Starting with my favourite track from Sgt Pepper: full of imagery ... and starting a short sequence on circuses.
Donovan's broad range of musical styles was immediately apparent on his first album and spread further on his second, Fairytale in 1965. We're still in Don's acoustic period and this song, composed by Paul Bernath (about whom I know nothing), is called Circus of Sour.
Although he made two albums between 1973 and 1974, Mick Audsley is better known as a film editor. The album this track comes from—his second—is called Storyboard. Film editing credits include The Personal History of David Copperfield, Twelve Monkeys and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Post-Monkees, Michael Nesmith is credited with seeding the idea for MTV and hence kick-starting the age of music videos. He did a fair few himself, several included in a TV programme he put together called Elephant Parts. This is one of them, also on his 1979 album Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma (love that title). Wikipedia (he sees all ... he knows all) says this is the final single he has released. One interesting thing is that the verses are spoken, not sung.
Following a Monkees connection we find a song on their third album, Headquarters from 1967, written by a Screen Gems music staff writer named Diane Hildebrand. She recorded several of her own songs on an Elektra LP that year and that song became her album title track.
During the late 60s and early 70s, appreciation of various forms of country music expanded on both sides of the Atlantic amongst a younger audience. One part of this was the so-called newgrass movement, of which John Hartford is considered to be a founder. This explored a wide range of "extensions to the country music standard" but still with skill and a love of tradition. Probably the first newgrass album, though we didn't know this at the time, was Hartford's Aereo-Plane album. He'd moved from RCA records, a more traditional country label, to Warners at this point and the album fitted nicely into the more progressive Warners aesthetic. The idea of an aeroplane powered by steam is quite appealing. Incidentally, Hartford wrote Gentle on my Mind (a hit for Glen Campbell) and organised the music for the movie O Brother Where Art Thou.
As country music expanded its remit, the rhinestone suit style of country and western music was seen as a bit old fashioned by newer artists. Waylon Jennings put the changed attitude succinctly in his 1975 country number one paying a tribute to Hank Williams Senior. Both kinds of music ... and nice guitar.
A few songs about radio and radio DJs. We start with ex-Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and a standout track from his first solo album, the Nightfly, released in 1982. This DJ, on WJAZ in Baton Rouge, is at his best late at night. I agree.
At one time there was no American radio DJ more famous than Wolfman Jack. You can see him in the movie American Graffiti, and in real life he broadcast from high-powered Mexican stations with call-signs like XERF and XERB that were known as border-blasters and covered much of the continental US at powers that were illegal north of the border. Todd Rundgren immortalised him in a track on his Something/Anything? album in 1972. The single version of this has the Wolfman himself doing the spoken intro ... but Spotify seems only to have the album version. Go for it!
Being a radio DJ is not all wine and roses. Nothing said this more that Harry Chapin's song about the jobbing jock on the morning show on WOLD. "Playing all the hits for you, wherever you may be." Harry wrote amazing songs, died depressingly young, and was the highlight of the final years of Jac Holzman's tenure at Elektra.
While WOLD didn't exist, WPLJ did. It was a New York station playing soft rock and, bizarrely, took its call sign from a song. The Four Deuces had the original hit with this, but this version is by the Mothers. Frank Zappa was quite fond of doo-wop music and this one, from the 1970 album Burnt Weeny Sandwich (sometimes called Bert Weedon Sandwich in the UK of course), is a doo-wop nonsense song, really about a cocktail! (In case you didn't know, the US has three international call sign letters. W is used for stations east of the Mississippi, K for the west and N for aircraft.)
At one time, there seemed to be only three guitarists who mattered in the intricate folk playing that emerged in the mid-1960s. John Renbourn, Bert Jansch and Davy Graham. Here we mix two of them because the closing track on Bert's first LP in 1965 was a Davy Graham composition. If you had a guitar in your hand you tried to play this ... and usually failed.
As an example of Davy's own playing here's his take on an Irish traditional air. It was considered almost his 'party piece' but wasn't on any of his albums at the time. The track was one of two contributions to a Hootenanny EP in 1963.
Tom Baxter and Judy Tzuke wrote a song to commemorate Davey Graham (the 'e' comes and goes I'm afraid) when a blue plaque to his memory was unveiled. They've both recorded it and this is Judy's version. I came across it while looking for Davy's music and it's very recent, unusually for my playlists. But it's great.
No particular reason for following Judy with Kate. It just seems to fit for me ... and we're on a bit of a singer-songwriter sequence now. The title track of her 1993 album, The Red Shoes. The progression of the arrangement here is just breathtaking. Pity it fades!
I came across Dory Previn when I was pointed to her album Mythical Kinds and Iguanas. I reviewed it on a zoo of a programme I took part in around 1970 on BBC Radio London called The Pictures are Better. There were at least three presenters sometimes fighting verbally with each other and I used it as an excuse to get the odd album to review and leaven the mix. Met some amazing people ... but Liberace didn't turn up ... and a listener branded me as 'pompous like a policeman' (ouch!). I was recently reminded of this on Twitter and I still think there's a ghost of a drum kit that was left out of the mix.
Another old Fresh Garbage closer. Johnny Winter's second Columbia album had three sides. It was cut loud enough that it wouldn't fit on two but they didn't pad it out to four. Another pointer to cross-fertilisation between country and rock, this was recorded in Nashville and was released late in 1969. The song is a much older Little Richard composition. Sleep tight!
That's it for this third playlist. I hope you enjoyed it.