I spent the remainder of the spring and most of summer vacation of 1968 cribbing music and dabbling on my keyboard. I was able to master many chords and used the books CEP and I had ordered to get the changes to several songs. I borrowed CEP’s guitar for awhile and worked on strumming along with several songs, some from the books. The band Steppenwolf, with its song Born to be Wild, caught my imagination. Later that same summer I heard Magic Carpet Ride in a bedroom at my grandmother’s while listening to WLS from Chicago. The phase of signal wavering in and out of my little transistor GE gave the station a psychedelic effect all its own.
The Doors’ album Strange Days, purchased the summer before, became something of an obsession. I repeatedly listened to it, learned as many of the lyrics as I could (divining lyrics is an important skill in a cover band), learned pieces of some of the songs (I jumped right on Unhappy Girl), and tried to discover the meanings of the lyrics. Jim Morrison once remarked that many of his songs created within him a gloomy feeling. I feel much the same about Doors’ songs.
Local radio, something that had only existed for a year or so, also did its share in my education. WKYZ in Madisonville had a signal so strong my friend said you really didn’t need batteries to receive it. That was a good thing. They played a Top 40 format, much like Knoxville’s WNOX, but in those years what might now be termed progressive music (or psychedelic music as it was then known) regularly made the Top 40 lists. One of the announcers at WKYZ was a guy I knew from Boy Scouts. He played pretty much what was on the list, and was a most entertaining listen, especially since he was very good at mixing the music he played.
Just down the road in Englewood, at WENR, a similar type of format prevailed, except on Sunday afternoons when the jock there was allowed to go absolutely wild with music choices. For some unknown reason, the guy could play anything he wanted, so he played LP cuts and groups that had not exactly made the Top 40. I heard Hendrix, probably for the first time, Janis Joplin (Big Brother and the Holding Company), Cream, and many more. The difference was that the songs the guy played tended to be harder and longer than a lot of the regular fare. For me the local radio scene was very exciting.
On our annual shopping trip to Atlantic Mills, I was allowed by purchase an LP. I chose People: I Love You. I’d heard the song I Love You (an almost exact cover of The Zombie’s version), and like any keyboard player was impressed by the dual organ and electric piano lead before the last stanza and chorus. For my money the other songs were just as interesting and I still listen to them, and a few others, now. The song that really got me, though, was You Keep Me Hanging On by Vanilla Fudge. It was the epitome of psycedelica (as was the album from which it came), and I learned a lot about arrangement and composition (and the song People Get Ready) from the band’s efforts.
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