This song was recorded over 45 years ago in Ann Arbor at a venue called Charter House. Mr. Young had just left Buffalo Springfield and was trying out his solo act in small venues. Charter House still exists although in a different location, as I'm led to believe.

I post this as I head for Ann Arbor to haunt the local book stores and perhaps stop in to a record store or two. Have a great weekend.

Back when dogs could talk, Eisenhower was president, Poodle skirts were in and Doo wop groups wandered the earth, there was a group from Allen Park, Michigan who released several records.  One of these records was not only a hit, but a transformative event in Rock & Roll.

Several years back I went to a weekly contest attended by a team of former and current broadcasters.  I ended up sitting, each week, next to Scott Vertical.  It turns out we had worked for the same company and in the same building for many years but had never met.  We ended up, not surprisingly, talking about music.  In subsequent weeks, I would email Mr. Vertical obscure, but what I felt were excellent,  records/songs.  Invariably he would say "ya I've got that on my iPod".  One week, Mr. Vertical emailed me back and said what a great tune I had just sent him and that he was adding to his play list.  That song was by a group called " Tim Tam and the Turn On's".

"Wait a Minute" starts as a Doo wop tune, but quickly turns in to a hard charging rocker.  As if by magic, it turns from '50's dreck in to the future of Rock & Roll.

Jim Pepper was a native American Jazz composer and musician. In 1969 he formed a band called "Everything is Everything" and released a record called "Witchi TaiTo".  An adaptation of a song his grandfather had taught him, the record started to get airplay on FM underground radio then crossed over to AM top 40.  The record started to get a lot of airplay in the Midwest at stations like CKLW.  CK was a 50,000 watt station, that could be heard in in many states, making "Witchi Tai To" a minor national hit.   The original song is a Native American Peyote chant and thousands of years old.  The Jazz version can be heard on my twitter site.  When I started this blog Scott Vertical asked me to write about "Nuggets" type music, that record was sub titled "Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era".  "Witchi Tai To" embodies that sprit. 

Mid nineties in a rental car traveling in New Mexico having just left a meeting with Selena Manychildren the News Director of KTNN. KTNN is a 50,000 watt station owned by The Navajo Nation and covers six states in the Southwest and my job as Affiliate Marketing Manager with ABC was to get KTNN to run ABC News.   As I drove along the Rio Grande river KTNN started playing "Witchi Tai To".  Pulling over I turned up the radio.  Trippy. 

The Nazz were a Philly band.  Before Todd Rundgren left to go solo, he birthed three fine albums with the band.  The second album was released in 1969.  "Under the Ice" is a great, but little-heard track from that record.  The drummer, Thom Mooney, is stunning. 

I attended my first "rock" concert/show as a sophomore in high school.  Actually my first was a sock hop in Jr. High that stared a band called "Pepper and the Shakers".  I have almost no memory of this event and can only imagine what my thoughts were.  Probably 'is there a bake sale in here?' 

The first show was at my High School with "The Third Power" headlining and "Harpo Jets" opening. 

Why are many of the great musical artists (Roky Erickson, Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson and Daniel Johnston, to name a few) schizophrenic?

This kicks ASS! Great memories from "Swinging Time" on CKLW CH. 9 in Windsor, Ontario, which broadcast into Detroit.

Sylvester was a large black man and a "Disco Queen" in every sense of the phrase. He had a hit record on radio and in the clubs. 

I was to meet Sylvester, Butch Brown the R&B promoter for the distributor and Sylvester's manager and Motown legend Harvey Fuqua at a furniture store remote for WGPR. Butch picked that weekend to get married so he could use the Rolls limo he had rented for Sylvester and Harvey on the record company's dime. 

The dancers counter balance the menacing look of the lead singer.

Late summer 1966. Hot, we had never heard of air conditioning. 1 AM and dad says "let's go for a ride".  We head for the '64 brown (Almond Fawn) Chevy Biscayne parked at the curb.  Head down Chalmers and turn right at Jefferson on the way to Belle Isle.  Dad driving and me (all of 11)  riding shotgun.  Dad pulls a pack of Chesterfields out of his shirt pocket and snaps his Zippo open, lights a smoke and snaps the lighter closed all in one move.