50 Years of Music - February, 1969

It's February, 1969 and Cream is saying Goodbye in their last contractual record obligation with Polydor. As stated several times in my blogs over the years, the gem from that album is Badge written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison and included in the playlist this week.

Doing these blogs is always a blast to go back in time and listen to people like Mary Hopkin and hear her album Postcard, produced by Paul McCartney that includes several Donovan songs. It was also great to discover, Chicken Shack a British Blues band and Christine Perfect McVie's first band.

However, the pick of this grouping is an album that was not commercially successful at the time but later became a classic, The Gilded Palace of Sin by the Flying Burrito Brothers. I'm in the camp of people who see Gram Parsons as the "Godfather of Americana music" as a genre. Along with his other ex-Byrds bandmate Chris Hillman, they formed the perfect blending of country and rock that makes this album influential and legendary today.

From the driving Rock and Blues sounds of Cream, Ten Years After, Jefferson Airplane, MC5 and Vanilla Fudge, the soul of The Temptations and The Delfonics, to Michael Nesmith's country sound in The Monkees and the groundbreaking Flying Burrito Brothers debut album, there's still the sweet harmonies of The Beach Boys in early 1969. As Mary Hopkin sang,

Those were the days my friend

We thought they'd never end

We'd sing and dance forever and a day

We'd live the life we choose

We'd fight and never lose

For we were young and sure to have our way

1969, girls, cars and Badge (Updated)

This week's post is inspired by my daughter-in-law's Twitter post @kimzebor from Mashable's That '60s show: What American high school students dressed like in 1969, Oct. 1969 Hippie high school, When students (and teachers) turned on, tuned in, and dropped classes by Chris Wild, Retronaut. Once seeing these images, My own time machine started reeling in the years back when I started Santa Maria High School in September, 1969 as a freshman. In the fourth picture down, (shown here on the right) is an image which includes a MG (Model A) sports car in the background similar to my '57 MGA and first car, purchased when I was a junior. What a time!

So I got to thinking about 1969 and the songs that came out that year. I first thought about the Beatles White Album, but that was actually released in November, 1968 and then I remembered how my sister and I loaded in with my good friend Ron Zieman, his sister and parents into their family station wagon and drove to Santa Barbara for Christmas shopping. In a department store, Ron had found the new White Album and got it as a present. I can't remember if he had to wait until Christmas, but I imagine we went straight to his bedroom and immediately listened to it, like so many other albums of the day - CCR, Buffalo Springfield, The Rolling Stones and one of Ron's favorite bands, Cream.

Cream had broken up in 1968 and released Goodbye in the United States in February, 1969. The album as a whole is a bit forgettable in that there are three live tracks and three original tracks from the band. Badge is the definitive single from the album and is one of my all-time favorite songs. Badge has a very distinctive Abbey Road (released 9/26/69) guitar sound that is attributed to the master collaboration of Eric Clapton and George Harrison (who co wrote Badge and is listed as "L'Angelo Misterioso" – rhythm guitar on the original jacket back cover, click on below.) The guitar solo is so Beatlesque, your ears say it is George, but Eric would have to tell us, how it all came to be. So without further adieu, one of the best songs of 1969 and all time.