*By Marcelo Pinheiro, Daniel de Mesquita Benevides and Bia Abramo
There was once a Summer of Love. A vivid portrait of the collective dream atmosphere that co-opted an expressive part of western youth in 1967, the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band complete, with freshness intact, half a century since its release on June 1st. Far from being an isolated episode of aesthetic daring, the Beatles' eighth LP amplified the experimentation present in the work released the previous year, the essential Revolver, and spread statutes of a new era of invention for rock, also rehearsed in 1966 by groups like Beach Boys, in the masterpiece Pet Sounds, and The Kinks, on some themes of the sublime Face to Face.
Heirs of underground movements of North American culture – such as the avant-garde propositions of bebop jazz and the hedonistic existentialism of the beat generation –, the young people who starred in the Summer of Love had as their policy of behavioral transformation the defense of free sex and of pacifism, the fight against racism, the interaction with nature and the expansion of consciousness through the recreational use of lysergic substances, such as marijuana, hashish and LSD - the latter, as we know, alluded to in the initials of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, from Sgt. Peppers.
In 1966, this search for transcendence, which had music as its main showcase, was summarized in the title of a eponymous spoken album. In it, American psychiatrist Timothy Leary, renowned for his inaugural research on LSD use, coined the expression “turn on, tune in, drop out!” (in free translation, “turn on, tune in, get out!”). On January 14, 1967, this sentence reverberated again in a speech given by Leary during the opening of the Human Be-In, the embryonic festival of the Summer of Love, which brought together more than 20 young people in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco. Organized by artist Michael Bowen and poet Alan Cohen, the meeting brought together, among others, activist Jerry Rubin, founder of the YIP (International Youth Party), beat poets Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and psychedelic pioneering local bands such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
With the scientific endorsement of researchers such as Leary, LSD was commercialized for psychiatric purposes until October 1966. The substance, which was produced and distributed by the Swiss laboratory Sandoz, inspired one of the first lysergic themes of the British The Animals, the composition A Girl Named Sandoz, released as a single in the same year as the ban. Shortly before, in 1962, a group of proto-hippies called the Merry Pranksters (something like “festive pranksters”) and led by writer Ken Kesey, author of the classic Um Estranho no Ninho, began experiments in the collective use of LSD in an alternative community based in La Honda, California.
In 1964, Kesey decided to buy an old school bus, covered the bodywork with psychedelic themes and colors, and made adaptations, such as including an audio system so musicians traveling in the SUV could “fuck” a sound. With the neologism furthur as an itinerary (a pun on the words beyond and future), armed with LSD diluted in liters of orange juice, Kesey hit the road with beat writer Neal Cassidy, who inspired the character Dean Moriarty in On The Road, by Jack Kerouac, behind the wheel. The road drop out had a well-defined purpose: to cross as many North American cities as possible and identify volunteers willing to carry out the so-called “acid tests” (the crazy excursion was portrayed in the book The Electric Refreshment Acid Test, released in 1968 by Tom Wolfe.)
When Sgt. peppers was placed on the plaza, sloppy actions like the Human Be-In and the Pranksters' rocky roaming proliferated with the same ease with which Jimi Hendrix soloed his Fender Stratocaster. On the following pages, we've gathered 30 albums that endorsed: 1967 was indeed a magical year for music. Not by chance, the influence of dreams and the multicolored sounds coming from outside soon resonated in Brazil, with the tropicalist insurrection of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and the Mutantes in TV Record Popular Music Festival of that same year. The wave hit so hard that in 1967 even ronnie von delved into psychedelia.
Some titles selected here, from bands like the Rolling Stones, The Doors and The Who, are better known, but they can all be heard on streaming platforms like YouTube, Spotify and Deezer, choose yours. We anticipate, however, that they are all available, via click on the titles, highlighted in yellow, on Youtube. Good trip! (MP).
BY DANIEL DE MESQUITA BENEVIDES
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The Doors - The Doors (January) With an original mix of jazz, rock and blues, and a vocalist who sounded like an erotic Prometheus, the Doors soon became one of the most incendiary bands in history. Both on this first album and on Strange DaysDecember 1967, Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore recorded unforgettable songs that balanced between guiltless hedonism (Love Me Two Times) and incursions into the turmoil of the psyche (The End, with its famous Oedipal “brake”). light my fire won the charts and When the Music is Over became a high point in the shows, many of them troubled by fan hysteria and police interventions. Like Hendrix and Janis Joplin, Morrisson died early, at 27. And entered mythology. |
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| Country Joe & The Fish – Electric Music for the Mind and Body (April) No group in San Francisco has been more politicized than Country Joe & the Fish, named after Stalin and Mao. On the debut album, prior to two independent EPs, this politicization was also addressed to the body, as the title says. Love, free sex, drug legalization, defense of civil rights and pacifism against the Vietnam war were part of the band's concerns, a constant presence in the demonstrations of students, hippies, beats and workers. Three good examples of this album at the same time traveling and down to earth: the fun super birdderides President Lyndon Johnson; base stringscalls for the use of LSD and Grace makes a declaration of love to Grace Slick, muse of the Summer of Love. |
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The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced(May) Whoever spray-painted “Clapton is God” was wrong: real gods were John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix. Not just because they played divinely, but also because they went far in their sonic investigations. Hendrix loved to explore the possibilities of the studio (see If 6 Was 9) and the distortions on the guitar. At the same time, he was a great vocalist, with a smooth, roguish flow (in the best of senses), which was a perfect contrast to the sensual violence of his solos. Alongside him, bassist Noel Redding and sensational drummer Mitch Mitchell formed the best cuisine at the time. Purple Haze, Hey Joe e Foxy Lady, among others, immortalized the trio. the second album, Axis: Bold as Love, from the same year, is also a masterpiece. |
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| Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention – Absolutely Free (May) Without the more “pop” songs from Freak Out!, this second album by Zappa and his Californian combo is a madcap, sound-free collage whose unity is socio-political satire and pastiche of genres, ranging from primitive rock to louie, louie to the classical avant-garde of Stravinsky. It is the most experimental work of the guitarist and composer's early career, and yet it reached the Top 50 in the US. A convinced anarchist, Zappa also makes fun of the American president in the first track and doesn't spare even his hippie and psychedelic friends. As he despised drugs and junkies, he is probably the only artist in this selection who has never taken LSD. His mind-bending intelligence was enough for any trip. |
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The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – Part One (May) Quite peculiar band, even by psychedelic standards. Formed in Los Angeles in 1965, it was billed as the west coast's answer to the Velvet Underground. They were short-lived and only the initial album reached the right balance between psychedelia, experimentation, a certain humorous sloppiness, Byrds-style vocal harmonies and typical melodies of the so-called British Invasion. There are a few covers, by Zappa and Bob Johnston, but what counts is the inventiveness of the arrangements, the strangeness (sometimes subtle, others wide open) of the songs and the bite-and-blow dynamics of the musical narrative, alternating dark and sunny tracks. Good antidote for any moment of boredom. But be careful with the dosage: it is advisable to consume in moderation. |
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| The Red Crayola – The parable of Arable Land(June) One of the pioneering experimental rock albums, in which all kinds of noise and noise are part of the party, The parable of Arable Land it's an unforgettable (and disturbing) sound adventure, quite different from the hippie spirit of the time. Nobody knew how to play properly, but ideas exploded like new stars. It already contained the do-it-yourself attitude of punk and the dark and schizoid tone of post-punk, a movement (if you can call it that) in which the group, Texan like the 13th Floor Elevators, would participate, in a new incarnation around leader Mayo Thompson, including members of the bands X-ray Spex, Swell Maps and Raincoats. Thompson even had a stint with the legendary Père Ubu. |
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Moby Grape – MobyGrape (June) One of the most underrated bands in rock history. Better than their San Francisco friends the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape had three genius guitarists and five great vocalists. By the way, everyone composed. The production of the debut album, one of the great releases of the 1960s, is so fresh that it looks like it was recorded today. Beautiful melodies, chilling harmonies and an infectious enthusiasm almost make you forget the sad trajectory of the quintet, which, if it weren't for the music hats, drug arrests and infighting (as well as the schizophrenia of Skip Spence, who two years later would release the beautiful and hallucinogenic oar), would have been as popular as the Beach Boys and Byrds. |
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| Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn(August) The first two songs form one of rock's most sweeping beginnings. Astronomy Domine e Lucifer Samdefine the origins of Floyd: traveling organ (if not sinister), spatial metaphors, slightly distorted guitars, vocal effect, sweet and strange melodies, bass and drums verging on syncopation. Interstellar Overdive is another high point: it cuts through the band's debut album like a cosmic ray. Syd Barrett still hadn't completely freaked out on LSD at five o'clock tea (and six, seven...). His compositions, between the childish and the lunatic, which at times resemble Lewis Carroll, reveal a talent never equaled. Not even the Beatles, recording in the same studio, the legendary Abbey Road, did better. |
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Vanilla Fudge – vanilla fudge (August) Direct bridge between psychedelic rock and heavy metal, Vanilla Fudge decisively influenced bands such as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, which even opened for some shows for the quartet from Long Island (New York). Guided by a swampy Hammond, Fudge recorded several covers on their successful debut album, which reached number six on the US chart. Between them, Ticket to Ride e Eleanor Rigby, by the Beatles, and People Get Ready, by the unbeatable soulman Curtis Mayfield. The novelty was in the slower and heavier tempo of the versions, so that the songs were almost unrecognizable, providing a strong mood of high. In addition to organist Mark Stein, the highlight was drummer Carmine Appice. |
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| Procol Harum – Procol harum (September) For those who only know A Whiter Shade of Pale, a single played on all self-respecting rock radio, the English band's first album should be a nice surprise. The style is daring: a pre-progressive with alternating pop and hard-rock tracks, nods to classical music and vaudeville or dance-hall music (something, by the way, very typical of English bands of the time, see Beatles and Kinks) and white soul vocals. There are melodies that stick in the ear and atmospheres of organ and piano making bed for dark lyrics, full of suggestive images. Then they recorded other albums as good or even better, such as The Salty Dog, from 1969. They recently got together again and launched a new collection of unpublished songs, Novelty, with critical acclaim. |
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Beach Boys – smiley smile (September) This is the group's first album in which Brian Wilson's leadership does not translate into music. If the band loses the more experimental and sublime side, revealed a year earlier in the masterpiece Pet Sounds, seems to gain in cohesion and enthusiasm. Cohesion is in smiley smile, an album that frustrated many people at the time, as it was released after speculation about the unfinished Smile (which, much later, would win several special editions). It's actually pretty good, bringing great vocal harmonies and fun oddities. In addition, it has Heroes and villains e Good vibrations, two of the best singles of the 1960s. In terms of enthusiasm is the album Wild honey, from the same year, with a looser grip, bordering on soul. |
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| The Electric Flag – The Trip Original Soundtrack(September) A straight guy takes acid for the first time and goes out on the streets of Los Angeles. He goes through parties, nightclubs, beaches. Colors, lights and sounds explode in your mind and that of the viewer. He's Peter Fonda. The screenplay is by Jack Nicholson. The film, The Trip, is by B-movie legend Roger Corman. The soundtrack makes the perfect accompaniment to lysergic on-screen adventures. It's the first release from the band Electric Flag, founded by guitarist Mike Bloomfield, who made history on some of Bob Dylan's best records. All instrumental, the album features brief suites of impressionistic psychedelia and some funky blues, Bloomfield's specialty. Good weather for any temperature, any season. |
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Tim Buckley - Hello, goodbye (September) One of the most impressive vocalists of the 1960s, not only for his extraordinary range but also for his emotional delivery, Tim Buckley had a short life and tragic death, like his son, Jeff Buckley, who was equally talented and better known to new generations. He was a romantic figure, always in search of an ideal, no matter the consequences. He built a non-commercial career, with stylistic changes and an increasing focus on jazzy and experimental improvisation, which was in stark contrast to the gentle, poetic folk-rock of the eponymous first record. He was just 21 years old in Hello, goodbye, the next. It is her most overtly psychedelic album, with beautiful, oblique melodies and enigmatic lyrics. |
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| The Rolling Stones- Their Satanic Majesties Request (December) After releasing the genius BETWEEN THE BUTTONS at the beginning of 1967, with the classic I Can't Get No (Satisfaction) e Ruby Tuesday, the Stones found themselves facing the Sgt. peppers. The Eternal Rivals album made everything look old-fashioned. In a way, it forced the others to give an answer. Their Satanic…, the onslaught of Jagger & Co., however, did not work magic, despite the cape with the sorcerers' hats. Taking She's a Rainbow e 2000 Light Years from Home (hello, Primal Scream!), the record sinks into sterile experiments with tribal beats, noise and naive hippie intentions. In the following years, they redeemed themselves in a sequence perhaps never achieved: Beggar's Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers e Exile on Main St.. |
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Traffic – Mr. fantasy (December) Everyone in Traffic had a solid musical background (which perhaps explains the diversity in the band's arrangements), starting with vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Steve Winwood, who at 15 was already singing in the Spencer Davies Group. More connected to jazz, soul and folk, he faced the pop and psychedelic spirit of Dave Mason, who, in addition to guitar and bass, also played the sitar. Prior to the release of the first album, Mason left the band, supplemented by drummer and lyricist Jim Capaldi and saxophonist and flutist Chris Wood. Track Dear Mr. fantasy would win versions of Hendrix, Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. In the US the album was released as Heaven Is In Your Mind, plus the group's first three singles. |
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BY MARCELO PINHEIRODonovan - Mellow Yellow (January) More for sharing influences – especially the idol Woody Guthrie – than for imitating the American bard, Donovan Leitch was celebrated as a kind of Scottish Bob Dylan. On his third album, however, he decided to ditch the folksy mannerisms to add distorted guitars, electric bass, organ solos and Indian sitar. The materialization of this new phase, the album sunshine superman, came to light in September 1966. The transition was so successful that months later, in January 1967, Donovan put Mellow Yellow, a worthy successor. Captained by the title track, which features arrangement and bass by John Paul Jones, the album also features another future led zeppelin, guitarist Jimmy Page. |
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The Byrds – Younger Than Yesterday (February) Recorded in January 1966 and present in 5th dimension, Eight Miles High is considered the first psychedelic record. With phrases and doubled solos from 6- and 12-string guitars, Roger McGuinn's legendary Rickenbacker, the song, however, was boycotted as soon as its title was interpreted as an apology for LSD. McGuinn, however, swears he paid homage to John Coltrane – hence the bebop dynamic. Wrong or not, the controversy caused the group to soon fall into commercial collapse. Bankruptcy, fortunately, did not sabotage the beauty of this successor, which brings together luminous themes such as So You Want to Be a Rock n' Roll Star and two of David Crosby's best compositions, Mind Gardens e Everbybody's Been Burned. |
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| Grateful Dead – The Grateful Dead (March) Named Guru of Jefferson Airplane Countrymen on the back cover of Surrealistic Pillow, until this début Jerry Garcia and his troupe of proto-hippies had already, since 1965, traveled a long, brain-melting road in the San Francisco scene. Produced by David Hassinger – responsible for the sound of Aftermath (1966) by the Stones, and which would later sign Electric Prunes’ debut album – the eponymous LP captures the transgressive aesthetics of acid rock popes and capitulates puerile conventions of the first half of the 1960s, to open a path of mental expansion and musical. With collectively signed songs, the LP also features reinterpretations by Sony Boy Williamson and Jessie “The Lone Cat” Fuller. |
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The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico (March) One of the most influential albums in rock history, inspiration for bands like Modern Lovers, The Fall and Joy Division, The Velvet Underground & Nico it dispenses with riposte mannerisms and deals with obscure topics such as sadomasochism and heroin addiction. Packed with graphic art by Andy Warhol, also producer and responsible for adding the seductive voice of the German model Nico, the album doesn't even bear traces of celebration of peace, love and the sunny atmosphere of 1967. Author of eight of the 11 compositions - the too much with John Cale (Sunday morning e Black Angel's Death Song), Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker (European Son) –, Lou Reed imposes his grandeur on waiting for the man, I'll Be Your Mirror, Femme Fatale e Heroin. |
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| Jefferson Airplane – Surrealistic Pillow (March) Alongside bands like the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane was the spearhead of the San Francisco psychedelic scene. Released in March 1967, Surrealistic Pillow, the group's second album, is one of the pillars of the so-called Frisco Sound and marks the entry of singer Grace Slick into the band. A former member of the Great Society, Grace brought two instant classics from her former group: White Rabbit e Somebody to Love. Amidst acoustic subtleties, transverse flute phrases, riffs and frenetic guitar solos, Jefferson Airplane's "surrealist pillow" still holds treasures such as Today, My Best Friend, Coming Back to Me e DCBA-25 – the latter makes reference to the song's chords and the chemical compound of LSD. |
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The Electric Prunes – THE ELECTRIC PRANES (April) In an article written days after the death of Jimi Hendrix in 1970, the writer Luiz Carlos Maciel argued that the guitarist's great revolution was to expand the possibilities of music through the use of electricity. Full of studio effects, especially the use of tremolos and wah-wahs dressed as a sitar on Ken Williams' guitar, Electric Prunes' first album seals off, even in the band's name (the electric plums), this theory. Lead by the success of I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night), Top 11 on Billboard and present in ten out of ten compilations with the best of psychedelic rock, the LP does not deny the surf and garage rock past of the Californian band, originated from the demise of The Sanctions. |
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| The Kaleidoscope – side trips (June) Los Angeles shares with San Francisco the status of epicenter of the psychedelic revolution. From California and beyond came such divisive bands as The Doors, Love and Buffalo Springfield. Lesser known, but no less cult, the quintet Kaleidoscope made side trips, his debut album, a myriad of unusual sounds. The formula by composers Chris Darrow and David Lindley featured the use of Greek, Persian and Indian instruments such as bouzouki, vina and dombek. Compositions like egyptian garden e Keep Your Mind Open - chosen by the magazine Mojo one of the 100 Greatest Psychedelic Songs – made the heads of anonymous listeners and stars like Jimmy Page, who considers side trips your favorite album of the 1960s. |
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The Seeds - Future (August)
Symbol of the proto-punk aesthetic – from bands like The Sonics, The Wailers, Count Five and The Litter – The Seeds were led by one of the biggest freaks in the psychedelic pantheon, singer and songwriter Sky Saxon. Also coming from the LA scene, the quartet decided to expand musical horizons in Future, after rare transcendental experiences on their first two albums. Amid Saxon's mocking oratory, obsessive guitar, organ and electric piano riffs leap to the ears in hypnotic mantras of the best acid rock, such as Flower Lady and Her Assistant, Travel With Your Mind e A Thousand Shadows. Produced in parallel with the release of Sgt. Pepper's…, Future also features brief orchestral arrangements. |
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| Eric Burdon & The Animals – Winds of Change(September) Small, but owner of one of the most powerful voices of his generation, Eric Burdon was one of the architects of the so-called British Invasion. In 1966, with the departure of bassist Chas Chandler, who left the Animals to pave the career of none other than Jimi Hendrix, Burdon reformulated the band and began the psychedelic turn that culminated in Winds of Change. With effects superimposed on the songs, like the noise of the sea in the simple Poem by The Sea, a blockbuster version of PAINT IT BLACK, of the Stones, and quotes from soul, rock and jazz icons in It's All Meat, the album also brings a “dialogue” with the Hendrixian universe in Yes, I'm Experienced. Less energetic, but imbued with beauty, tracks like Good Times e Anything make this psychedelic foray into a small masterpiece. |
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Buffalo Springfield – Buffalo Springfield Again(November) In a turbulent year for the band led by Stephen Stills and Neil Young, with the latter leaving temporarily, the arrival in stores of the second album of the Californian group was a relief for first-time fans. Resulting from a fragmented production process throughout 1967, the LP brings together ten compositions. Among them, jewelry by Young, such as Mr. soul, Broken Arrow e Expecting to Fly, Stills' unsuspected songs, such as Bluebird, everydays e Rock n' Roll Woman, and the first three compositions by guitarist Richie Furray, sad memory, Good Time Boy e A Child's Claim to Fame. Before embarking on consecrated solo careers, Young and Stills released a third album by the group, the also mandatory Last Time Around (1968) |
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| cream - disraeli gears (November) Titled with a corruption between the name of former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the term derailleur gears (bicycle exchange), disraeli gears is Cream's second album. Formed by Eric Clapton (acclaimed in his country as the "God of Guitar" until the arrival of Jimi Hendrix by those bands), Jack Bruce (bass) and Ginger Baker (drums), the band personified the concept of power-trio. In disraeli gears, however, attributed to the wild bluesy atmosphere psychedelic textures based mainly on the use of the wah-wah pedal on Clapton's guitar – an explicit case of Tales of Brave Ulysses, sung by Bruce. album hits, Sunshine of Your Love unleashes the hypnotic cadence of Baker, one of the greatest drummers of his generation. |
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Love - Forever Changes (November) In January 1967, Californians Love released Da Capo, their second album. In it, in tracks like orange skies e She Comes in Colors, the transition to the lysergic textures that culminated in the masterpiece Forever Changes. Led by Arthur Lee, singer and songwriter of intense brilliance, the band also featured another inspired author, guitarist Bryan McLean. Over the course of 11 themes – some covered with strings and woodwinds, others marked by folk aesthetics and flamenco influences – Lee and McLean move with the lyricism of songs such as Alone Again Or, Old Man, The Red Telephone and the apotheotics You Set The Scene. Despite the “eternal changes” in the title, the album anticipates traces of the reality hangover that capitulated the Summer of Love, summarized later by John Lennon with the sentence “the dream is over”. |
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| Strawberry Alarmclock – Incense and peppermints(December) Also coming out of the Californian scene, Strawberry Alarmclock musicians made the cover (hippie to the core) and title of their first album (“incense and peppermint candies”, notorious mitigations for the bad smell of marijuana) a letter of intent. of his unhinged propositions. Associated with the very personal sound of the sextet, responsible for impeccable vocal harmonies, the marketing strategy was more than successful: boosted by the single that contains the title track, the group sold millions of copies. From the inaugural trance of The World's On Fire, passing through the Loopssynesthetics of Rainny Day, Mushroom, Pillow, until reaching the jazzy ending of Unwind With The Clock, the Strawberry Alarm Clock trip contains no bad trips. |
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13th Floor Elevators – Easter Everywhere(December) Undisputed proof that the high was about to take the US from north to south, the first group to stamp on the cover of an LP the term “psychedelic” was this Texan combo, which, in 1966, launched the cult The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th🇧🇷 Floor Elevators. Led by the brilliant poet Roky Erickson, who would face psychiatric problems from the following decade, the band released a consistent successor the following year. Composed of ten songs signed by Erickson, guitarist Tommy Hall and freak Stacy Sutherland (who played electric jug!), Easter Everywhere gather treasures like She Lives (In a Time of Her Own), I Had to Tell You, Postures (Leave Your Body Behind) and a retelling of It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, by Bob Dylan. |
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| The Who – The Who Sell Out (December) After conquering the United States with a blockbuster tour that saw countless guitars and drum kits destroyed in savage rituals, the British band The Who locked themselves in the studio to produce their third album. Away from mod culture obsessions, Pete Townshend, Keith Moon, John Entwistle and Roger Daltrey invested in this ambitious concept album. In it, they suggest that, like the products advertised on the cover of the LP, they were just another “disposable” item in the consumer society. Conceived as a pirate radio program, Radio London, amid big-headed tracks like I Can See For Miles, Tattoo e Armenia City in the Sky, The Who Sell Out is punctuated by hilarious vignettes. A prime. |
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