Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968

Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era is a compilation album of American and British pop and rock songs from the mid- to late 1960s, assembled by Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records. Assisting him was Lenny Kaye, who later became the guitarist for the Patti Smith Group. Together, the two men assembled a 2-LP set. The album was originally released by Elektra Records in 1972, and reissued, with a new cover design, in 1976 by Sire Records. The liner notes, penned by Lenny Kaye and containing one of the first uses of the term "punk rock", gave a brief biography of each band.

1 History
2 Track listing
3 See also
4 Notes

[edit] History

The stripped-down music of groups like the 13th Floor Elevators, the Electric Prunes, the Blues Magoos and the Chocolate Watchband resonated with budding musicians of the 1970s. Many credit the influence of these groups on the punk movement that was to later explode in both the UK and the United States. Jon Savage, in his history of the UK punk movement England's Dreaming, cites Nuggets as a major influence, and includes it in his essential punk discography, alongside Iggy and The Stooges' Raw Power.

Nuggets gained credence with rock music critics, although it took quite a while for the compilation to be issued on CD. Many labels marketed some of the songs on the original LP in compilation discs like Rhino Records' Nuggets series and the Pebbles series, but none of them ever compiled the original LP, with the exact same songs in the original sequence.

It wasn't until 1998 that Rhino brought the original LP to CD, keeping the original song sequence and liner notes intact. However, rather than releasing a single-disc release of the original LP, Rhino put the original disc in a box set with three other discs, an extra 91 songs in total that were not on the original LP. Contrary to popular belief, many of the songs were actually American Top 40 hits: more than a third of the original Nuggets would fall into that category, while Rhino's expanded set featured such smash hits as "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock (#1), "Louie, Louie" by The Kingsmen (#2), "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (#2), "Little Bit O'Soul" by The Music Explosion (#2), and "Time Won't Let Me" by The Outsiders (#5).

The box set was successful enough that in 2001, Rhino released another four-disc box set, called Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969. While the original Nuggets LP and the first box set concentrated on the American scene, the second Nuggets box shifted its focus to the rest of the world, collecting cuts from the United Kingdom (such as the Pretty Things and Small Faces), Japan (The Mops), Iceland (Thor's Hammer) and Brazil (Os Mutantes).

In 2004, Rhino revived the Nuggets name once again for two new compilations, Hallucinations: Psychedelic Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults and Come to the Sunshine: Soft Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults. Both discs were released through Rhino's internet-only label Rhino Handmade in strictly limited pressings of 7500 each.

Rhino also released a third four-disc set, Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The Second Psychedelic Era, 1976-1995, in late 2005. Artists appearing in this set include The Dukes of Stratosphear, the Soft Boys, the Cramps, Dream Syndicate, the La's, Primal Scream, Teenage Fanclub, the Bangles, the Posies, Inspiral Carpets, Hoodoo Gurus, The Fleshtones, Flamin' Groovies, The Church, Julian Cope, the Smithereens, the Plimsouls, the dB's, the Aardvarks and That Petrol Emotion.

In 2006 in Europe, Rhino finally released a remastered version of the original album on a single compact disc in a miniaturized replica of the original gatefold sleeve.

Many other compilation albums took their cue from Nuggets, including Pebbles (mentioned above), Rubble - 20 volumes of mainly UK psychedelia released in the 1980s - and the Back From the Grave series. In retrospect, it can be seen that this record eventually spawned an entire cottage industry of small record labels dedicated to unearthing and releasing obscure but worthy rock music from the 1960s. The advent of the compact disc only made archiving and distributing such forgotten recordings easier than before and new compilations of this type continue to be released.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 196 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.^[1]

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Original Compilation Album / Rhino box, disc one

The Electric Prunes: "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" (Annette Tucker, Nancie Mantz) – 3:02 (#11)
The Standells: "Dirty Water" (Ed Cobb) – 2:50 (#11)
The Strangeloves: "Night Time" (Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, Richard Gottehrer)– 2:35 (#30)
The Knickerbockers: "Lies" (Beau Charles, Buddy Randell) – 2:46 (#20)
The Vagrants: "Respect" (Otis Redding) – 2:17
Mouse: "A Public Execution" (Knox Henderson, Ronnie Weiss) – 3:02
The Blues Project: "No Time Like the Right Time" (Al Kooper) – 2:49 (#96)
The Shadows of Knight: "Oh Yeah" (Ellas McDaniel) – 2:51 (#39)
The Seeds: "Pushin' Too Hard" (Richard Marsh) – 2:39 (#36)
The Barbarians: "Moulty" (Barbara Baer, Douglas Morris, Eliot Greenberg, Robert Schwartz) – 2:37 (#90)
The Remains: "Don't Look Back" (William McCord) – 2:45
The Magicians: "An Invitation to Cry" (Alan Gordon, James Woods) – 2:59
The Castaways: "Liar, Liar" (Dennis Craswell, Jim Donna) – 1:56 (#12)
The 13th Floor Elevators: "You're Gonna Miss Me" (Roky Erickson) – 2:31 (#55)
Count Five: "Psychotic Reaction" (Craig Atkinson, John Byrne, John Michalski, Kenn Ellner, Roy Chaney) – 3:09 (#5)
The Leaves: "Hey Joe" (Billy Roberts) – 2:53 (#31)
Michael and the Messengers: "Romeo & Juliet" (Bob Hamilton, Fred Gorman) – 2:02
The Cryan' Shames: "Sugar and Spice" (Fred Nightingale) – 2:33 (#49)
The Amboy Dukes: "Baby Please Don't Go" (Big Joe Williams) – 5:41
Blues Magoos: "Tobacco Road" (John D. Loudermilk) – 4:44
The Chocolate Watchband: "Let's Talk About Girls" (Manny Freiser) – 2:45
The Mojo Men: "Sit Down, I Think I Love You" (Stephen Stills) – 2:25 (#36)
The Third Rail: "Run, Run, Run" (Arthur Resnick, Joey Levine, Kris Resnick) – 1:57 (#53)
Sagittarius: "My World Fell Down" (Geoff Stephens, John Shakespeare) – 3:52 (#70)
The Nazz: "Open My Eyes" (Todd Rundgren) – 2:47 (#112)
The Premiers: "Farmer John" (Dewey Terry, Don Harris) – 2:29
The Magic Mushrooms: "It's-a-Happening" (David Rice, Sonny Casella) – 2:47 (#93)