American music inspired a host of British bands in the early ’60s, but groups like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Beatles returned the favor. When their blues-, roots-, and pop-influenced sounds bounced back across the Atlantic Ocean a host of teenagers in garages from Cape Cod to Seattle started a whole new thing: grungy, psychedelic rock.
It wasn’t as abstract as the explorations of Pink Floyd, whose influence was limited to the London club scene at the time. This sound was as roots-influenced as the Stones and early Beatles, but infused with the prickly edge of ’60s American culture.
Indeed, these bands and their fuzztone-saturated songs marked a transition from pop music to the gilded age of late ’60s/early ’70s rock, paving the way for the adventurous realm of early FM radio and the barrier-busting musicians, like
Hendrix and Santana, who populated it.
Here’s an introduction to 10 of the heaviest hits from rock and roll’s original psychedelic era―great American music that’s essential listening:
“I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” the Electric Prunes: This 1967 song’s buzzing fuzztone and stuttering tremolo introduction still sounds untamed today―like a horde of angry bees dive-bombing your ears. Slashing guitar chords, pounding drums and a howling vocal performance make this Seattle outfit’s broken-hearted fever dream a classic. And they get bonus points for having a rhythm guitarist named Weasel. Trippy as this tune was for its day, it reached No. 11 on the pop charts.
“Pushin’ Too Hard,” the Seeds: Sky Saxon, this group’s singer, enjoyed a renaissance during the ’80s garage rock resurgence. But back in ’66, when the Seeds shoved the dark, gritty “Pushin’ Too Hard” into the Top 40, he was the Lord Mayor of the L.A. rock underground and the group was raking in an unprecedented $6,000 a show. The dual six-string break―one axe caked with fuzz, the other clean as a scalpel―embodies rock guitar’s transition from Dick Dale/Ventures twang to dirty hot dang.
“Baby Please Don’t Go,” the Amboy Dukes: Yep, that’s
Ted Nugent’s Gibson Byrdland moaning like a distressed baby elephant in this Big Joe Williams cover. The Dukes had a bigger hit with 1968’s “Journey to the Center of the Mind,” but this 1967 rumble is wild and exploratory as free jazz, but with roots still deep in earthy blues.
“You’re Gonna Miss Me,” the 13th Floor Elevators: Z.Z. Top and a host of other Texas tornadoes were influenced by
Roky Erickson’s primal garage rock juggernaut. Erickson’s pinched voice is nasty as a poison-dripping fang on this opening track from the ’Vators’ 1966 debut album, cawing over the rippling tremolo and bright-toned lead. Erickson is the missing link between garage rock and the San Francisco psychedelic sound of the ’60s. The Elevators gave Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother & the Holding Company, and other Bay Area bands a taste of Texas psychedelic grunge on many trips to the famed Avalon Ballroom.
“Psychotic Reaction,” Count Five: Here’s the sound of blues mutating into psychedelic rock. The backbone riffs and honking harmonica of the first verse give way to a blast of hairy guitar, regains its senses, and then gets real gone in a finale that fades in a cloud of hazy distortion. Maybe the least likely Top 5 hit of 1966, but certainly the most enduring.
“Hey Joe,” the Leaves: Jimi wasn’t the only one with his eye on folky Billy Robert’s badman ballad. In fact, L.A.’s the Leaves got to it first, turning the tune into a frenzied 2:47 single in 1965 featuring John Beck’s beaten-dog yelp and Bob Arlin’s frenetic guitar, whipping the Hendrix Experience’s version by a year.
“Tobacco Road,” the Blues Magoos: There were psychedelic outposts east of the Mississippi, too. Cape Cod was home to the Barbarians, and the Blues Magoos hailed from the Bronx. The latter’s 1966 debut album
Psychedelic Lollipop was among the very first to feature the “p-word” on the cover. “Tobacco Road” was a hit for the Nashville Teens in 1964, but the loud ‘n’ dirty Magoos’ version―climaxed by a guitar and organ rumble knotty as a pair of sparring cobras―became the template for everyone who’s covered it since, from Edgar Winter to Status Quo to David Lee Roth. Couldn’t dig up the Magoos’ version so here’s the Nashville Teens’ take on “Tobacco Road”:
“White Rabbit,” Jefferson Airplane: All the great psychedelic bands weren’t obscure. Consider Jefferson Airplane, the San Francisco hippie contingent who created “White Rabbit,” perhaps the ultimate trippy anthem, for their 1967
Surrealistic Pillow. They also proved that great psychedelic music needn’t come from the garage. The tune’s lyric model was
Alice in Wonderland; its musical model was Ravel’s “Bolero.”
“Eight Miles High,” the Byrds: This 1965 classic, which climbed to 14 on the pop charts, gave birth to “raga rock,” the Indian-influenced psychedelic style that paved the way for the American success of sitarist Ravi Shankar and the eventual world music movement. McGuinn’s performance is still astounding, with modal leaps that also showed the influence of jazz giant John Coltrane, who was, in his own way, also a king of psychedelic music.
“Over, Under, Sideways, Down,” the Yardbirds: Yet another musical drop through the rabbit hole, this time courtesy of Jeff Beck’s sitar-influenced guitar which careens wildly through this 1966 song. Sure, the Yardbirds weren’t Yanks, but with their grounded blues roots and garage band mindset, they were at least honorary ones.