What were the earliest LONG rock & pop songs on record?

interesting post on inspiration for Goin' Home from the Aftermath thread:

Regarding "Going home" - the idea of the long jam was stolen from Love who were playing what became "Revelations" in 1965 - it was then called "John Lee Hooker" Iirc. Mick saw them do it in LA, the next night Keith came along with Mick and saw them do it, and then used the idea as the template for "Going home". At least that's what I've read in two places - the "Da capo" sleeve notes and the book written by the drummer, or was it the bass player?

― Rob M Revisited, Tuesday, March 12, 2013 1:11 PM (Yesterday)

There's also Arlo Guthrie, "Alice's Restaurant" (1967) – 18:34

That's interesting - in which case I wonder what Love's inspiration was if the live version was as early as 1965.

the seeds : up in here room - 1966, 14.45

love it ...

isn't there a Fugs song or something?

Ray Charles, "What'd I Say" (1959) – 6:30

re: "Alice's Restaurant", JB's "Lost Someone", and the live version of "Up In her Room" - should live recordings count?

Seeds also had "900 Million People Daily All Making Love" which is 6:58 - but also only on a live record at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOUhXHg4HCU

What's up with all the LA bands doing epic jams?

xxp "Virgin Forest" from their second album in 1966

also from 1966 = Zappa's "Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" though that is def in two movements, there's probably some Fahey, Basho, etc from 65-66 that could possibly qualify as well

Virgin Forest = 11:09
Return/Son of Monster Magnet = 12:17

Freak Out! has "Help, I'm a Rock" (8:37) and "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" (12:22), and that came out in '66. From what I remember, they're more like collages than actual songs, though.

Oops--synchronicity.

sorry - the Seeds super-long "Up In her Room" is from the studio album "Web of Sound" - wiki says 14:45 in '67

Different strands of long here - the collage, the rock opera, the hypnotic jam, the stream-of-consciousness lyrical overload - each stemming from a different impulse.

Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley

Chuck's Beat (10:36)
Bo's Beat: (14:05)

1964

sorry - the Seeds super-long "Up In her Room" is from the studio album "Web of Sound" - wiki says 14:45 in '67

its still ace though ..

The Godz' "Crusade" (9:00), 1967.

no no I was trying to give the Seeds credit, it's great.

and yeah it is from 1966!

bob dylan - sad-eyed lady of the lowlands 11:22 (1966)

nina simone - sinnerman 10:19 (1965)

Ella Fitzgerald "How High the Moon" 6:58 (1960)

Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley

Chuck's Beat (10:36)
Bo's Beat: (14:05)

1964

― how's life, Wednesday, 13 March 2013

good digging but then are instrumentals rock & pop songs?

& is ella rock or pop?

& then again aren't desolation row and sad-eyed lady really in the tradition of the long folk ballad?

See also Johnny Cash "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" – 9:03, Blood, Sweat and Tears, 1963.

woody guthrie's "tom joad" (6:34) came out on a double-sided 78 in 1940, re-issued in 1950.

>>>are instrumentals rock & pop songs?

Instrumentals "Honky Tonk," "Sleepwalk" "Pipeline" etc. etc. were huge pop hits, obviously. Chuck and Bo were mining a longer, jammier version but there's a reason many of those old 45s had a part 1 and a part 2 on the B side; they were attempting to replicate in studio the lengthier workouts they were playing live.

xp: the berry and diddley songs are morelike jams, but they are as "early rock" as anything has gotten on this thread.

Ella's song is a poppy jazz number. I dunno. You don't know what pop is, until you know the meaning of the blues.

Paul Butterfield Blues Band were also doing their instrumental jam "East-West" live around the time of Aftermath, which they then recorded at Chess in Chicago in time to be released in August '66 and which clocked in at 13:11. It's a much different thing than "Goin' Home," but it seems like this general idea was in the air at the moment.

The Godz' "Crusade" (9:00), 1967.

― clemenza, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 10:15 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am no friend of The Godz but this one song slays me every time.

What's up with all the LA bands doing epic jams?

they were all hanging out at the ash grove watching people like ravi shankar

^^^ and jazz.

I think Sandy Bull's "Blend" (22:00) from his first album is an important precursor

1963

maybe the first sidelong guitar track?

nice list of albums with side long tracks http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Joci/albums_containing_at_least_one_side_long_track

a bunch of son house's paramount recordings contained p long songs split up into two tracks because obvs they can't fit on a single side of a 78. those were somewhere from 1928 to 1930.

http://www.document-records.com/images/200s/DOCD-5002.jpg

looks like at least one garfield akers track had the same treatment. the son house recordings i'm p sure were from 1930, idk about akers.

Son House
01 - My black mama - part 1 Listen
02 - My black mama - part 2 Listen
03 - Preachin` the blues - part 1 Listen
04 - Preachin` the blues - part 2 Listen
05 - Dry spell blues - part 1 Listen
06 - Dry spell blues - part 2 Listen
07 - Walking blues Listen

Willie Brown
08 - M & O blues Listen
09 - Future blues Listen

Kid Bailey
10 - Mississippi bottom blues Listen
11 - Rowdy blues Listen

Garfield Akers
12 - Cottonfield blues - part 1 Listen
13 - Cottonfield blues - part 2 Listen
14 - Dough roller blues Listen
15 - Jumpin` and shoutin` blues Listen

Joe Calicott
16 - Fare thee well blues Listen
17 - Traveling mama blues Listen

Jim Thompkins
18 - Bedside blues Listen

Blind Joe (Willie) Reynolds
19 - Outside woman blues Listen
20 - Nehi blues Listen
21 - Married man blues Listen
22 - Third Street woman blue Listen

Rube Lacy
23 - Mississippi jail house groan Listen
24 - Ham hound crave Listen

COltrane had been going to 20 minutes+ for a few years by the time those '65 tracks came out. He seems to have been a big influence on a lot of people throughout the 60s. I think the SF Ballroom sound was an attempt to introduce his influence especially what he was doing with standards like MY Favourite Things into rock to some degree too, stretching out familiar melodies etc. In th ecase of the ballroom sound a loyt of those melodies were folk tunes etc.

But on the other hand you hear that bands like the Who were doing long rave ups on r'n;b material from their beginnings, at least as the Who. Noty sure if that comes from that influence.

Seems like the constraint may have been more on the recorded version of songs than the live ones. 3 minutes haveing been arrived at as the perfect maximum duration for a single at least. I heard taht there was ome gang controlled jukebox management that meant that things remained that way for a long time.

I also heard that when the recorded version was introduced it effected the way that even classical music was played. That before that the orchestra was more influenced by the applause of the audience as to how many times they repeated sections but that went out when the lp started to mean people were more accustomed to listening to a programmed sequence of music once only in correct sequence.

Both may be apocryphal.

I think you could be right about Coltrane - a big influence on early psych.

uh oh, I'm having deja vu to a dumb stubborn argument I had with shakey mo about this haha. but coltrane's stretching out goes back to ravi shankar as well.

it seems to me that the idea of music with particular fixed length really only exists in relation to recorded music. the length of a folk song depends on how many verses you want to sing. obviously really long form music stretches back throughout music history. and certainly where people are dancing there has always been an impulse to keep jamming as long as people keep dancing.

But on the other hand you hear that bands like the Who were doing long rave ups on r'n;b material from their beginnings, at least as the Who. Noty sure if that comes from that influence.

Townshend has gone on record as being influenced by Coltrane (and Sun Ra!) at that time, so yeah.

benny goodman orchestra's cover of "sing sing sing" rocks pretty hard for a big band tune from 1938. eight-and-a-half minutes. released as a double-sided 78. and to make sure they could get it all on record they expanded the width of the 78 from ten inches to twelve.

Similarly, Duke Ellington's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" in 1937. But while it was composed (and performed live) as a single, uninterrupted piece, technological constraints meant each piece had to be recorded separately.

Fahey had def had long tracks throughout his early discography but "The Great San Bernadino Birthday Party" from the 1966 album of the same name clocks in at 19:00 and is the first one on record to stretch out past ten minutes (according to wiki at least)

first fahey track on record to stretch past 10 minutes, not first track ever.

Are there exceptionally long recorded blues or folk songs that predate these, and inspired Dylan and The Stones?

There are certainly a lot of long (traditional) folk songs, with lots of verses, not sure how many had been recorded by the early 60s. Dylan would certainly have heard more than a few, I would imagine.

yep. two collections of 78s released on LP by Folkways in the 50's - Dustbowl Ballads & the Anthology of American Folk Music - would have been key for the folk revivalists of the sixties and both contain two-part longish tracks, but the limitations on length in recorded music before the sixties mean it's not a very fruitful avenue, compared to live music & manuscripts & maybe radio broadcasts.

so like dylan based "hard rain" on the trad anglo-scottish ballad "lord randall" and it was ten minutes long when he was debuting it live

and he'd be familiar with songs or accounts of songs like this one by pete seeger of woody guthrie: "Then he'd hitch his guitar around and sing the longest long outlaw ballad you ever heard"

surprised the Yardbirds didn't record any epic studio rave-ups