{"id":193528,"date":"2018-01-05T09:31:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T09:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siteproxy.ruqli.workers.dev:443\/http\/recordcollectormag.com\/articles\/1968-crowns-creation"},"modified":"2020-05-21T10:29:18","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T10:29:18","slug":"1968-crowns-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siteproxy.ruqli.workers.dev:443\/https\/recordcollectormag.com\/articles\/1968-crowns-creation","title":{"rendered":"1968 Crowns of Creation"},"content":{"rendered":"

S<\/span><\/strong>ome 10,000 hyperactive teenagers, including this enraptured 13-year-old, are crammed into Wembley\u2019s Empire Pool for the 16th annual New Musical Express <\/i>Poll-Winners Concert. This Sunday afternoon, 12 May 1968, pop music\u2019s biggest event boasts a sparkling bill of current Top 10 stars all restricted to short sets like the package tours quickly going out of fashion. But who is the surprise band being hinted at throughout?<\/b><\/p>\n

The Status Quo perform their Pictures Of Matchstick Men debut hit in frilly shirts, one-man-band Don Partridge croons Rosie, Love Affair celebrate their chart-topping Everlasting Love in evening dress, and teenage hormones explode at The Paper Dolls smiling in tiny outfits through Something Here In My Heart. Lulu, in a bright yellow minidress, belts through The Letter and Morning Dew before The Shadows formation step through Apache and Dr Zhivago then bring on Top British Vocal Personality prize winner Cliff Richard, who closes the first half with The Day I Met Marie and Congratulations, his jaunty singalong recently pipped by Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest.<\/p>\n

During the interval, two tearaways from our party sneak backstage and return trembling with the news that the surprise act is The Rolling Stones! I\u2019m experiencing a rare new tingle as Amen Corner implore Bend Me, Shape Me, \u201cFace of \u201968\u201d Peter Frampton leads The Herd through current hit I Don\u2019t Want Our Loving To Die, The Move squall through their live EP Something Else <\/i>and Dusty Springfield powers through You Don\u2019t Have To Say You Love Me and Aretha\u2019s recent (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.<\/p>\n

After Scott Walker bravely emotes Jacques Brel\u2019s Amsterdam against deafening screams, the Stones are greeted with absolute pandemonium as they pile through the new Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash and Satisfaction; Jagger in blue velvet trousers, Keith in black leather, Brian in green fringed buckskin, Bill inspecting the teenyboppers and Charlie inscrutable. Next to what\u2019s gone before they radiate sex, danger and power, brandishing a grown-up reboot of pop music to suit the world exploding outside. Watching them march offstage in victory, I know everything has changed for me and for music. Now the Stones can claim their newly-minted crown as the greatest rock\u2019n\u2019roll band in the world.<\/p>\n

The world outside Wembley\u2019s steamy pop bubble is barely recognisable from the one the Stones last played over a year before. The idealistic escapism offered by 1967\u2019s counterculture has already melted against a climate of global revolution and the brutal escalation of the Vietnam war. The idyllic \u201cPrague Spring\u201d of liberated reform in Czechoslovakia is about to be squashed by Russian tanks, while bloody conflicts in Mexico, Brazil and other countries are only made worse by military force. In Paris, during the same month as the concert, a million students and striking workers march through the streets and man barricades during militant action that almost brings France to its knees. Mick Jagger watches the rebellion on TV and, having already witnessed March\u2019s Grosvenor Square anti-war skirmish from the sidelines, is prompted to write Street Fighting Man.<\/p>\n

Though wavering in stance throughout its creation, John Lennon decides \u201cyou can\u00a0count me out\u201d in a new Beatles song called Revolution, released as the B-side to Hey Jude in August. Interestingly Revolution 1, which appeared on the \u201cWhite Album\u201d in November, was recorded first and contains the original, uncertain line \u201cyou can count me out… in\u201d.<\/p>\n

From April, over 100 American inner cities witness riots across the long hot summer after Dr Martin Luther King is assassinated at a Memphis motel in mysterious circumstances. The loss of the civil rights movement\u2019s peaceful figurehead catalyses the rise of Black Power. Famously, the world is shocked when African-American Olympic medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their gloved fists from the victory podium at October\u2019s games. In June, Robert Kennedy, the Democratic presidential hopeful who supported King and anti-war movements, is shot by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in LA, and dies the following day.<\/p>\n

Throughout this year, the death toll rises in Vietnam, with a focal point provided by the Viet Cong Tet Offensive, its grotesque atrocities broadcast daily on TV. As George Clinton later put it, America was now eating its young. Protests swell, climaxing at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where grandstanding Yippie activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman see their Festival of Life spiral into bloody conflict with cops. Anti-war passions motivate students at New York\u2019s Columbia University to occupy administration buildings in protest at its ties with the war and segregationist policies.<\/p>\n

Apart from perfunctory actions like Grosvenor Square, the UK remains oddly detached, looking to cultural icons to lead its anti-war feelings and thankful for PM Harold Wilson\u2019s refusal to send British troops to Vietnam, if not the government\u2019s support of America\u2019s actions. As Pete Doggett says in his superb book There\u2019s A Riot Going On<\/i>, \u201cLondon was the vacuum of late 60s rebellion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if 1967\u2019s peace and love promise had gone out the window along with Syd Barrett\u2019s seat in Pink Floyd\u2019s tour van, 1968 was anything but the comedown after the psychedelic party it\u2019s wrongly painted as. We\u2019ve just seen British pop in rude health; the same applied to rock, soul, folk, jazz and psychedelia, which morphed with the times. Bombarded with a blizzard of magnificent landmark albums, musically it feels like we\u2019ve never had it so good.<\/p>\n

As albums ventured beyond the hit-plus-filler formula of time immemorial, sales rose, while singles began their long, slow decline, though continued as a viable format for now (see Cherry Red\u2019s Looking At The Pictures In The Sky <\/i>for \u201968\u2019s 45rpm psychedelic bounty). The year was dominated and dictated by The Beatles figuring out where to go next after their Sgt Pepper\u2019s <\/i>peak; Hendrix\u2019s status as the world\u2019s biggest rock star and the reborn Stones returning to the blues (with a decent dash of country) with seismic consequences. As Keith Richards says, the Redlands bust earned their badge of honour to be as bad as they like, though fragile a Brian Jones still gets busted, only finding solace recording the master musicians of Jajouka in Morocco.<\/p>\n

The year starts with The Beatles at number one with Hello, Goodbye. Despite their slight Christmas misstep with Magical Mystery Tour<\/i>, the song\u2019s celebration of duality\u00a0<\/b>earns their longest No 1 run since 1963\u2019s From Me To You. Launching their Apple Corps (starting with the ill-fated megastore), more hits are followed by the gargantuan \u201cWhite Album\u201d, though their dynamic is shaken after John and Yoko become an item, and its six-month creation is marked by inter-band conflict. After being overshadowed by Sgt Pepper\u2019s<\/i>, the Stones create one of their definitive albums with the down-home thrust of Beggars Banquet<\/i>. The new Beatles and Stones albums arrive in plain white covers (not by the latter\u2019s choice) as their music returns to earthier terrains. Not so Hendrix, whose Electric Ladyland <\/i>appears adorned with naked women as his music reaches for the spheres.<\/p>\n

Music\u2019s roots-referencing sea-change was already underway after the late-\u201967 release of Bob Dylan\u2019s John Wesley Harding<\/i>, now consolidated by his former backing band, The Band\u2019s, Music From Big Pink <\/i>and The Byrds\u2019 Sweetheart Of The Rodeo<\/i>. Divested of rock\u2019s Technicolor dreamcoats, rock of all stripes is stripped back to the bone (even if Britain started the year with the short-lived gangster chic craze ignited by the Bonnie And Clyde <\/i>film that peaked with Georgie Fame\u2019s Ballad Of Bonnie And Clyde dislodging The Beatles at No 1). The Pentangle bring a rich acoustic alternative and the second British blues boom thrives after the rise of Fleetwood Mac, with John Mayall its ever-evolving godfather.<\/p>\n

Looking back now though, I remember my excitement at Arthur Brown cavorting on Top Of The Pops <\/i>in his druid robes and flaming helmet, Sly & The Family Stone spearheading psychedelic soul and forcing Motown to take note, the commotion caused by The Doors\u2019 troubled poet, Tyrannosaurus Rex\u2019s woodland bop, Canned Heat bringing the weird blues drone of On The Road Again to our Top 10, The Velvet Underground and The United States Of America crafting extreme future soundscapes and many more astonishing albums, including big hitters from Pink Floyd and soon-to-disband Cream. John Peel\u2019s Radio One shows were a never-ending lifeline of excitement as he mixed familiar names with endless new discoveries.<\/p>\n

In fact, every day seemed like an event, despite the cruel carnage beaming in from the outside world. What follows is some of what happened. Death of the hippie dream? Sure. Post-\u201967 comedown? Bollocks!<\/p>\n

JANUARY<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a world still mourning Otis Redding, (Sittin\u2019 On) The Dock Of The Bay strikes a deeply poignant note, when it whistles to No 3, becoming Otis\u2019s biggest hit and beloved epitaph, kickstarting more posthumous releases, including February\u2019s same-titled album.<\/p>\n

Jimi Hendrix, another doomed black pioneer, has already started his third album at Olympic, recording the claustrophobic Crosstown Traffic, and painstakingly shapes his version of Dylan\u2019s All Along the Watchtower with Traffic\u2019s Dave Mason playing 12-string acoustic and a wrecked Brian Jones relegated to percussion. Keith Richards is poring over open tunings on old Blind Blake records, strumming song sketches into his Philips cassette recorder at his home studio to produce the supernatural Americana rewiring of Beggars Banquet<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd bring in Dave Gilmour but the five-piece lasts only five gigs before they famously abandon Syd before a show. Eric Burdon & The Animals release the anti-war mini-opera Sky Pilot from The Twain Shall Meet <\/i>(Monterey, his tribute to the festival, will follow). Art become Spooky Tooth and unleash white soul gospel tear-up Sunshine Help Me, produced by Jimmy Miller.<\/p>\n

Always the antithesis of flower power, The Velvet Underground unleash their black-on-black skull-enshrouded second album White Light\/White Heat<\/i>, and it\u2019s as if they\u2019ve taken the more experimental leanings of their debut to the next level. Lou Reed appears to be determined to test the limits of overdriven guitar on record, and John Cale channels his now-deafening experimental ethos through electric viola and hotwired Hammond, culminating in 17 cacophonous minutes of Sister Ray, which causes havoc in my local listening booth.<\/p>\n

Having left ESP-Disk (New York\u2019s prime source for free jazz), The Fugs upgrade their anarchy for Reprise with Tenderness Junction<\/i>, balancing ornate ballads and Ed Sanders\u2019 biting War Song with Exorcising The Evil Spirits From The Pentagon October 21 1967. They play London\u2019s Roundhouse and perform Turn On\/Tune In\/Drop Out on cult BBC Friday tea-time counterculture show How It Is <\/i>(hosted by Peel and OZ\u2019s Richard Neville). Proto-punk shambles The Godz belch out The Third Testament<\/i>, though it doesn\u2019t receive a UK pressing.<\/p>\n

Columbia launches its underground roster with the first budget sampler, The Rock Machine Turns You On<\/i>, meaning skint teenagers can hear Spirit, Moby Grape, The Electric Flag, The United States Of America and Blood Sweat and Tears alongside Dylan, Cohen and The Byrds. Spirit\u2019s Fresh-Garbage is the mini revelation that kicks off their jazz-laced self-titled debut album. Later that year, hard-rocking 45 I Got A Line On You trailers their equally magical second album The Family That Plays Together<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Norman Whitfield is producing The Temptations\u2019 Cloud Nine<\/i>, its heady allure infiltrating the cataclysmic title track and epic Runaway Child, Running Wild. Curtis Mayfield\u2019s Impressions release a towering black pride anthem with We\u2019re A Winner and Aretha Franklin maintains her momentum with Lady Soul<\/i>, including Vietnam fave Chain Of Fools and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.<\/p>\n

Dr John The Nightripper appears in a spooky mist of New Orleans voodoo imagery with late psych classic Gris-Gris<\/i>, its heady incantations including Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya and I Walk On Guilded Splinters. Charismatic folk titan Richie Havens releases second album Something Else Again<\/i>, while\u00a0Johnny Cash mesmerises the long-termersin Folsom State Prison in January and scores a hit album following its release in May.<\/p>\n

Sessions for The Byrds\u2019 The Notorious Byrd Brothers <\/i>had been fraught, David Crosby and Michael Clarke had been fired and Gene Clark had rejoined them for all of three weeks. Despite this, the album soars, a career peak that nods at their upcoming country direction and features early experiments with the Moog synthesiser. Heavy metal is born as Bay Area power trio Blue Cheer unleash the merciless numbskull onslaught of Vincebus Eruptum<\/i>, led by their demolition job on Summertime Blues. Boogie With Canned Heat <\/i>is the LA blues boffins\u2019 second, Al Wilson\u2019s unearthly falsetto soon taking On The Road Again into the Top 10. Kaleidoscope\u2019s Beacon From Mars <\/i>weaves epic space jams with down-home magic and The Electric Prunes submit to David Axelrod\u2019s religious explorations on Mass In F Minor<\/i>.<\/p>\n

FEBRUARY<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Beatles visit the Maharishi in Rishikesh, India, staying until April meditating and writing songs for their next album. Peter Green\u2019s Fleetwood Mac sign to Blue Horizon, which releases their self-titled mix of sizzling Robert Johnson and Elmore James covers and 12-bar originals to make the LP chart\u2019s Top 5. The following month\u2019s Black Magic Woman 45 just about makes the Top 40 but will provide a transcendent hit for Santana in two years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

Recorded in 1967, Tomorrow\u2019s self-titled debut album finally appears but My White Bicycle already sounds from another era, precipitating their demise and Steve Howe\u2019s path to forming Yes.<\/p>\n

Singles-wise, Fairport Convention, fronted by ethereal vocalist Judy Dyble, debut with the arcane shimmer of If I Had A Ribbon Bow, Bee Gees quiver Words, Donovan exhales Jennifer Juniper and The Pretty Things continue their psychedelic explorations with Talking About The Good Times, a spectral litter-tray of sitar, Mellotron and harmonies.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Peel\u2019s tireless crusading, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band find a rapt audience when they visit the UK for the first time, recording a Top Gear <\/i>session and playing clubs and colleges with their DJ champion as MC.<\/p>\n

After leaving Blues Project, Al Kooper and Steve Katz, plus Mothers bassist Jim Fielder, drummer Bobby Columby and Randy Brecker-led horns form Blood, Sweat And Tears and release the sophisticated jazz-rock of Child Is Father To The Man<\/i>. Vanilla Fudge allow producer Shadow Morton to turn their second album into wildly-ambitious concept puzzle The Beat Goes On<\/i>.<\/p>\n

MARCH<\/strong><\/p>\n

This writer\u2019s first gig is a coach outing to see Donovan at the Royal Albert Hall on 21 March, organised by my hipster chemistry teacher. Epitomising the rapidly expanding musical landscape of the time, after trailering his upcoming double album Gift From A Flower To A Garden<\/i>, Donovan appears with big band fronted by flautist Harold McNair. I\u2019m more entranced by support band Tyrannosaurus Rex, who Peel has been championing and will soon release their Regal Zonophone debut 45 Deborah, whose \u201cdug-a-redug-redug\u201d refrain is unbudgeable. As beshaded bongo player Steve Peregrin Took looks cool on a stool, Marc Bolan animatedly bleats songs from July\u2019s debut LP My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair\u2026But Now They\u2019re Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows<\/i>, joined by Peel sitting cross-legged among the flowers to read Bolan\u2019s children\u2019s story Frowning Atahuallpa (My Inca Love). For this fleeting moment, the duo embody a rare innocence and there would be more to come with One Inch Rock and second album Prophets, Seers & Sages, The Angels Of The Ages<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The Beatles grin from the cover of NME <\/i>in an ad for the new single Lady Madonna, a pounding slab of Fats Domino-like whimsy with harmonic twists that goes to No 1. The Rolling Stones record demos at RG Jones Studio in Morden, Surrey, with new producer Jimmy Miller. Sessions then start in earnest at Olympic, where they record Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash and Street Fighting Man (with Charlie on antique toy drum-kit and Dave Mason playing shehnai). Hendrix uses a break in his US tour to record in a New York studio with Fugs guitarist Ken Pine and Stephen Stills, also demoing proto-sound painting 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be).<\/p>\n

The Incredible String Band up their acid-folk into full-blown psychedelic complexity on The Hangman\u2019s Beautiful Daughter <\/i>following on from the release of non-album single Painting Box. The Move\u2019s robust self-titled debut LP includes Flowers In The Rain, Top 3 hit Fire Brigade, and aborted mental health single Cherry Blossom Clinic. Scott Walker\u2019s Scott 2 <\/i>features reflective originals and Jacques Brel covers amid mainstream covers. The Hollies start their next album but sessions disintegrate, leaving Graham Nash taking Marrakesh Express to his new supergroup.<\/p>\n

UK 45s include Joe Cocker\u2019s quirky return with Marjorine, Procol Harum\u2019s jaunty Quite Rightly So, The End\u2019s Bill Wyman-produced Shades Of Orange, Honeybus\u2019s hauntingly oboe-garnished I Can\u2019t Let Maggie Go, Idle Race\u2019s breezy Skeleton And The Roundabout, The Yardbirds\u2019 farewell Goodnight Sweet Josephine and Rod Stewart\u2019s Little Miss Understood, his only showing for Andrew Oldham\u2019s Immediate.<\/p>\n

The United States Of America\u2019s ground-breaking self-titled debut unveils electronic rock in a blisteringly audacious comment on America today by founders Joseph Byrd and glacial chanteuse Dorothy Moskowitz. Collage and pounding acid-rock collide between The American Metaphysical Circus and whirring hothouse orgy The Garden Of Earthly Delights, while Love Song For The Dead Che is a dreamy soft-core eulogy to the recently-martyred Cuban revolutionary. The Mothers Of Invention\u2019s We\u2019re Only In It For The Money <\/i>skewers left and right-wing politics, San Francisco hippies and Sgt Pepper\u2019s<\/i>, using advanced studio innovations.<\/p>\n

Former Butterfield Blues Band guitar dazzler Mike Bloomfield\u2019s The Electric Flag impress with A Long Time Comin\u2019<\/i>, its scorching rock, soul and blues bolstered by horns and drummer Buddy Miles. However, Bloomfield is disappointed when July\u2019s Super Session<\/i>, which he\u2019d recorded in two days with Al Kooper and Stephen Stills, fares better in the charts.<\/p>\n

<\/b>The International Submarine Band\u2019s Safe At Home <\/i>marks the debut of 21-year-old Gram Parsons on the first country-rock album. Though Joni Mitchell has written hits including Both Sides Now for Judy Collins, none appear on her David Crosby-produced self-titled debut, also known as Song To A Seagull<\/i>. Showing early signs of her song-writing prowess and steely determination, she delivers a concept album about city life and the countryside.<\/p>\n

Hardcore New York revolutionaries the Up Against The Wall, Motherfuckers! gatecrash a Yippies sit-in at Grand Central Station after deeming them lightweight. Street singer David Peel previews upcoming Elektra album Have A Marijuana<\/i>, recorded live on the Big Apple sidewalks.<\/p>\n

APRIL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hendrix plays a funereal I Don\u2019t Live Today at Newark Town Hall after news comes through of Dr Martin Luther King\u2019s assassination at the Lorraine Motel. James Brown is paid to quell Boston and Nina Simone performs her bassist Gene Taylor\u2019s Why? (The King Of Love Is Dead) at the Westbury Music Fair show, later released on\u2018Nuff Said<\/i>. Ensconced in NY\u2019s Record Plant, Hendrix is inspired by the riots to write House Burning Down, clashes with Chas Chandler over the tortuously-recorded Gypsy Eyes and returns to his beloved 1983.<\/p>\n

The musical Hair <\/i>opens on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre and Bill Graham opens the Fillmore East in an abandoned movie theatre on Second Avenue. Following the final episode of The Monkees <\/i>in March, April sees the release of The Birds The Bees And The Monkees<\/i>. Simon & Garfunkel\u2019s childhood-to-old-age song cycle Bookends <\/i>places the doo-dee-doos of Mrs Robinson alongside intricately-crafted chronicles such as Old Friends and America, catapulting the pair into the top division. Moby Grape release Wow\/Grape Jam, <\/i>a double album mingling tough blues-rock with musique concrete and jamming.<\/p>\n

After singing Be My Baby in counterculture movie You Are What You Eat<\/i>, New York freak show refugee Tiny Tim warbles God Bless Tiny Tim<\/i>\u2019s selection of old curios and standards, led by US hit Tiptoe Through The Tulips. Briefly enjoying hip status, he turns on the lovable weirdness at the Royal Albert Hall and TV chat shows.<\/p>\n

Barely noticed now but later hailed a baroque psych classic, the Zombies\u2019 Odessey And Oracle <\/i>is heralded by the sensually anthemic Time Of The Season. TV psychedelic effects go into overdrive for Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger Trinity\u2019s swirling take on Bob Dylan and Rick Danko\u2019s This Wheel\u2019s On Fire as it reaches No 5.<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd release bombastically empty It Would Be So Nice; The Kinks\u2019 Wonderboy is the latest in an unbroken run of classic singles, but is their first flop in yonks; the Small Faces\u2019 \u201cChas & Dave on acid\u201d knees-up Lazy Sunday becomes their biggest since All Or Nothing and was only held off the top of the chart by Louis Armstrong\u2019s Wonderful World.<\/p>\n

MAY<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Stones release Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash with three proto-videos shot by Michael Lindsay-Hogg and charge to No 1 for the first time in two years. Jagger describes the song as \u201ca metaphor for getting out of all the acid things\u201d but agrees to play a tripped-out reclusive rock star in Donald Cammell\u2019s Performance <\/i>movie, even as the Stones\u2019 new album continues to flower. Brian\u2019s gorgeous slide on No Expectations will be his last shining moment on a Stones record before he\u2019s then busted for hash after going to the premiere of Stanley Kubrick\u2019s spectacular 2001: A Space Odyssey <\/i>on acid.<\/p>\n

The Beatles commence six months\u2019 recording at Abbey Road that see tensions erupt, Ringo temporarily quitting and divisions setting in through Yoko Ono\u2019s constant presence. McCartney, Lennon and Harrison often record independently, rather than as the group of old.<\/p>\n

After a night at New York\u2019s the Scene, Hendrix returns to the nearby Record Plant with Steve Winwood, Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady and Mitch Mitchell, who record an epic slow blues called Voodoo Child (a faster, psychedelic derivative will become the song\u2019s Slight Return). Unable to handle the relentless overdubbing and hangers-on, Chas Chandler steps down as producer.<\/p>\n

Folk\u2019s first supergroup Pentangle brings together guitar deities Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, traditional songstrel Jacqui McShee and jazz maverick rhythm section Danny Thompson and Tony Cox at their Royal Festival Hall debut. Avoiding \u201cfolk-rock\u201d to pursue jazz impulses makes their self-titled debut album inestimably influential. Non-album 45 Travellin\u2019 Song and December\u2019s Sweet Child <\/i>double album confirm the promise.<\/p>\n

Small Faces release their Ogdens\u2019 Nut Gone Flake <\/i>album in a fold-out cardboard tobacco tin and spend six weeks at the LP chart\u2019s pinnacle. Ronnie Lane\u2019s Happiness Stan story is enliventoad by the goodly goodly Professor Stanley Unwin\u2019s surrealistic on the pillow and indeedly right over and up above the candlewick bedspreadly all soft, and away, far far away, cobblers. UK 45s-wise, Cream release Anyone For Tennis, Clapton and Martin Sharp\u2019s sedately seductive theme to biker movie The Savage Seven <\/i>and Donovan uncorks his Hurdy Gurdy Man.<\/p>\n

Phil Ochs issues his single The War Is Over, and continues his baroque flirtations on Tape From California<\/i>, released two months later. The Mamas & The Papas release a final world-weary-sounding album The Papas & The Mamas<\/i>, enlivened by Cass\u2019 hit version of Dream A Little Dream Of Me. Quicksilver Messenger Service\u2019s self-titled debut is a let-down with only The Fool displaying their fabled guitar mastery. The Byrds preview their country direction on Dylan\u2019s You Ain\u2019t Goin\u2019 Nowhere.<\/p>\n

JUNE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Macca is the first Beatles to address civil rights, addressing delicate new ballad Blackbird, recorded 11 June, to \u201ca black woman experiencing these problems in the States\u201d. French director Jean-Luc Godard films the Stones recording new song The Devil Is My Name from sketch to finished article for his movie One Plus One <\/i>(setting fire to the studio on his last night). By the time the film is completed with footage of Black Power executions, it\u2019s retitled Sympathy For The Devil<\/i>, along with the song.<\/p>\n

Drummer Buddy Miles and organist Mike Finnigan join Hendrix to record jazzy roller Rainy Day, Dream Away, further whetting Jimi\u2019s desire to expand his sonic smorgasbord that continues on \u201c90-minute sound painting of the heavens\u201d And The Gods Made Love.<\/p>\n

On 3 June, radical feminist Valerie Solanas shoots and grievously wounds Andy Warhol as he enters The Factory. He recovers but becomes more distanced, surrounded by his court.<\/p>\n

The Nice turn Leonard Bernstein\u2019s America into a cataclysmic Vietnam statement in what keyboard insurrectionist Keith Emerson calls the world\u2019s first \u201cprotest instrumental\u201d and earn a lifetime Royal Albert Hall ban after burning a replica US flag onstage. The Nice\u2019s forging of classical themes with bombastic rock solidifies with orchestra on November\u2019s Ars Longa Vita Brevis<\/i>. Davy O\u2019List leaves; legend says he was discombobulated by being spiked with acid on their US tour.<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd headline the first Hyde Park free concert organised by Blackhill Enterprises over Jethro Tull, Roy Harper and Tyrannosaurus Rex. They\u2019re promoting second album A Saucerful Of Secrets <\/i>which, despite Syd only figuring on the Jugband Blues, boasts inter-galactic flights Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun and epic title suite along with iridescent Remember A Day. Pyrotechnic UFO buddy Arthur Brown says he\u2019s projecting evil from his mental condition on The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown<\/i>, including the Fire suite, future single Nightmare and other sinister incantations. The summer heats up as Fire scorches to No 1.<\/p>\n

Always progressing, John Mayall follows the live Diary Of A Band <\/i>with Bare Wires<\/i>, awash in Mick Taylor\u2019s stinging guitar and horns. Stourbridge blues band Chicken Shack, featuring guitarist Stan Webb and singer-pianist Christine Perfect, release 40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed And Ready To Serve<\/i>; Fairport Convention issue their self-titled quirky folk-rock debut, although singer Judy Dyble has been replaced by Sandy Denny; Spooky Tooth unleash It\u2019s All About<\/i>, a colossal wall of soul, gospel resonance and snaking rock. 45s-wise The Who release Dogs, The Kinks restore their chart record with the gorgeously wistful Days and The Moody Blues hear gentle Voices In The Sky.<\/p>\n

The Immortal Otis Redding <\/i>presents the last material recorded by the late soul legend, including the heart-wracking I\u2019ve Got Dreams To Remember. Aretha Now<\/i>, Ms Franklin\u2019s second releasese this year, opens with the anthemic Think.<\/p>\n

The Beach Boys\u2019 commercial decline continues with Friends<\/i>, their worst seller yet, but it proves one of their most-loved albums, featuring early signs of Dennis Wilson\u2019s song writing talent and the development of a more low-key, homespun sound, while the strung-out surf instrumental Diamond Head showed they hadn\u2019t left the experiments of SMiLE <\/i>fully behind. The sidelong title track of Iron Butterfly\u2019s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida <\/i>clicks on radio and affirms hard rock as a commercial market by shifting over 30 million. Silver Apples\u2019 self-titled debut sounds like nothing on this planet, shimmering like an ancient lighthouse illuminating the future through Simeon Coxe\u2019s self-built oscillator contraption and drummer Danny Taylor\u2019s insidious tattoos. Raw, untamed and ethereal, Oscillations flickers and whooshes over proto-techno grooves and Program predates Holger Czukay\u2019s chance-based dial-twiddling with Can.<\/p>\n

JULY<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the Beatles\u2019 Yellow Submarine <\/i>cartoon opens in London, their Apple boutique on Baker Street closes after becoming a shoplifter\u2019s paradise. Final LA overdubs, including the Watts gospel choir on Salt Of The Earth, complete the Stones\u2019 Beggars Banquet <\/i>but Decca reject its Mexican garage khazi cover and the stalemate delays release for months.<\/p>\n

Keith\u2019s bog inscription \u201cMusic From Big Brown\u201d obviously refers to The Band\u2019s Music From Big Pink<\/i>, whose appealing style is now causing major ructions among rock royalty and tempts Clapton to quit Cream. At first they\u2019re referred to as \u201cDylan\u2019s backing group\u201d, The Big Pink or by their five names. Coming at a time dominated by frilly shirts their gold prospectors\u2019 image adds to their intrigue. By September, there are so many covers like Spooky Tooth\u2019s The Weight that ads for The Band\u2019s own 45 blare \u201cAccept No Substitute\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Doors\u2019 Waiting For The Sun <\/i>coincides with their first real hit in the UK, Hello, I Love You, a 1965 Jim Morrison poem (inspired by Venice Beach) dragged from the archives when his drinking hinders recording sessions. The song pales against album centrepieces The Unknown Soldier, Five To One, Spanish Caravan and Not To Touch The Earth (only surviving portion of the Celebration Of The Lizard <\/i>poem producer Paul Rothchild didn\u2019t want to attempt. It becomes a Doors summer when they play the Roundhouse (and Top Of The Pops<\/i>) in September, followed by Granada TV\u2019s The Doors Are Open <\/i>documentary in December.<\/p>\n

Wrapped in Martin Sharp\u2019s eye-blasting sleeve, Cream\u2019s Wheels Of Fire <\/i>becomes the world\u2019s first platinum-selling double set, consisting of one studio album and another captured live at San Francisco\u2019s Fillmore West and Winterland. Produced by Felix Pappalardi, the strongest originals are composed by Jack Bruce and poet Pete Brown, including White Room and Politician. Ginger Baker co-writes three with enigmatic jazz pianist Mike Taylor, while Clapton chooses covers including Born Under A Bad Sign from Albert King\u2019s highly-influential Stax album of the same name. The live set showcases Bruce\u2019s harmonica on Traintime, Baker combusting on Toad and Clapton on a sizzling Spoonful.<\/p>\n

Family release Dave Mason-produced late British psych classic Music In A Doll\u2019s House <\/i>(prompting a quick title change for The Beatles\u2019 work-in-progress). The Moody Blues follow Days Of Future Passed <\/i>with a concept work about discovery called In Search Of The Lost Chord<\/i>. Sparkling pitstops include (single) Ride My See-Saw and The Best Way To Travel. Blues boomers Savoy Brown release Getting To The Point<\/i>, and Shades Of Deep Purple <\/i>makes few friends.<\/p>\n

Grateful Dead\u2019s Anthem Of The Sun <\/i>is a mind-frying gumbo mixing live and studio recordings into an epic collage of psychedelic blowouts and stoner philosophy. Chiming with rock\u2019s denuding of hippie excesses, Creedence Clearwater Revival release promising self-titled debut. Buffalo Springfield\u2019s appropriately-titled Last Time Around <\/i>is pieced together from recent sessions as the band fall apart.<\/p>\n

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell release the pure Motown magic of You\u2019re All I Need To Get By (in the US; the UK has to wait another two months for its own pressing); Tammi is already fighting the brain tumour that will take her life two years later.<\/p>\n

AUGUST<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Beatles unveil epic new single Hey Jude, Wilson Pickett will follow with a tour de force hit version of his own in December, while the conflicted stances on the Fabs\u2019 B-side Revolution prods puzzled Nina Simone to create her own version. The Stones\u2019 Street Fighting Man is withdrawn as a US single over its LA riot cop sleeve.<\/p>\n

The Byrds\u2019 country-rock direction manifests as Sweetheart Of The Rodeo <\/i>thanks to Gram Parsons steering the album away from McGuinn\u2019s planned overview of American music. Recorded in Nashville and LA, with session giants including guitarist Clarence White, the album attracts hostility from country diehards, but seduces rock crowds with comic country gems such as Hickory Wind and Life In Prison. Never an official Byrd, Parsons soon leaves at Keith Richards\u2019 suggestion when McGuinn insists on touring apartheid South Africa. Keith takes Gram to Stonehenge, then Redlands to learn the essence of country music.<\/p>\n

The Fugs uncork Ed Sanders\u2019 \u201cbeatnik country\u201d on total collage assault It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest<\/i>, introducing redneck Johnny Pissoff before Crystal Liaison makes a storming single. Soon-to-go-solo Janis Joplin, and Big Brother & The Holding Company top charts with Cheap Thrills<\/i>, its incendiary covers including Summertime, Piece Of My Heart and show-stopping Ball And Chain.<\/p>\n

Influenced by The Impressions\u2019 We\u2019re A Winner and motivated by negating his misstep America Is My Home, James Brown\u2019s black pride statement Say It Loud I\u2019m Black And I\u2019m Proud becomes that summer\u2019s omnipresent ghetto anthem and makes the US Top 10.<\/p>\n

Jeff Beck releases hard rock milestone Truth<\/i>, recorded with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. Alighting from Dantalian\u2019s Chariot, Zoot Money joins Eric Burdon\u2019s Animals for Every One Of Us<\/i>, climaxing in the 19-minute collage New York 1963 \u2013 America 1968. The band will release the double Love Is <\/i>before Burdon splits to join War. Fleetwood Mac\u2019s Mr Wonderful<\/i>, featuring a horn section and Chicken Shack\u2019s Christine Perfect on keyboards but too many Elmore James riffs, is received as a disappointment, Ten Years After\u2019s Undead <\/i>is hailed as a triumph, capturing their blistering live show at Klook\u2019s Kleek and featuring their signature tear-up I\u2019m Going Home.<\/p>\n

Country Joe & The Fish lose momentum with Together <\/i>but surge nicely on Rock And Soul Music, Joe closing the set with a stark Vietnam comment, An Untitled Protest. Blue Cheer amp up their drugged-out savagery on Outsideinside<\/i>, battering Albert King\u2019s The Hunter and Satisfaction before guitarist Leigh Stevens leaves and a softening-up sets in. Elektra use income generated by The Doors to release ornate (self-titled) sets by Earth Opera and Ars Nova. John Fahey\u2019s The Yellow Princess <\/i>glistens with virtuoso flights and evocative oddities like field-recorded The Singing Bridge Of Memphis Tennessee and March! For Martin Luther King, featuring Spirit. 10,000 endure the badly-organised first Isle Of Wight Festival to see the first UK appearance by Jefferson Airplane.<\/p>\n

SEPTEMBER<\/strong><\/p>\n

The dreamy madness of Donald Cammell\u2019s retitled movie Performance <\/i>starts filming at an exotically cocooned flat in Lowndes Square. Basing his reclusive rock star loucheness on Brian Jones, Jagger\u2019s sex scenes with co-star Anita Pallenberg tear up her real-life partner Keith, who finds solace in heroin and writes Gimme Shelter during long waits for her return. All is revealed in NME<\/i>, where Jagger crows \u201cI make love to Anita Pallenberg in it a few times,\u201d with Keith sitting next to him. Thus the rift begins. Brian is found guilty of cannabis possession but fined \u00a350 after psychiatrists plead on his behalf.<\/p>\n

Sharing the bill with The Doors at London\u2019s Roundhouse, Jefferson Airplane promote their streamlined, psychedelic beauty Crown Of Creation <\/i>that includes The House At Pooneill Corners, hauntingly reflecting on troubled \u201968 and Bobby Kennedy. Former Sun Ra trumpeter Eddie Gale releases Ghetto Music<\/i>\u2019s conscious gumbo of jazz, blues and gospel.<\/p>\n

Procol Harum\u2019s Shine On Brightly <\/i>includes prog-presaging epic In Held \u2019Twas In I. Jethro Tull release their single A Song For Jeffrey, taken from the following month\u2019s This Was<\/i>, so called because they were already moving on from their bluesy sound. Donovan In Concert <\/i>is a nice account of his jazzy live show. Eclection\u2019s self-titled Elektra debut is a pleasant but patchy mixed bag of sunshine pop and folk-rock, including lovely single Nevertheless. Nirvana lead All Of Us <\/i>with phasing-drenched single Rainbow Chaser. Picturesque Matchstickable Messages From The Status Quo <\/i>shows a psych band looking for its boogie. Joe Cocker\u2019s stirring With A Little Help From My Friends will go to No 1.<\/p>\n

The NME <\/i>announces The Yardbirds \u201chave now completed the reshaping of their personnel\u201d and \u201cleader\u201d Jimmy Page has formed a production company with manager Peter Grant. Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham plan to debut at the Marquee next month.<\/p>\n

OCTOBER<\/strong><\/p>\n

After running up a studio bill of $70,000, Hendrix releases the mind-blowing Electric Ladyland<\/i>, preceded by All Along The Watchtower, which becomes a favourite with\u00a0its composer. Complex, dazzling and visionary, the chart-topping album mirrors both incendiary times and Jimi\u2019s ever-restless genius. Still on tour, Hendrix enters LA\u2019s TTG studios to record new tracks, and his Irish support band Eire Apparent.<\/p>\n

Following his April UK concert debut at London\u2019s Royal Festival Hall with The Incredible String Band, Tim Buckley returns to play London\u2019s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Bolstering his jazzy new direction with guitarist Lee Underwood, David Friedman\u2019s vibraphone and Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson, he debuts songs from his in-progress Happy Sad <\/i>and some that never see a studio. Thankfully, this landmark night is recorded and later released as Dream Letter<\/i>.<\/p>\n

After signing to Elektra, the MC5 from Detroit record two inflammatory nights at their Grande Ballroom home to capture songs that will form next February\u2019s Kick Out The Jams<\/i>; a Motor City classic that blueprints punk while making their R&B and acid-jazz influences apparent. That man from Saturn, Sun Ra, records Amiri Baraka\u2019s A Black Mass <\/i>with his band The Myth Science Arkestra.<\/p>\n

Gene Clark teams up with banjo maestro Doug Dillard for the country-rock classic The Fantastic Expedition Of Dillard And Clark<\/i>. Stax\u2019s Johnnie Taylor scores a hit and strikes a chord in Vietnam and close to home with Who\u2019s Making Love. Skronk behemoth Albert Ayler hires Bernard Purdie and fearlessly goes cosmic funky on New Grass<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Traffic release their self-titled second album, rescued by a returning Dave Mason brandishing songs such as Feelin\u2019 Alright? that join funky gems like Pearly Queen and Forty Thousand Headmen. Mason soon walks again, followed by Steve Winwood. The Berkshire cottage where Traffic jammed now lies boarded up and empty.<\/p>\n

The Kinks release one of their defining albums with The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. <\/i>Something like an English take on Dylan Thomas\u2019 Under Milk Wood<\/i>, Ray Davies sang of an England already long gone, of village greens and peculiar characters. But this was no exercise in twee nostalgia, there was a real sense of dread and no little amount of irony sprinkled over some of Davies\u2019 best tunes. Perhaps it was bad timing or rotten luck, but it made little commerical impact, despite being much-adorded years after. Jeff Lynne\u2019s The Idle Race offer up the whimsical concept work The Birthday Party<\/i>. John Martyn enlists Donovan flautist Harold McNair for jazzier second album The Tumbler<\/i>. Having brought surrealistic Dadaist humour to post-school TV with Do Not Adjust Your Set<\/i>, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band hit the chart with the Macca-enhanced I\u2019m The Urban Spaceman, cemented by wind-breaking psychedelic peak The Doughnut In Granny\u2019s Greenhouse<\/i>. The Gun\u2019s hit Satanic rocker Race With The Devil is exorcised into psych-blues on their debut. Barry Ryan scores with the overblown epic Eloise.<\/p>\n

NOVEMBER<\/span>After George releases his Indian-flavoured Wonderwall Music <\/i>soundtrack as the first Beatles solo album and debut LP on their Apple label, John and Yoko trounce any remaining Fab-ness with Unfinished Music No 1: Two Virgins<\/i>, shocking many with its cover and the experimental tape manipulations inside. It all leads up to The Beatles releasing \u201cThe White Album\u201d to reactions ranging from praise for its epic, genius kaleidoscope to criticism of its lightweight pastiches (along with usual rumbles that a single disc of corkers would have sufficed). It seems as if everyone hates Revolution 9\u2019s Stockhausen-style collage but there\u2019s enough Fabs magic afoot to ensure it\u2019s later recognised as their magnum opus.<\/p>\n

As the US gets a new president after Republican Richard Nixon defeats Democrat Hubert Humphrey, The Impressions release This Is My Country<\/i>, a transitional milestone as Curtis Mayfield finally emerges with a spiritual statement for the times, including the beautiful title track highlighting ongoing slavery and lost leaders. The Supremes\u2019 Love Child <\/i>also shows new maturity as they leave Holland-Dozier-Holland formulas for socially conscious songs, led by the courageous title track concerning illegitimate motherhood that replaces Hey Jude at the top of the US charts.<\/p>\n

Canned Heat\u2019s Living The Blues <\/i>is a double including breezy next hit Going Up The Country and groundbreaking 21-minute amalgam Parthenogenesis (featuring Al Wilson\u2019s mate John Fahey) while Disc Two is devoted to the 41-minute live blow-out Refried Boogie.<\/p>\n

Victims of their own amplification and murderous feud between Bruce and Baker, Cream say goodbye with two shows at the Royal Albert Hall, supported by Taste and the newly-formed Yes. As Fleetwood Mac soar to the top with the pastoral sunset glisten of Peter Green\u2019s Albatross (inspired by Santo & Johnny\u2019s Sleep Walk), John Mayall releases Blues From Laurel Canyon<\/i>\u2019s ambitious suite. The Incredible String Band\u2019s double, Wee Tam And The Big Huge <\/i>(also available separately) reaches the racks.<\/p>\n

Peel leads the swooning over Sweet Thing and Cypress Avenue from Van Morrison\u2019s stunning new Astral Weeks<\/i>, recorded in New York with jazz musicians and glimmering with a subtly exquisite soul uncommon in rock. Perhaps it\u2019s the sheer volume of fantastic music being released, but even this takes time to be recognised as one of music\u2019s great albums.<\/p>\n

Pearls Before Swine release Balaklava<\/i>, the year\u2019s most evocative anti-war statement with luminescent tapestries such as Translucent Carriages and I Saw The World, linked by 1880s recordings of Florence Nightingale and the Charge Of The Light Brigade\u2019s bugler. More religious Axelrod musings lace the Electric Prunes\u2019 Release Of An Oath<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Nico arrives on Elektra with the frozen harmonium confessionals of The Marble Index<\/i>, named from Wordsworth, produced by Frazier Mohawk and arranged by John Cale with untamed beauty influenced by European modern classical music. The cacophonous screech of Evening Of Light provides the year\u2019s scariest climax.<\/p>\n

DECEMBER<\/strong><\/p>\n

After Decca win the cover stalemate, Beggars Banquet <\/i>is launched with a mead-fuelled press banquet at the Queensgate Gore hotel that degenerates into a pre-planned pie fight. The Stones appear on David Frost performing Sympathy For The Devil and film their ill-fated Rock And Roll Circus <\/i>with The Who, Jethro Tull and a supergroup of John Lennon, Mitch Mitchell, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. Mortified by their sloppy performance, the band shelve the film for 25 years.<\/p>\n

Over the moon to get a record player for Christmas, my record tokens buy Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band\u2019s Strictly Personal<\/i>, a roaring barrage of mutant blues torrents and surreal observation over which Vliet\u2019s colossal persona looms like a laughing psychedelic Godzilla. The band are mortified when producer Bob Krasnow, fried on LSD, drenches everything in phasing. Perhaps typically paradoxically, John Fahey scores his biggest seller with The New Possibility<\/i>, a collection of Christmas-themed instrumentals, some import copies of which will have reached the dedicated heads of the UK.<\/p>\n

The Pretty Things\u2019 SF Sorrow <\/i>is another early concept work, which chronicles a man\u2019s life through war, dark presences and mental exploration. Astoundingly sensitive, the album is later hailed as one of the era\u2019s masterworks after initially suffering through the music\u2019s overwhelming loneliness and melancholy.<\/p>\n

Elvis hip-shakes out of dodgy movie hell into one of history\u2019s greatest comebacks on Elvis<\/i>, the year\u2019s highest rated TV special. After blazing on in black leather and singing his early hits, the recrowned King hangs with his Memphis cronies and sings the other King-inspired If I Can Dream as Vegas beckons.<\/p>\n

And so 1968 comes to a close. If any albums capture this remarkable year\u2019s simmering volatility, defiant liberation and celebration of rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u2019s base elements, they\u2019re Electric Ladyland<\/i>, Beggars Banquet <\/i>and \u201cThe White Album\u201d; portents too of the triumphs, madness and nightmares waiting to erupt in 1969.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some 10,000 hyperactive teenagers, including this enraptured 13-year-old, are crammed into Wembley\u2019s Empire Pool for the 16th annual New Musical Express Poll-Winners Concert. This Sunday afternoon, 12 May 1968, pop music\u2019s biggest event boasts a sparkling bill of current Top 10 stars all restricted to short sets like the package tours quickly g\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8023,"featured_media":193529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[585],"issue":[10093],"class_list":["post-193528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-various-artists","issue-january-2018"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n1968 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