s (half of the playlist of my first band was Byrd’s tunes), this is not
the strongest of their work, but it is the first album after the departure of
singer-writer Gene Clark and does show the way they would go over the following
few years. And “So You Want To Be a Rock and Roll Star” is a classic
self-mocking of rock stardom.
Flowers, The Rolling Stones. Not one of their best, but this
compilation of singles and not-released-in-the-U.S. tunes includes “Let’s Spend
the Night Together,” “Ruby Tuesday,” and “Mother’s Little Helper” (though there’s
also the odd “Lady Jane,” which is probably some personal reference which
should have remained personal).
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles. This is
considered by most lists the #1 rock album of all time, in part because of the
songs, but mostly because of its being the first celebrated concept album. I
skip over “Within You Without You” that opens side two of the album (halfway
through the CD), but the opening three songs of side one – “With a Little Help
From My Friends,” “Fixing a Hole,” and “Getting Better” – more than excuse the
later lapse. For a very brief time (we played only one public show) I was in a
group from Colorado who performed this album (not very well (even the Beatles
didn’t perform it live)) straight through.
Strange Days, The Doors. The group’s second album in the same
year, but for the surprise, almost as good. Witness “Strange Days,” “Love Me
Two Times,” and “When the Music’s Over.” And the street circus cover is a
compelling meditation to accompany the music.
Absolutely Free, The Mothers of Invention. Frank Zappa was a
genius of bringing together any and all forms of music – classical, jazz, rock,
blues, whatever – into a mash-up that combined with his socially critical
lyrics produced wonderfully complex musical parodies: “Plastic People,” “The
Duke of Prunes,” “Call Any Vegetable,” “America Drinks,” “Status Back Baby,” “Brown
Shoes Don’t Make It.” I’ve never seen a group cover a Mothers song. I don’t
think there are any that could.
Disraeli Gears, Cream. Has there been a better second album?
All of the influences are here, from the Arthur Reynolds’ “Outside Woman Blues”
to the rock of “Sunshine of Your Love” to the jazzy “We’re Going Wrong” to the surreal
free verse of “Tales Of Brave Ulysses” (“You see your girl's brown body dancing
through the turquoise, / And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves
the sea. / And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body, / Carving
deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.”)
Buffalo Springfield Again, Buffalo Springfield. This dysfunctional
group that would soon morph into Poco and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and (later) Young,
was at its dysfunctional height. But the folk-country-rock successes of this
album are considerable: “Mr. Soul,” “Bluebird,” “Rock & Roll Woman,” “Broken
Arrow.”
Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles. Again, the Beatles. Some say
their second album of ’67 (which came from their worst movie) is even better
than the celebrated Sgt. Pepper’s.
And there is certainly evidence to support that claim: “Strawberry Fields
Forever,” “Penny Lane,” “Hello Goodbye,” “I Am the Walrus,” and “All You Need
Is Love.”
John Wesley Harding, Bob Dylan. After going electric two years
earlier, Dylan here goes to Nashville and changes direction for the second (but
not the last) time. Everyone has a different list of Dylan favorites, but there
are a number on this album: “All Along the Watchtower,” “The Ballad of Frankie
Lee and Judas Priest,” “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine,” and “I’ll Be Your Baby
Tonight” (a foreshadowing of his next album, Nashville Skyline).
The Immortal, Mississippi John Hurt. The gold standard of the ‘60s
blues-folk rediscoveries, Hurt’s finger-picking, singing, and lyrics on this
album recorded when he was 73 and released posthumously would be as compelling
if he were 35 when he first recorded in 1928. “Since I’ve Laid My Burden Down,”
“Richmond Woman Blues,” “The Chicken,” “Stagolee” (probably the best version of
that traditional song) – ‘nuff said. I tried to learn a number of Hurt’s songs,
but despite the seeming simplicity of the picking, never could get it down.
The Who Sell Out, The Who. Another concept album, this one a
wonderful parody of British pirate radio, the mostly comic songs – “Mary Anne
With the Shaky Hand,” “Odorono,” “Tattoo,” “I Can See For Miles,” “Silas Stingy”
– interspersed with jingles for baked beans, deodorant, pimple cream. For some
of us, The Who’s best album.
There might be some other year that could produce as lengthy
a list of great rock albums as this, but I seriously doubt it. And probably not
another year where the albums cost less than the $2.00 they cost in 1967. And I
did buy all of the above (and others, as well). I sold all of my albums a few
months ago ($60 for probably a couple hundred). There’s a part of me that
regrets this, especially looking over this list. But then I remember that I no
longer have a turntable and couldn’t listen to any of them anyway. Time and
technology move on. I now have Pandora and iTunes, and all of the songs on all
of these albums are accessible there.
No comments:
Post a Comment