Gavin B.

The noted country singer and songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker was the founder of Circus Maximus before he "went country" in the early Seventies. Another country singer Kenny Rodgers began his career in the psychedelic band First Edition. Rodgers is the singer on the psychedelic classic Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), which is about a bad acid trip.



One of my favorite psychedelic bands was the Chicago area band Aorta, . Aorta was an obscure band with a two year lifespan (1969-1970) and it's members were later linked to better known Chicago area bands like Rotary Connection, Illinois Speed Press, and New Colony Six. Peter Cetera who later became the vocalist on the first Chicago Transit Authority album, also did a short stint in Aorta. I was acquainted with Jim Dolinger, Aorta's lead guitarist who was one of the better psychedelic guitarists in the Midwest in the late Sixties. Aorta's music has stood the test of time a lot better than many of the bigger name psychedelic bands of that era.

The two YouTube selections are from Aorta's self titled 1969 debut album. By today's standards, their music sounds like prog rock, but there was no such musical category as prog rock back then. You either played psychedelic music for hippie underground FM radio stations, or you played Top Forty AM radio pop music for squares.

Strange by Aorta



What's In My Mind's Eye by Aorta

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt