The short-lived psychedelic rock/pop era!

Ok that puts it in better context, and I see where you're coming from now. But the thought of psychedelia as being mostly derivative of British musical acts doesn't smack of reality to these ears. Whereas I do feel prog-rock owes its foundation to the British scene, even if it heavily tapped from the psychedelic movement that preceded it.

 

I'm pretty sure the Julian Cope made the connection in his Krautrock book?

 

...and you can be sure The Beatles and The Stones will jump right on board.

 

Short-lived as a commercial force, but many of the bands who were labeled psychedelic continued on into the '70s and beyond, evolving but never losing those psych roots (Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead'etc.). Many of the albums of the era have endured as timeless classics like The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Mr. Fantasy. In my house, that music never died.

 

And that one was psyched up even more by the Vanilla Fudge in 1969, alternating the song with a passage from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

 

Well as I said, many groups carried on into prog territory. If many groups carried on with the 67 pschedelia thing they just weren't quick enough to realise that it was done and it very soon sounded like yesterday's thing - which is what the leaders realised right away.

 

Interesting that It's A Beautiful Day borrowed this from Deep Purple's "Wring That Neck" ("Hard Road") after Deep Purple borrowed IABD's "Bombay Calling" riff for their "Child In Time." Lots of cross-pollination going on on both sides of the pond.

 

And the psychedelic sound continued to echo and reverberate with subsequent musical scenes as well. Even a lot of bands that started off as punks in the late 70s--like the Damned and Siouxsie & the Banshees--ended up dabbling in psych, as well as heady British eccentrics like Julian Cope and Robyn Hitchcock (and who can forget the mighty Dukes of Stratosphear!). In America, we had the Paisley Underground and even Prince had a psychedelic phase in the 80s. There have been periodic revivals on both sides of the Atlantic ever since.

 

I'm one of those who thinks the jamming/jazzy/modal side of psychedelic rock was kicked into high gear by The Butterfield Blues Band and their song "East-West."

Over its 13+ minutes you hear just about every jam band cliché in "East-West." The only problem is that those tricks weren't clichés in 1966. Back then, the Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and Quicksilver Messenger Service had yet to put out a record. "East-West" and The Butterfield Blues Band, featuring Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield on guitar, with Paul Butterfield on harp and vocals, beat them to the punch. They were breaking new ground, laying down a fresh sound.

 

Well there is some truth to this, but your timeline is still too short. However as things pushed on more, psychedelia did morph more into free form and no-holds-barred jamming that began to take it into uncharted (and overindulgent) territory. If you were stoned it was trippy, especially live, but if you heard the majority of it back when in an unaltered state, it sounded extraneous and unfocused, and sometimes wacky.

Prog took some of the best elements of the genre and moved forward with them, synthesizing them in a more focused approach.

This.

 

That was by design, not coincidence. After Deep Purple ripped off "Bombay Calling" from IABD (Ian Gillan has freely admitted as much), David LaFlamme decided to even things up by lifting one of their riffs for his own payback purposes. Back then a lot of groups tended to settle matters like this in this manner, not feeling it propitious to head off to court and waste a ton of precious loot hashing it out. IABD and DP used to perform together during those years on multiple bills, and may have done a few short touring stints with each other if memory serves me right. So the "cross-pollination" as you termed it found its genesis there.

I've often wondered if LaFlamme was further resistant to pursuing court action on this (as he certainly could have used the funds, considering his own so-called manager was dragging him into court regularly) considering the fact that he heavily lifted "Bombay Calling" himself from but another artist; in this case, a Bay area jazz saxophonist named Vince Wallace. The story goes that Vince wrote the main riff of that tune back in 1962, and would later teach it to David during his Electric Chamber Orchestra days in SF. LaFlamme was hesitant to co-credit Wallace when it was first being promoted, but later amended his ways to include Wallace's contribution.

 

It's impossible to overestimate Jeff Beck's influence on the development of psychedelia, he was the pioneer. And I'm talking about the Spring of 1965 ("Heart Full of Soul")! Nobody else was getting the kind of sounds from a guitar that he was.

 

The era certainly yielded some beautiful album covers.

 

They may have beaten groups like the The Grateful Dead, QMS and Moby Grape to the recording studio (not sure about Jefferson Airplane though) but they were all influencing each other back then as they played on various stages around the bay area, as were other seminal groups involved from the area (Great Society, Big Brother, The Charlatans, etc). You hear a lot of Indian music and even a jazzy vibe in that classic East-West improvisation piece, but also some early psychedelia for sure (though sometimes referred to as acid rock when things fully extended out). Let's keep in mind that The Yardbirds with Jeff Beck were also tapping into this territory back in England as would Cream shortly thereafter, so it was all sort of swirling together in an interesting brew as '65 gave way to '66, the point where things really took off. One can also not underplay the Byrds' influence on the genre (as was mentioned earlier), or the Beatles for that matter.

 

I have to agree with you. He was a big player in the scene, and definitely one of the genre's pioneers. But there were a lot of others doing their thing too on all kinds of stages back then, even if they had yet to make their way to a recording contract.

 

I got a nice comp of I think UK bands from the early 80s called A Splash Of Color.
Anyone remember that one?

 

May have been short-lived, but it is one of my favorite eras of music!

 

Thanks. I will look into that.

 

I think it happened in 1966.

 

When it comes to psychedelia, the concept of "and?" doesn't really come into play. ;^)

 

01/01/1967

 

Even allowing for the overly broad (imo) conception of psychedelic music that pervades the SHMF, Pepper's featured very little of it. And, yes, I realize that you're referring to a period of Beatles music and not just to that one LP, but still I think the Pepper's label is a mistake.

 

Well that can be a positive - if you like prog. I always found it ridiculous and unlistenable (apart from a bit of Pink Floyd). There's always been a market for it though.
My OP simply remarked on that fascinating back-to-basics shift which happened in 68/69 when the major actors realised that it was time to move on.

 

I know what you're saying, but those major actors you're referring to were never the trendsetters or trailblazers in the field, that has to be remembered. They weren't as deeply vested or imbued in the genre as were others.

As for the preference of prog-rock versus more straight-forward R&R, that always comes down to our own unique tastes and experiences. I happen to like both, but some prog I do feel gets carried away a bit and can sound a tad too "stiff" or "mechanical" for its own good. Shades of how shredding can sometimes be fun if it's done well, but other times can sound utterly sterile as the fireworks begin to border cacophony. I also like softer prog, the kind found in groups like the early Moody Blues and It's A Beautiful Day (not that I don't appreciate groups like Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd to boot, cuz I do ). However the Moodies are where prog meets The Beatles, the union amounting to something of a fusion in between. Somewhere along their "classic 7" album run, however, they abandoned the prog format altogether, towards the end for sure (plus during their comeback years in the 80's).

Hey but to each their own. That's the beauty of music, and fortunately there's lots of it to go around to keep us all jumping.

 

Its not like there was 'psych' and there was 'prog.' Good grief. The rock world was far more interconnected, overlapping, diverse, and complex than that. 1968 saw Dylan's return to roots after Blonde On Blonde and The Band's Music From Big Pink, Creedence and other California/west coast bands melding psychedelia with folk and country rock. In fact Hendrix took Dylan's All Along The Watchtower from John Wesley Harding and turned it into one of the greatest psych songs ever.

It seems like the 'psych' you are referring to is that freakbeat ---> paisley ---> Pepper stuff out of the UK. Which I happen to love. So when you say 'psych' to folks on this side of the big pond it means something a bit different. I think.