Psychfan's Trip O' Th' Week Dept. - Two From Tom Wilson

Wilson far left,  far out

 

By 1968 [Psychfan writes] record producer Tom Wilson had done an enormous amount to shape the counterculture. He had:

- Taken an acoustic track (Sounds of Silence) from a flop LP by Simon & Garfunkel, added an electric band and turned it into a hit, thereby re-creating S&G as a big name act and making a large contribution to the 1965 folk rock boom.

- Produced three early albums by Bob Dylan, including Bringing It All Back Home, as well as Dylan's next single Like A Rolling Stone.

- Produced the first two albums by The Velvet Underground.

- Produced the first two albums by Frank Zappa, as well as signing him to his first major label.

 

Some have attributed much of this to luck, being in the right place at the right time. I don't believe that anyone has that kind of luck and I attribute it to vision and talent. Wilson had been a jazz producer prior to the mid sixties and helped to shape some of the most innovative rock music being made at the time.

 

Here are two albums he produced in 1968, when he was spending just about all of his time producing psychedelic LPs, many by unknown bands.

One of those was the sole release by the psychedelic blues band Fear Itself, fronted by the recently deceased singer/guitarist Ellen McIlwaine. I don't have much to say about the production on this, which is pretty straightforward.  The music is a very good example of the genre and McIlwaine [with Tom, left - Ed.] makes an impression.

 

When Eric Burdon created a new version of the Animals that played psychedelic music he took a lot of crap from conservative rock critics who objected to his departure from the straight up Blues and R&B of his earlier work. I think that the psych LPs he made as Eric Burdon & the Animals were uneven at times, but he took a highly original approach to the genre and succeded more often than not at what he was attempting.

 

Tom Wilson had produced the last few albums by the original Animals and was a natural choice to continue with the new band. This one, The Twain Shall Meet, has the hit singles Monterey and Sky Pilot but rewards your attention throughout.