Music Sunday: The "Year Before 1969" Edition

It occurs to me that a lot gets said and written about 1969 and the music it produced. It was a landmark year, after all, with Woodstock and Altamont, and all the hoopla that surrounded those events. But what about the year before? How was 1968, musically speaking?

Well, Led Zeppelin performed in public for the first time, as The New Yardbirds (just two months after The Yardbirds had disbanded). Calling themselves The New Yardbirds made some sense, as Jimmy Page had played with The Yardbirds. Other bands starting up during the year included Yes, Rush, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath (as Earth). Cream disbanded, and so did the Buffalo Springfield. Before Cream broke up, the band played a farewell performance at Royal Albert Hall, the last time Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker performed together until 1993, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Here is "White Room", from Cream's farewell concert. I'm not sure what the narration at the beginning of the clip is about:



And this is the band's performance of "Sunshine of Your Love" from the Rock and Roll Induction ceremony in 1993:



While not an immediate break-up, The Monkees ended the run of their television series, for which the band had been created in 1966. The show ran for 58 episodes. I've written here before about my belief that, especially once allowed to record their own music and have some creative input into what they were doing, The Monkees weren't really that bad a band. The movie they made, also in 1968, was not nearly as well-received as their TV series, but the band soldiered on, with some defections (Peter Tork left in 1969 and Michael Nesmith left in 1970) until 1971. There were reunions later on, of course, but very rarely did all four members of the band get back together for very long at a time.

The songs that were popular in 1968 ran a wide range of genres and styles. The biggest song of the year was The Beatles' "Hey Jude", and "Lady Madonna was also a big hit for the band that year as a single, although it did not make it onto one of their albums until 1970. "Lady Madonna" was the last Beatles' single released on the Parlophone label, with all subsequent recording coming out on the Beatles' own Apple Records:



And then there was this, "I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)", by a band called The First Edition. It's hard to tell whether this song was advocating for better living through chemicals or warning against that way of life, but it's an interesting song of its time. And, yes, that is Kenny Rogers singing lead:



From the film "The Graduate", Simon and Garfunkel had a hit in 1968 with "Mrs. Robinson". Here is a live performance of the song from that year:



"The Weight" one of The Band's best-known songs, also was released in 1968. This performance is from their appearance at Woodstock in 1969:



Of course, there was music in 1968 that protested the involvement of the United States in Vietnam. One of the best of those was this song, "Sky Pilot", by Eric Burdon and the Animals:



So, there's a little taste of the music of 1968. As always, I encourage you to go find more on your own, because there is never enough time or room here to share everything I would like to share.

Music Sunday: The 1968 Edition

I've been reading a lot about 1968 the past couple of days, so I thought it would be interesting to see what was going on in music that year.

The first thing that jumped out at me about the year was that 1968 was when The Beatles recorded their double album, "The Beatles", known nearly universally as "The White Album". The recording sessions for the album when on from May 30 to October 4, and the record was released on November 22.

The first song on the first side of the album (remember when there were "albums" and they had "sides"?) was "Back in the U.S.S.R.", and it was predictably controversial, with some right-wing political groups, including the John Birch Society, insisting that the song was the band's way of declaring that they were in sympathy with Communism. What is so funny about that was that the U.S.S.R.'s official position was that The Beatles were "the belch of Western culture", and as late as 1980, Paul McCartney was refused permission to perform there.



While The Beatles were, by that time, not a new group and yet still had some time to go before they broke up, the other notable thing I found about 1968 were the comings and goings of bands.

Led Zeppelin performed together in front of an audience for the first time On September 7, albeit under the name The New Yardbirds. That performance was at a teen club in Gladsaxe, Denmark. Later on, on October 25, they played their first show under the name Led Zeppelin, at the University of Surrey.

Zeppelin also recorded their first album in 1968, and it was released early in 1969. One of the songs on that album was "Dazed and Confused", here in a live performance at Royal Albert Hall in 1970, with bonus Jimmy Page playing electric guitar with a bow, which is just always amazes me:



Another band that had their first performance in 1968, on August 4, was Yes. I have to admit to not being a huge Yes fan, but there are some of the band's songs that I do like. The first one I recall being aware of was "Roundabout", from 1971. Here is a live performance of the song from 1973:



But there were bands who also turned in their final performances in 1968.

The Buffalo Springfield, for example, performed together for the final time in Long Beach, California, on May 5. The band had formed in 1966, and while it had a short run, it was hugely influential as one of the first North American bands to hit it big in the United States in the wake of the British Invasion. Probably the band's best-known song is "For What it's Worth", written by Stephen Stills, recorded in 1966 and released in early 1967. Here is a television performance of the song from 1967, with bonus Neil Young acting silly:



That Long Beach performance in 1968 was not, in reality, The Buffalo Springfield's final final show. In 2011, the band reunited for six concerts, beginning with a June 1 show in Oakland, California.

Later on in the year Cream, often cited as the first rock supergroup, played its farewell show at Royal Albert Hall, in London. They, too, reunited, however, for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and again in 2005. Like the Buffalo Springfield, Cream only lasted for two years, from 1966 to 1968.

I think my favorite song from Cream is "Tales of Brave Ulysses", from the band's second album, "Disraeli Gears". I always love it when classical literature finds its way into rock music, so that's probably why I like this so much. This performance of the song comes from The Smothers Brothers Show on May 17, 1968:

Music Sunday - Eclipse Edition

Happy Music Sunday!

Because there is an eclipse of the sun today, I thought I'd just leave you some sunshiny music, so I can go outside and monitor the eclipse when it starts here, at about 2:30 p.m. local time. We won't get the full effect; this part of California is a bit outside the path for that. But, we should get a pretty cool view, anyway.

Here's George Harrison and a few friends, with Here Comes The Sun. An obvious choice.



And John Denver, all by himself, singing Sunshine On My Shoulders.



And then there's Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love



In case you're wondering what all the hoopla about the eclipse is about, here is a little primer from NASA.



And, finally, because this is an annular eclipse, known as a "ring of fire" eclipse, I'll leave this last song for today with you.



That was Johnny Cash, singing "Ring of Fire" on the Grand Ole Opry in 1968.