RFI: Psychedelic Motown

I never think of the Mothers as psychedelic, just arty and weird like The Residents. It doesn't help that the leader/composer was anti-drug. I never got much out of listening to Zappa when I was on acid. In fact, I hated it.

One thing we were able to appreciate,even though the memories are calcified through advancing ravages of time, is that psychedelic music did not spring full formed from the breasts of Lennon/McCartney. They were influenced by things they had heard and certainly that included eastern ragas and musique concrete.

It was de rigueur to have a Ravi Shankar lp as well as an Edgar Varese to toss on the turntable to enhance the mood. But we were too stupid to realize that we had to wait, here in America, for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club to understand psychedelia.

Instead, we could hear the new sounds forming in the Yardbirds, Donovan, and yes, despite his anti-drug stance, Zappa's MOI Freak Out with its Help I'm a Rock, Who Are The Brain Police, and

One thing we were able to appreciate,even though the memories are calcified through advancing ravages of time, is that psychedelic music did not spring full formed from the breasts of Lennon/McCartney. They were influenced by things they had heard and certainly that included eastern ragas and musique concrete.

It was de rigueur to have a Ravi Shankar lp as well as an Edgar Varese to toss on the turntable to enhance the mood. But we were too stupid to realize that we had to wait, here in America, for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club to understand psychedelia.

Instead, we could hear the new sounds forming in the Yardbirds, Donovan, and yes, despite his anti-drug stance, Zappa's MOI Freak Out with its Help I'm a Rock, Who Are The Brain Police, and Return of the Son of Monster Magnet.

I suppose if your idea of psychedelia is limited to lace bodice foppery, gamboling in a fen while contemplatinng the radiant beauty of Lady Farquar, Sgt. Peppers is the ideal vehicle.

Wait--loan me those tea shades of yours, they help one see so clearly...

Ahhhhh. Here are some antecedents of psychedelia, though not themselves psychedelic:

Karlheinz Stockhausen--Kontakte
Kristof Penderecki--Threnody
Ornette Coleman--Shape of Jazz to Come
John Coltrane--My Favorite Things
Moondog--Moondog (on Prestige)
Edgar Varese--Ionisation
The Byrds--Mr Tambourine Man
Donovan--Sunshine Superman
Harry Partch--Barstow/Petals Fell on Petaluma
Terry Riley--In C

That's ten, and I'm leaving out tons of precedents in jazz, rock, blues, and classical. Here's your glasses back, Geir. Go listen.

What about the Brothers Johnson, in "Strawberry Letter 23"? (Maybe also the Shuggie Otis version, who knows.) Though, obviously, equating "psychedelia" with "just Sgt Peppers" is still moronic.

If Maggot Brain /= Psychedelicized,
then solve for X where X=WTF planet are we on?

I've been inspired by this thread to make a mix CD of psychedelic Motown songs...I'll comb through my LPs and mp3s and hopefully come up with something great. I'll post my results here if anyone's interested (dunno if the OP is still around).

i know, i know, i know. It's just, sometimes I just gotta let little air out...

And what colour was he again Geir? Was he Norwegian too by any chance?

It made me curious enough to scrabble together a copy of The Temptations' 'Psychedelic Shack' and 'All Directions.' Fabulous stuff.

The sheer wrongness of Geir's posts and yet he still continues on.

For anyone who's bothering to look, here's a better link for the one upthread that doesn't work (for me, anyway): http://members.tripod.com/~lysergia_2

pulled out Quincy Jones' soundtrack to Body Heat and damn if those songs don't sound like lost whitfield produced Temptation songs.

bumping this thread because i don't feel like making a new one

was listening to an old recording of the jefferson airplane doing syl johnson's "dresses too short" and i feel like this is something i've maybe underappreciated over the years, "heavy" sixties rock bands doing old soul tunes, tunes that are pretty new for me because they didn't make it as part of the "classic rock" canon (ref recent thread about "got my mind set on you". like, for a long time i didn't know "lovelight" wasn't a dead song. and then you have those early zep concerts from their first us tour where they do a very, very zep style version of garnet mimms' "long as i have you".

anyway, i'm sure there's tons more examples like this but i just don't know enough about sixties soul. thoughts?

I guess by "old soul tunes" you mean old in 2022, because "Dresses Too Short" was more or less contemporary to the Airplane, and "Long As I Have You" would only have been four or five years old?
The first thing that came to mind was James Gang doing "Stop" by Howard Tate on their first album, and that song had only been out for a year. Also, the Beach Boys weren't heavy, but they did cover "I Was Made to Love Her" in 1967.

check out the animals covering eddie & ernie's "outcast"

Alot of the Airplane archival albums credit "Dresses..." to Balin, so imagine my surprise when I heard the Syl for the first time at the local "Soul Night" and thought it was the Dap Kings or somebody doing JA!

The Dead also did "Hard To Handle".

Paul Butterfield (not the heaviest) did "Get Out of My Life, Woman" (by Lee Dorsey) and "One More Heartache" (by Marvin Gaye) when they were brand spanking new singles.

Vanilla Fudge lords over all with "You Keep Me Hangin' On".

Al Kooper & Mike Bloomfield did "Stop" as an instrumental on Super Session.

Jesus Christ @ the extra-ignorant Geir posts itt.

I guess by "old soul tunes" you mean old in 2022, because "Dresses Too Short" was more or less contemporary to the Airplane, and "Long As I Have You" would only have been four or five years old?
The first thing that came to mind was James Gang doing "Stop" by Howard Tate on their first album, and that song had only been out for a year. Also, the Beach Boys weren't heavy, but they did cover "I Was Made to Love Her" in 1967.

― Halfway there but for you

"Dolly Rocker, it's called Dolly Rocker
It's an old make of dress
Well, months old, you know
That sort of thing"

mccain otm re: vanilla fudge + "hard to handle." good jams.

Vanilla Fudge also did "Shotgun" (Junior Walker). Deep Purple did "River Deep, Mountain High" (Tina Turner). The Small Faces did "Every Little Bit Hurts" (Brenda Holloway). The Jimmy Page-era Yardbirds did "My Baby" (Garnet Mimms). Of course Janis Joplin/Big Brother did "Piece of My Heart" (Erma Franklin) which became a hit + part of the classic rock canon, so I guess it's disqualified... likewise "(I Know) I'm Losing You" (The Temptations) by Rod Stewart with the Faces. Janis Joplin also did "Tell Mama" (Etta James) and various other soul tunes. The Who did James Brown songs and "Heat Wave" (Martha & the Vandellas) but that was early in their career. I thought the Velvet Underground might have done "Hitch Hike" (Marvin Gaye) but I guess they just swiped the intro of it. The MC5 did "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" (James Brown).

"Of course Janis Joplin/Big Brother did "Piece of My Heart" (Erma Franklin) which became a hit + part of the classic rock canon, so I guess it's disqualified"

no that's exactly the sort of thing i'm thinking of, i never heard the erma franklin version. a lot of the soul covers i _know_ them from oldies radio, but someone like garnet mimms, nah

the velvets were unique for the era in that they didn't _do_ covers, there's a recording of them doing "green onions" on the andy warhol tapes i think but that's about it.

It's interesting that Jerry Ragovoy seems to be involved with many of these songs as a songwriter. He wrote or cowrote the Garnet Mimms songs and "Stop" by Howard Tate and "Piece of My Heart."

His Wikipedia entry lists several other compositions of his that fit the original question.

Yes, that is interesting. Wonder if he and Rudy Clark ever crossed paths. #onethread

XP He played piano on the James Gang's version of "Stop" too.

Speaking of Rudy Clark, the Dead also did "Good Lovin'" (originally by the Olympics and popularized by the (Young) Rascals).

Ha!--The Olympics' "Good Lovin'" (which had different lyrics from the actual original by Lemme B. Good) was produced by Ragovoy!

Paul Butterfield (not the heaviest) did "Get Out of My Life, Woman"

Also covered by Iron Butterfly on Heavy.

(which is also not the heaviest)

Al Kooper & Mike Bloomfield did "Stop" as an instrumental on Super Session.

Remembering too that they also did a straight vocal version of Gene Chandler's Curtis Mayfield-penned "Man's Temptation" on that same album.

...and speaking of Curtis, Vanilla Fudge did "People Get Ready" and later on Beck Bogert & Appice addressed "I'm So Proud".