Jimi Hendrix Experience Are You Experienced? 1 страница

Jimi Hendrix Experience Are You Experienced?

Landmark debut from rock’s original wild axe-man. Record label: Track (UK) MCA (US)Produced: Chas ChandlerRecorded: De Lane Lea, London; January–March 1967; Olympic Studios, London; February–April 1967Released: May 12, 1967 (UK) August 23, 1967 (US)Chart peaks: 2 (UK) 5 (US)Personnel: Jimi Hendrix (v, g); Noel Redding (b, v); Mitch Mitchell (d)Track listing: Foxy Lady (S/US); Manic Depression; Red House (UK only); Hey Joe (US only) (S); Can You See Me? (UK only); Love Or Confusion; I Don’t Live Today; May This Be Love; Wind Cries Mary (US only) (S, UK only); Fire; Third Stone From The Sun; Remember (UK only); Purple Haze (S, US only); Are You Experienced?Running time: 38.38 (US) 40.12 (UK)Current CD: MCA MCD11608 adds: Stone Free; 51st Anniversary; Highway ChileFurther listening: Axis Bold As Love (1967); Electric Ladyland (1968)Further reading: Are You Experienced? (Noel Redding and Carol Appleby, 1990); Room Full Of Mirrors: A Biography Of Jimi Hendrix (Charles R Cross, 2005); www.jimihendrix.comDownload: iTunes; HMV DigitalAre You Experienced? is best experienced in mono. With rock’s involvement with stereo still confined to spacey panning and scattering vocals around either speaker – and period psychedelia only adding to the confusion – even the best-realised record was a plague of distracting gimmickry. In mono, however, the full majesty of Hendrix’s vision shatters the speakers, proof that this boy didn’t need technology to make him ricochet round the room. He was doing it quite successfully already – as engineer Eddie Kramer remembers: ‘He would come up with some kind of crazy sound, I would catch it on tape, then try and twist it around and make it even sillier.’ The freakish Third Stone From The Sun and the title track are the epics which paint Hendrix’s future in screaming colours, but the title track is the brightest of the bite-sized rockers – Foxy Lady, Manic Depression, Fire – tracks whose success, Kramer insists, came down to manager/producer Chandler. ‘If you look at the first record, most of the tracks are three and a half, four minutes long, and that was Chas’s influence. He came from that whole pop vibe, keeping it to three and a half minutes, which was a bit frustrating for Jimi. But I think it was a good thing because it kept the improvising very intense and very compact.’

It was this intensity which ensured the album’s immortality. Dave Marsh has called Are You Experienced? ‘the greatest, most influential debut album ever released.’ Keith Altham described Hendrix as ‘a new dimension in electrical guitar music … a one-man assault upon the nerve cells.’ But Noel Redding laughs at the much-vaunted perfection of the album. ‘There’s mistakes on the Experience albums … I remember, I’d call over to Chas, “Hey, I hit a wrong note,” and he’d go, “Don’t worry, no one will fucking notice,” in that wonderful Geordie accent of his. Then Hendrix used to drop a couple of notes here or there, or miss a slight lyric, and Chas would say “Don’t worry, mate.” It was great, we paid a lot of attention to what we were doing, but it was the feel we were after, more than technical perfection.’ And that is what they got. An album which feels great and sounds just fine. Especially in mono.

Tim Hardin Tim Hardin 2

Second album by the errant young singer-songwriter, many of whose songs have become standards.Record label: VerveProduced: Charles Koppelman and Don RubinRecorded: Hardin’s home studio, Los Angeles; winter 1967Released: May 1967Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Tim Hardin (v, g, p); Artie Butler (strings); Felix Pappalardi (b); Sticks Evans (d); Phil Krauss (vibes)Track listing: If I Were A Carpenter; Red Balloon; Black Sheep Boy; Lady Came From Baltimore; Baby Close Its Eyes; You Upset The Grace Of Living When You Lie; Speak Like A Child; See Where You Are And Get Out; It’s Hard To Believe In Love For Long; Tribute To Hank WilliamsRunning time: 28.30Current CD: Lilith LR107Further listening: Suite For Susan Moore And Damion (1969) is a disturbing confessional in song and poetry of a man whose life is falling apart. Of his later albums Nine (1973) is probably the best; though his magical songwriting had deserted him, he proved himself a sensual soul-blues singerFurther reading: www.zipcon.net/~highroad/ hardin. htm; www.mathie.demon.co.uk/th/ (both fansites)Download: Not currently legally available

Susan Yardley was a young actress making a name for herself in the TV series The Young Marrieds when she first met Tim Hardin in Los Angeles. Hardin, already a hardened drug addict, had a bad record with women and may have had dishonourable intentions towards Susan, if the lyrics to The Lady Came From Baltimore are anything to go by. Instead he fell deeply and irrevocably in love with the actress – real name Susan Morss – who became his wife and inspired virtually all the songs that flooded out of him and formed the basis of Tim Hardin 2.

He set up a studio in his house and recorded a series of songs of poignant wonder which detail not only his intense love for Susan but also the paranoia and neuroses that smothered him. Red Balloon is an anguished song about drugs; Black Sheep Boy confronts his sense of failure and alienation; Tribute To Hank Williams has him identifying strongly with the tragic, too-fast-to-live legend of the country icon. If I Were A Carpenter poetically relates his inferiority complex over his marriage to the well-connected Susan Morss, renamed as Susan Moore by Hardin for artistic purposes. If I Were A Carpenter went on to become his most celebrated song, a hit for Bobby Darin, Four Tops and many others. Not that it impressed Hardin, still unsuccessfully fighting his habit. It’s said that when he first heard Bobby Darin’s cover of Carpenter in the car, he screamed the car to a halt, jumped out and stamped on the ground in a rage.

There were no happy endings for Tim Hardin or Susan Moore. He eventually died of an overdose, 13 years after the release of Tim Hardin 2. He had a long, difficult struggle with his own numerous demons, which included a terror of live performance, low self-esteem, constant writer’s block, the emotional roller-coaster of his on-off marriage and various attempts to escape the clutches of the drugs that ultimately killed him.

Donovan Sunshine Superman

Donovan, at his peak, shakes off the junior plastic Dylan tag. Nobody shouts Judas. Record label: PyeProduced: Mickie MostRecorded: Hollywood and London; 1965 (title track) and summer 1966Released: June 1967 (UK) September 1966 (US)Chart peaks: (UK) 25 (US) 11Personnel: Donovan (v, g); Eric Ford (g); Jimmy Page (g); Bobby Rae (b); Spike Healey (b); Shaun Phillips (sitar); Bobby Orr (d); Fast Eddie Hoh (d); Tony Carr (pc); John Cameron (k, ar); Harold McNair (flute); Danny Thompson (db)Track listing: Sunshine Superman (S); Legend Of A Girl Child Linda; The Observation; Guinevere; Celeste; Writer In The Sun; Season Of The Witch; Hampstead Incident; Sand Of Foam; Young Girl Blues; Three Kingfishers; Bert’s BluesRunning time: 49.00 (UK) 41.22 (US)Current CD: EMI 8735662 tracklisting runs: Sunshine Superman; Legend Of A Girl Child Linda; Three Kingfishers; Ferris Wheel; Bert’s Blues; Season Of The Witch; The Trip; Guinevere; The Fat Angel; Celeste; Breezes Of Patchulie; Museum (First Version); Superlungs (First Version); The Land That Doesn’t Have To Be; Sunshine Superman; Goo Trip (Demo – Mono); House Of Jansch (Demo – Version)Further listening: Mellow Yellow (1967); A Gift From A Flower To A Garden (1967); Barabajagal (1969)Further reading: www.sabotage.demon.co.uk/ donovan (fan site); www.donovan.ieDownload: iTunes; HMV Digital

Dismissed first as a Dylan imitator and then as a cosmic buffoon, Donovan Philip Leitch was nevertheless a bit of a trailblazer: the first pop star to be busted for drugs (jumping naked onto a policeman’s back while high on LSD) and one of the first British solo stars to top the US charts – with the title track of this album.

Born in Glasgow, raised in Hatfield, at 18 he was already a seasoned itinerant musician when discovered playing in a St Albans folk club by songwriter Geoff Stevens. A deal was quickly struck with Southern Music and Stevens suggested covering Gale Garnett’s American hit We’ll Sing In The Sunshine. But the teenaged troubadour wanted to record a poem he’d just set to music, Catch The Wind. Stevens alerted Bob Bickford, a scout for Ready Steady Go!, and the unsigned singer was booked for the show in February 1965. ‘Two nights on from sleeping on somebody’s floor I was on national television!’ Donovan wore a denim Breton fisherman’s cap, sat on a stool and made up a song in a Woody Guthrie style, Talking Pop Star Blues, which poked fun at the current acts in the charts. The show was flooded with positive mail and Donovan was quickly booked for the following week.

Catch The Wind was swiftly leased to Pye and by the end of March the song was at Number 4 and the teen magazines were full of advertisements for ‘The Donovan Cap’. An American scout caught Ready Steady Go! and booked him for a slot on Shindig, still only weeks after that support slot in St Albans. Catch The Wind made 23 in the US. A few singles later, he signed up with hit-maker Mickie Most and at the end of 1965 they cut Sunshine Superman and aired it on the short-lived UK TV show A Whole Scene Going. However, legal problems held its release over until September 1966, when its mildly trippy, upbeat blues sound chimed perfectly with the emergent hippy movement and the single sailed to Number 1 in the US and Number 2 in Britain.

This marvellous album was, in fact, released late in the UK and compiled from two American releases, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow. Pye omitted three of the American version’s most psychedelic tracks – The Trip (later released on the flip of the Sunshine Superman single), The Fat Angel (a tribute to Cass Elliot which namechecks Jefferson Airplane and was later covered by The Band) and Ferris Wheel.

Whichever edition you hear, however, the album offers a daring musical blend of jazz, folk, rock, raga and Arabic influences, while lyrically exploring a combination of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology, wry social satire and beat poetry.

Pearls Before Swine One Nation Underground

Ukulele protégé beats Dylan, signs to eccentric New York jazz label and records classic psychedelic-folk debut.Record label: ESPProduced: Richard AldersonRecorded: Impact Sound Studios, New York; May 6–9, 1967Released: June 1967Chart Peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Tom Rapp (v, g); Wayne Harley (b, v, autoharp, banjo, mandolin, vibraphone, audio oscillator); Lane Lederer (v, b, g, English horn, swine-horn, sarangi, celeste, finger cymbals); Roger Crissinger (o, harpsichord, clavioline); Warren Smith (d, pc); Richard Alderson (ar); Elmer J Gordon (production aide)Track listing: Another Time; Playmate; Ballad To An Amber Lady; (Oh Dear) Miss Morse; Drop Out! (S); Morning Song (S); Regions Of May; Uncle John; I Shall Not Care; The Surrealist WaltzRunning time: 36.25Current CD: ESP ESPD40032 The Complete ESP Disk Recordings adds album Balaklava.Further listening: Constructive Melancholy (1999) is an excellent compilation of the Reprise years.Further reading: www.pbswine.comDownload: emusic

As a child Tom Rapp entered a Minnesota talent contest with his ukulele and came third ahead of a certain Bobby Zimmerman; years later it was hearing Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind that inspired him to take up folk guitar. In 1965 Rapp was still at high school in Florida when he put together a band under the somewhat provocative name of Pearls Before Swine. After sending a demo to the avantgarde ESP label (chosen because they had signed The Fugs), the group were summoned to New York where they cut their debut in just four days in a cramped but well-equipped 4-track studio.

The result is a timeless collage of evocative poetry and haunting melodies, performed with an eccentric array of mostly acoustic instruments. Another Time – Rapp’s first serious venture into songwriting and a blueprint for much of his later work – was inspired by his miraculous survival of a car crash, its meditative lyrics brooding upon the struggle of the individual within a wondrous yet capricious universe. Morning Song, with its striking recorder solo, and the aptly named Surrealistic Waltz venture into darker territory reminiscent of JRR Tolkien, while the spirit of the times is perfectly captured by songs like Drop Out! and Uncle John (the latter a scathing assault on the hypocritical alliance between religion, patriotism and politics). Yet there are also moments of delightful irreverence: (Oh Dear) Miss Morse apparently got a New York DJ into hot water after several boy scouts managed to crack its coded chorus – the dots and dashes spelt out F.U.C.K.!

According to Rapp the band’s influences were diverse – ‘everything from Peter, Paul & Mary to The Velvet Underground’ – but perhaps the Pearls’ most intriguing quality was their ability to borrow from the distant past without losing sight of the present. I Shall Not Care quotes inscriptions from Roman tombs while the eastern modal patterns which trickle through Ballad Of An Amber Lady are a perfect evocation of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. The sleeve art featured a detail from Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden Of Earthly Delights, the LP including a free poster of the painting.

Despite the album selling in excess of 100,000 copies, ESP’s liberal attitude toward its artists sadly failed when it came to paying royalties. After one more record for the label Rapp moved to Reprise and later Blue Thumb, for whom he continued to record into the early ’70s. Eventually he called it a day and qualified as a human rights lawyer, but after a revival of interest in his work he was persuaded to return to music and in 1999 released his first album in over 25 years.

Small Faces Small Faces

The Small Faces’ second album proper took a subtle, organic approach to psychedelia. Record label: ImmediateProduced: Steve Marriott and Ronnie LaneRecorded: Olympic Studios, London; 1967Released: June 1967Chart peaks: 12 (UK) None (US)Personnel: Steve Marriott (g, v); Ronnie Lane (b, v); Ian McLagan (k, v); Kenny Jones (d); Glyn Johns (e)Track listing: (Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me; Something I Want To Tell You; Feeling Lonely; Happy Boys Happy; Things Are Going To Get Better; My Way Of Giving; Green Circles; Become Like You; Get Yourself Together; All Our Yesterdays; Talk To You; Show Me The Way; Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire; Eddie’s DreamingRunning time: 28.26Current CD: Castle CMETD is a 3-disc boxed set of the albums from the Immediate yearsFurther listening: Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake (1968); posthumous compilation, The Autumn Stone (1969)Further reading: All The Rage: A Riotous Romp Through Rock’N’Roll History (Ian McLagan, 1998); All Too beautiful – The Life And Times Of Steve Marriott (Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier, 2004); www.thesmallfaces.com (official); www.wappingwharf.com (fan site)Download: Not currently legally available

Following their split with Decca and manager Don Arden at the end of 1966, the Small Faces signed to Immediate, an independent label run in a libertine spirit wholly in keeping with proprietor Andrew Oldham’s day job as The Rolling Stones’ manager. With virtually unlimited access to Olympic’s new 8-track facility, the Small Faces – under the auspices of virtuoso engineer Glyn Johns – began to experience a creative awakening akin to The Beatles’ in ’65, experimenting with multi-tracking and other studio trickery while expanding their minds with copious acid and ‘gear’.

The outcome was a rich, inventive and wonderfully cheery brew of folk, psychedelia, music hall, swing, soul and psychedelia, with a strong English baroque twist – McLagan often swapping his trademark Hammond for harpsichord. Congas, celeste and Mellotrons also enriched the sound, with brass (on the calypso-flavoured Eddie’s Dreaming) courtesy of Georgie Fame’s horn section.

‘We really were ahead of our time,’ says Kenny Jones. ‘We were fortunate that we had Glyn Johns; he was in our opinion the best engineer in Britain. He got us some amazing sounds and he encouraged us to be experimental.’

The contrast with the group’s first album on Decca (confusingly also titled Small Faces) – a nervy but one-dimensional R&B outing – is abundantly clear. Complementing Steve Marriott’s legendary lungs, Ronnie Lane sings on five tracks, while McLagan tackles his own utterly charming Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire. Though Small Faces spawned no singles, and was soon eclipsed by the stellar success of their Summer Of Love Number 1, Itchycoo Park, it arguably captured better than any other contemporary British album the excitement, optimism and sheer fun of like-minded spirits journeying together through the acid era.

Albert King Born Under A Bad Sign

Breakthrough album for an unorthodox blues giant.Record label: StaxProduced: Jim StewartRecorded: Stax Studios, McLemore Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee; March 3, September 3 and November 2, 1966; May 17 and June 9, 1967Released: July 1967Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Albert King (g, v); Steve Cropper (g); Booker T Jones (p); Isaac Hayes (p); Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn (b); Al Jackson Jr (d); Wayne Jackson (t); Andrew Love (s, flute); Joe Arnold (s); Jim Stewart (supervision)Track listing: Born Under A Bad Sign (S); Crosscut Saw (S); Kansas City; Oh Pretty Woman (S/US); Down Don’t Bother Me; The Hunter; I Almost Lost My Mind; Personal Manager; Laundromat Blues (S/US); As The Years Go Passing By; The Very Thought Of YouRunning time: 34.41Current CD: Collectables label reissue has slightly different tracklisting: Born Under A Bad Sign (S); Crosscut Saw (S); Down Don’t Bother Me; Funk-Shun; Kansas City; Oh Pretty Woman (S/US); I Almost Lost My Mind; Personal Manager; Overall Junction; Laundromat BluesFurther listening: Live Wire/Blues Power (1968), live recordings from the Fillmore shows mentioned above; Ultimate Collection (1983), a 2-CD round-upFurther reading: Soulsville, USA: The Story Of Stax Records (Rob Bowman, 2003); www.bluesnet.hub.org/artists/albert.king.htmDownload: emusic

King – a left-hander who finger-picked an upside-down, right-handed Flying V – was into his forties with only a couple of R&B hits to his name when he signed to Stax. Admittedly, he already had a smokin’ reputation, but the Stax house band were to help him reach his true soul-blues potential.

After a trio of unsuccessful singles, two studio stints in mid-’67 provided the bulk of an album which was to exert massive influence on other guitarists, and at the same time launch King as a darling of the white college and stadium circuit. Wayne Jackson, who played trumpet on these and literally hundreds of other hit-making sessions for the label, said: ‘Albert was the sweetest man you could imagine: a man of the Old South. He used to call me his whistle-tooter. It was a very happy studio. Steve Cropper and Al Jackson ran the recordings. Jim Stewart [company boss] wasn’t a producer – Al knew all the chords and lyrics better than anyone. He would stop things if they were going wrong. Albert’s guitar was always out of tune with everything else, but he was such a strong man he would just bend those notes back in! The band kept things simple because we were all young guys learning together. We didn’t know how to play it any better!’

The 10-bar-blues smoulder of the title track opens proceedings (‘Sometimes the funk got so thick you could spread it on bread and eat it’), and the bad-ass syncopations of Crosscut Saw keep the heat on. The jump-shuffle of Kansas City is a welcome throwback, and his rendition of The Very Thought Of You proves that King could sing. But ultimately the guitar’s the thing. The stinging, howling, weeping solo on Personal Manager is, simply, one of the greatest ever: King may have played from a relatively small stock of phrases but he made every one of them count.

The following year, on the back of the album’s artistic success, King opened for Hendrix at San Francisco’s Fillmore. As a teenager Hendrix had worshipped King. He never stopped, even recording Born Under A Bad Sign in 1969.

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Part One

Drug-free psych made to satisfy the lusts of an eccentric millionaire. Record label: RepriseProduced: Bob Markley and Jimmy BowenRecorded: United Western Recording Studios, Los Angeles; late 1966Released: July 1967Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Bob Markley (v, p); Shaun Harris (v, b); Danny Harris (v, g); Michael Lloyd (v, g); Ron Morgan (g); Hal Blaine or Jim Gordon (d)Track listing: Shifting Sands (S); I Won’t Hurt You; 1906 (S); Help I’m A Rock; Will You Walk With Me; Transparent Day; Leiyla; Here’s Where You Belong; If You Want This Love; ’Scuse Me Miss Rose; High CoinRunning time: 30.36Current CD: Sundazed SC6173 adds: Help I’m A Rock (Single Mix); Transparent Day (Single Mix)Further listening: A Child’s Guide To Good And Evil (1968); A Group (1970) Bob Markley ‘solo’ LP which reunited the original membersFurther reading: http://members.chello.nl/cvanderlely/wcpaeb.htmlDownload: iTunes

If ever an album demonstrated the haphazard way in which much psychedelic music of the late ’60s was recorded, Part One must surely be it. After going to see their heroes, The Yardbirds, play at a hip Hollywood party, teenage hopefuls Michael Lloyd and the Harris brothers found themselves locked into a Faustian pact with the host, eccentric millionaire Bob Markley. The deal? He would promote their band and buy expensive equipment if they let him bang a tambourine on stage. According to Lloyd, music was the last thing on Markley’s mind: ‘He had seen the incredible amount of girls and that was his only motivation.’

Coining the ludicrously cumbersome name, Markley used his society contacts to secure the group a three-LP deal with Reprise, but once in the studio his younger bandmates soon began to tire of their patron’s increasing dominance. As Shaun recalls: ‘The part that was frustrating was that he had no musical aptitude of any kind and so what he was trying to do to be different and innovative ended up sounding contrived. It was an embarrassment.’

Well, time can tell a different story. Recorded without the influence of drink or drugs, it is precisely the palpable tensions within the band – and the unexpected juxtapositions within the music – which make Part One so extraordinary. Alongside passionate, harmonic pop songs like Transparent Day and the cover of PF Sloan’s Here’s Where You Belong lurk the hard-edged, distorted weirdness of Leiyla, Zappa’s Help I’m A Rock and 1906. The latter, with Markley eerily reciting his lyrics, attempts to convey a dog’s premonition of the San Francisco earthquake: ‘See the frightened foxes/See the hunchback in the park/He’s blind and can’t run for cover/I don’t feel well.’

Another of Bob’s Tinseltown friends, Baker Knight (who had written for Elvis and Ricky Nelson), composed two of the album’s highlights: a beautifully sparse arrangement of Shifting Sands and If You Want This Love. As Danny recalls, the latter was transformed by a driving time signature: ‘When Baker Knight first heard the playback he didn’t know what to make of it and said: “Hey! I thought this was a country song!”’ These were balanced in turn by the delicate dreamy songs I Won’t Hurt You (backed with a heartbeat) and the acoustic, post-apocalyptic Will You Walk With Me, complete with string quartet and celeste; the album closed with an energetic reading of Van Dyke Parks’s High Coin. The group would go on to record another four albums, each as individual as the last, but none would quite capture the sound of their first Reprise LP – the sound of teenage dreams diverted.

The Electric Prunes Underground

Dissolution around the corner, dark psychedelic visionaries – briefly – reach flashover. Record label: RepriseProduced: Dave HassingerRecorded: The American Recording Company, North Hollywood, California; mid-1967Released: August 1967Chart peaks: None (UK) 172 (US)Personnel: James Lowe (v, autoharp, hm); Mark Tulin (b, o, p); Ken Williams (g, effects); James ‘Weasel’ Spangola, Mike Gannon (v, g); Preston Ritter, Michael ‘Quint’ Weakley (d); Richie Podolor, Bill Cooper (e)Track listing: The Great Banana Hoax (S); Children Of Rain; Wind-Up Toys (S); Antique Doll; It’s Not Fair; I Happen To Love You; Dr Do-Good (S); I; Hideaway (S); Big City; Capt. Glory; Long Day’s Flight (S)Running time: 34.43Current CD: Rhino 8122748822 gathers all their Reprise-era recordings together including I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night album plus outtakes and demosFurther listening: I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night (1967)Further reading: www.electricprunes.com (fan site); www.electricprunes.net (official)Download: iTunes

Like many musicians of their time The Electric Prunes were not masters of their own destiny. The three albums they recorded in a mere nine months during 1967 tell a cautionary tale of what happens when a gifted band are subjected to the whims of an equally talented producer and brilliant, but erratic, songwriters. Although their debut album I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night contained material equally as powerful as the classic single from which it spawned its title, it had been marred by ill-judged gimmicks. By the time of the third LP, Mass In F Minor, the band would effectively be reduced to session musicians languishing under the weight of composer David Axelrod’s quasi-religious visions. Between these two extremes, Underground comes closest to expressing the unique spirit of a group who will long be regarded as one of the finest exponents of psychedelic pop.

The stunning sleeve shows the Prunes charging out of the cover, a forlorn face looming above them – an image whose mystery and energy are reflected in opening cut The Great Banana Hoax. With pounding drums and a pulsing rhythm as irresistible as The Byrds’ Eight Miles High, at its centre is one of the group’s defining moments: a plaintive organ note rises from the maelstrom and seamlessly gives way to Williams’s biting guitar solo.

Aided by producer Dave Hassinger, they created a collage of effects without swamping each individual contribution, and conjured an atmosphere of haunting melodrama. Lowe’s vocals wavered between soft innocence and sneering malice while the band shifted between the soft, sparse arrangements of tracks like I and the electrical charge of Hideaway. Antique Doll and Children Of Rain explore dark corners of childhood and themes of emotional isolation. In the hyperactive Dr Do-Good, Lowe’s demented cartoon voice was juxtaposed with a riot of distorted guitar; but the real treat comes at the album’s climax where raw punk and easterntinged psychedelia blend perfectly in Long Day’s Flight.

Sadly, however, the Prunes were running out of juice. The album sold poorly. They produced only one more single before losing control of both their name and their future.

Etta James Tell Mama

The toughest female soul voice of the ’60s gets the full Muscle Shoals treatment. Record label: ChessProduced: Leonard and Philip ChessRecorded: Fame Studios, Muscle Shoals, Alabama; early 1967Released: August 1967Chart peaks: None (UK) 82 (US)Personnel: Etta James (v); Albert Lowe Jr (g); Jimmy Ray Johnson (g); David Hood (b); Roger Dawkins (d); Dewey Oldham (p); Carl Banks (o); Gene ‘Bowlegs’ Miller (t); Charles Chalmers, Aaron Varnell, Floyd Newman (s); George Davis (p)Track listing: Tell Mama (S); I’d Rather Go Blind (S); Watch Dog; The Love Of My Man (S); I’m Gonna Take What He’s Got; The Same Rope; Security (S); Steal Away; My Mother In Law; Don’t Lose Your Good Thing; It Hurts Me So Much; Just A Little BitRunning time: 30.10Current CD: The Complete Muscle Shoals Sessions: Remastered adds: Do Right Woman, Do Right Man; You Took It; I Worship The Ground You Walk On; I Got You Babe; You Got It; I’ve Gone Too Far (Previously Unreleased); Misty (Previously Unreleased); Almost Persuaded; Fire; Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Alternate)Further listening: Live album Etta James Rocks The House (1964); Etta James Sings Funk (1970); Chess Masters (1983)Further reading: Rage To Survive (Etta James and David Ritz, 1998); www.ettajames.comDownload: Not currently legally available

Etta James began singing at the age of five as little Jamesetta Hawkins, belting out gospel at Los Angeles’ St Paul Baptist Church. Discovered and re-christened by LA band leader Johnny Otis, the 16-year-old Etta James had her first hit in 1955 with Roll With Me Henry. For the next five years James’s life was one of constant touring and full immersion in a rough on-the-road life – sex, drugs and real mean men. A voice of sweet’n’lowdown power, like a born-bad angel, James signed to Leonard Chess’s Chess Records in 1960 and the hits soon followed: At Last, Something Got A Hold Of Me and Stop The Wedding. By 1967 she was a full-time soul star with painted-on cat eyes, tight cup dresses, a pistol in her purse and a full-time heroin habit – ‘Working to get high, stay high, live high and, if the stuff was strong enough, die high.’

James sang the life she lived. Leonard Chess was convinced that the only woman who did it like Etta was Aretha Franklin. So, after Jerry Wexler put Aretha in Rick Hall’s Fame Studios in 1967 to cut the R&B heartache classic I Never Loved a Man The Way I Love You, Chess decided to do the same with Etta. The first track James cut with the Muscle Shoals team was I’d Rather Go Blind, a song ripped from the heart about loving someone so much that you ‘just don’t want to be free.’ James knew all about that. At the time she was seeing a guy called Billy Foster. Sometimes they fought so hard that Etta would end up sticking Billy with a kitchen knife. Etta says she wrote I’d Rather Go Blind. The songwriting credit went to Billy Foster. James sang about Security as she saw it slipping through her fingers. ‘The same rope that pulls you up/sure can hang you,’ she hollers on The Same Rope.

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