Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 3: October to November 1968

Here's the third volume compiling episodes of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. 

I said most of what I wanted to say about this weird TV show in general in my write-ups for the first and second volumes. So this time I'll concentrate more on the music.

I'm especially psyched that this has Jackie DeShannon performing two songs. I've been looking for a concert recording from her for ages. I found one she did in 1963, and I've posted that at this music blog, but that's about all I've found. (There are a few YouTube videos of her performing, but most of them are from decades later.) So this is a real find, in my opinion.

As I keep posting these volumes, you'll probably notice a mix of famous musical acts and total obscurities. MC Squared is an example of an obscurity. They were a band many compared to Jefferson Airplane. But they only ever managed to release four singles, none of which dented the charts. 

However, I noticed that many of the obscurities "just happened" to be very attractive women. Cathy Carlson and Lynn Kellogg are examples of that on this volume. Both of them only had one single released under their own names at the time of this show, and neither of them went on to release even a single album. (Although Kellogg did have some minor success later in movie and Broadway play roles.) I surmise that Playboy head Hugh Hefner figured many people would watch his show as much for the many beautiful women shown in the crowd scenes as for the music, comedy, and other performances, so he probably preferred musical acts featuring beautiful women as well. Even MC Squared fits this pattern, since that band had an attractive female lead singer.

Also, unfortunately, as I mentioned in more detail in the write-up for Volume 2, Hefner was an expert in sexual manipulation and grooming. It's highly likely that he often tried to tempt women to have sex with him by dangling the prospect of them performing on this show (or even just being an extra in the party crowds), though it's impossible to say if he was successful with that in any specific instance. In some later episodes, there are cases of female singers on the show who posed nude for Playboy Magazine as well. Though I'll mention again that I didn't include all the musical performances in these compilations. There were the occasional few who just weren't very good, in my opinion, or I had other issues with them, so they were left out.

Something else just came to my mind about Hefner. One reason he got away with his sexual exploitation for so long was because people assumed he was an enlightened person due to his progressive social and political views. For instance, he was ahead of the curve promoting minorities and women in his business empire, as well as giving them opportunities in his magazines and T.V. shows and such. We can see examples of that enlightened reputation in this volume. Not only does it include liberal folk singers Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, but he gave them ample time to talk about their progressive causes, in addition to just singing songs. For instance, before singing, Baez led a discussion that lasted several minutes, arguing there was a moral imperative to oppose the Vietnam War. I highly doubt there were other T.V. shows in that era with a national audience that allowed that sort of discussion. But we now know Hefner could have both been progressive in some of his attitudes in public while also sexually exploiting many women in private. 

This album is an hour and one minute long. 

01 I Know You [Your Nature Is like Mine] (MC Squared)
02 Everybody's Talkin' (MC Squared)
03 The Pill (Pete Seeger)
04 I Got It Bad [And That Ain't Good] (Carmen McRae)
05 Come Live with Me (Carmen McRae)
06 I Got the Reason (Jackie DeShannon)
07 Holly Would (Jackie DeShannon)
08 Everybody's Got to Change Sometime (Taj Mahal)
09 E Z Rider (Taj Mahal)
10 You Could End the World (Cathy Carlson)
11 Hurt So Bad (Cathy Carlson)
12 And the Address [Instrumental] [Edit] (Deep Purple)
13 Hush (Deep Purple)
14 Ol' Man River (Lynn Kellogg)
15 It's Just a Game Love (Brenton Wood)
16 Gimme Little Sign (Brenton Wood)
17 California Earthquake (John Hartford)
18 Natural to Be Gone (John Hartford)
19 Hickory Wind (Joan Baez)
20 Tears of Rage (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/n4say7Ry

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/rOgqrK3kEfKZ9SF/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from one of the videos of these episodes of Jackie DeShannon. Do you see the mostly bald-headed man standing right behind her? That's Barry White, who would become a big soul music star in the 1970s. At this time, he was a relative unknown, working mostly as a producer and backing vocalist. He was heavily involved in DeShannon's career around 1968. In fact, the first song she sang here, "I Got the Reason," was written by White.

Covered: Jackie DeShannon: 1961-2017

Here's another entry in my Covered series highlighting the careers of great songwriters. This time, it's Jackie DeShannon.

DeShannon is more famous as a performer than a songwriter. But she's in a rather strange position, because she had some big hits as a performer that she didn't write, especially "What the World Needs Now Is Love," and some big hits as a songwriter for other musical acts, especially "When You Walk in the Room" and "Betty Davis Eyes." The one big hit she both wrote and had the hit performance was "Put a Little Love in Your Heart."

DeShannon was born in rural Kentucky to parents who were farmers but also very musically inclined. So her music career began remarkably early. She was singing songs on local radio stations by the time she was six years old, and hosting her own radio show and making occasional local TV appearances by the time she was eleven! She signed her first record contract at the age of 16, and began putting out singles, but without much success at first. 

At the time, successful female songwriters were very few and far between. But in 1960 she had enough success to get connected to another female songwriter, Sharon Sheeley. Together, they co-wrote DeShannon's first hit song, "Dum Dum" by Brenda Lee. They also wrote some other hit songs over the next couple of years, like "Heart in Hand" and "Breakaway."

In 1963, she co-wrote the song "Needles and Pins" with Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono. She didn't get songwriting credit on it, but she claims she was a full participant in its creation. I believe her. It was common for aspiring musicians to get screwed out of songwriting credits in those days (and probably still today), and I'll bet that went double for women. At any rate, her version of the song was the first one released. It barely made the U.S. singles charts, but went all the way to Number One in Canada. Instead, the Searchers had a Number One hit with it some months later. That suggested there was a problem with her record company, not with her version. Later in 1963, she wrote "When You Walk in the Room" by herself. Again, her version went nowhere and the Searchers had a bit hit with it.

In 1965, she finally had a big hit as a performer, with "What the World Needs Now Is Love," written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. From that point on, she almost had two music careers at once. She put out many albums and singles, often with her singing cover songs. At the same time though, she wrote successful songs for other musical acts that she usually never released herself. Examples would be "Come and Stay with Me," a hit she wrote for Marianne Faithfull, and "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe," which she wrote for the Byrds. 

She wrote hundreds of songs in many musical genres, and made professional sounding demos of them to give to other musicians. Decades later, several albums of these demos have been released. I think if she would have focused on putting on these songs she wrote herself, she would have had a much more successful performing career. It seems to me though that her record company was more interested in her songwriting, so they didn't encourage that.

In 1969, she had another huge hit with "Put a Little Love in Your Heart," which she co-wrote. It reached the Top Five in the U.S. singles chart. After that, musical trends were changing. There was much more of a focus on singers writing their own songs. For instance, Carole King made the transition from writing hits for others to performing her own hit songs. DeShannon made a similar transition, putting out many albums in the 1970s which mostly consisted of her own songs. Again though, in my opinion, her record companies badly bungled her career. Archival releases decades later show dozens of really good songs she wrote and recorded that weren't released at the time. 

Her performing career slowly wound down. In 1978, she stopped putting out albums. She would only release two more much later, in 2000 and 2011. She also never really toured much. She probably didn't need to, with all the money she made from songwriting. In 1974, one of her albums contained a song she co-wrote, "Betty Davis Eyes." It didn't get any attention at the time, and wasn't released as a single. But in 1981, Kim Carnes had a massive hit with it. It went to Number One in the U.S., and was the best selling song of the year.

For this album, I've concentrated entirely on cover versions, with not even a single song performed by DeShannon. I've already posted a couple of albums by her at this blog, and I'll probably post more in the future, so this isn't the place for more of that. Most of these are the original versions, often the hit versions. But I made some exceptions, especially when I had to choose versions other than the DeShannon ones, for instance with "Put a Little Love in Your Heart." 

Here's her Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

Jackie DeShannon - Wikipedia 

An interesting fact I just saw on that page is that the Led Zeppelin song "Tangerine" was actually written by Jimmy Page about DeShannon. The two of them dated around 1965 when Page was a session guitarist. 

This album is 49 minutes long.  

01 Dum Dum (Brenda Lee)
02 Woe Is Me (Helen Shapiro)
03 Heart in Hand (Brenda Lee)
04 I Shook the World (Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans)
05 Needles and Pins (Searchers)
06 Breakaway (Irma Thomas)
07 When You Walk in the Room (Searchers)
08 Come and Stay with Me (Marianne Faithfull)
09 Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe (Byrds)
10 With You in Mind (Marianne Faithfull)
11 Put a Little Love in Your Heart (Dorothy Morrison)
12 Bad Water (Doris Duke)
13 Boat to Sail (Carpenters)
14 Santa Fe (Van Morrison)
15 Bette Davis Eyes (Kim Carnes)
16 Splendor in the Grass (Ladybug Transistor)
17 He Did It (Samantha Fish)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/e2eqJ5kb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/Nf8kBkKT8PbNtQ1/file

The cover photo is from 1967. 

Jackie DeShannon - Don't Doubt Yourself Babe - Acoustic Demos (1965)

I'm very pleased to be able to offer this album. All but one song is officially unreleased, and this material is very very rare, even as a bootleg. All the songs feature Jackie DeShannon singing and playing in a solo acoustic format.

DeShannon is known for her 1960s pop hits like "What the World Needs Now" and "Put a Little Love in Your Heart." She definitely isn't known for playing in a solo acoustic style, since none of her single or album tracks are performed that way. Yet a few weeks ago I posted an unreleased concert of hers in that format from 1963, and now I have these demo recordings from 1965. DeShannon is a much better songwriter than most people realize, writing hits for others like "Needles and Pins," "When You Walk in the Room," and "Betty Davis Eyes." (She claims she cowrote "Needle and Pins," but she didn't get official credit for it.) I'm not entirely sure, but I believe all the songs here are written by her.

DeShannon was a musical chameleon of sorts, able to sing and even write songs in a wide variety of styles. But that turned out to be one of the biggest problems of her career, because her record companies usually didn't know how to take advantage of her skills. One of the worst aspects was that they consistently undervalued her songwriting, which is why some of the songs she wrote ended up as hits for others, and some of her own hits were written by others.

This album is a case in point. DeShannon wrote an excellent bunch of folky songs right at a time when folk-rock was a booming genre. (In fact, she'd practically invented the genre with her songs "Needles and Pins" and "When You Walk in the Room" back in 1963.) You would think the logical thing to do was release these songs as an album with a folk rock backing.

But, for whatever reason, that didn't happen, and most of these went unreleased in any form. One song here, "Don't Doubt Yourself Babe," was covered by the Byrds for their classic album "Mr. Tambourine Man." Another, "Splendor in the Grass," was done in a folk-rock style, in which she actually was backed by all five of the original Byrds! But it was only released in 1966 as a B-side to a little-noticed single.

It's a hint at what might have been. How awesome would it have been had the Byrds backed her for an entire album? Had that happened, the arc of the rest of her career may have gone very differently, in which her songwriting talents would have been properly respected and emphasized. Remember that this was a time, pre-Joni Mitchell, when female singer songwriters were almost unheard of, and there was a huge bias against any women who tried to do more than just sing. As it was, most of her albums were dominated by cover versions, since her record companies wanted to choose the songs for her.

These demos apparently were recorded on May 27, 1965, though I'm not sure if that date is accurate. That could also be the date the record company received or processed them (and then ignored them). Undoubtedly, many of the songs were written before that, since the Byrds' version of "Don't Doubt Yourself Babe" had already been publicly released by then. The first 12 songs here later became a bootleg called "Girl of Yesterday." But it was extremely rare. It was sold by a DeShannon fan club, but that club went defunct about a decade ago. I'd had this on my "want list" for years, and I looked all over for it without any success. I finally found it on SoulSeek today, so I'm posting it here straight away.

The two last songs are bonus tracks of sorts that I've added. I don't know where or when "I Don't Wanna Be without You" is from. I found it on YouTube. But it clearly has the same sound, so it almost certainly is from 1964 or 1965. I also don't know the details of where "Only You Can Free My Mind" is from. It's officially released, but only a various artists album of songs written by DeShannon, with that one the only one actually performed by her. In addition to acoustic guitar, it also does have some light drumming.

Including the two songs I added to the end, this makes a 39-minute-long album. It amazes me this hasn't been officially released, especially since the sound quality is very good.

01 Too Far Out (Jackie DeShannon)
02 Your Heart Is Missing (Jackie DeShannon)
03 What's It All About (Jackie DeShannon)
04 Splendor in the Grass (Jackie DeShannon)
05 New Thoughts (Jackie DeShannon)
06 Hand-Made Silver Ring (Jackie DeShannon)
07 To Be Myself (Jackie DeShannon)
08 The Girl of Yesterday (Jackie DeShannon)
09 Don't Doubt Yourself Babe [It's Gonna Be Alright] (Jackie DeShannon)
10 With You in Mind [Come Along] (Jackie DeShannon)
11 You Could Break My Heart (Jackie DeShannon)
12 Still Around [Away Brought Down] (Jackie DeShannon)
13 I Don't Wanna Be without You (Jackie DeShannon)
14 Only You Can Free My Mind (Jackie DeShannon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XoZ1ius1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/RUoDUg5fDuOus3p/file

I'm not sure when or where the cover art photo of DeShannon is from. But it certainly looks like it dates from around 1965. Probably, it was from a TV appearance. The photo was black and white, so I added a colorized it. In February 2025, I upgraded it with the Krea AI program. The background was an incoherent mess already, and the program couldn't fix it, so I replaced it with black.

Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder - The Ash Grove, Los Angeles, CA, 9-3-1963

I'm amazed that I'm able to present this concert, because until a few days ago, I never had any idea that such a recording existed (and in excellent sound). Not to mention the fact that I never had a clue that Jackie DeShannon ever performed a concert like this!

In case you don't know, DeShannon has had a long career as a singer songwriter. She's best known as the singer of the 1960s hits "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" and "What the World Needs Now Is Love," as well as writing hits for others, such as "When You Walk in the Room" and "Betty Davis Eyes." She was very musical since she was a young child, hosting her own local radio show in Kentucky by the age of 11, and having her first single in 1956 at the age of 15. A long series of singles followed, nearly all of them flops. However, in early 1963, she had a minor hit with "Needles and Pins" in the US, though it was a number one hit in Canada.

Given that she already had spent eight years as a singles artist by 1963, what's strange is that this concert is fully acoustic, and almost all the songs she performs are traditional folk and blues songs. I had no idea DeShannon went through a phase where she was a full-on "folkie," but apparently she did that in 1963. That was the year she released her first studio album, simply called "Jackie DeShannon," and it was filled with folk songs, though it was given a mainstream glossy production. She claims she wanted to do an entire album of Bob Dylan covers, which would have been a bold move, because Dylan was just starting to break big in 1963. However, her record company nixed that idea, though she did get to put three Dylan covers on that album.

However, this concert is strange even given the fact that she released that folk album, because this concert occurred a few months after that album came out, and yet she played only one of the songs from it! She also didn't play any of her own songs, despite the fact that she already was a talented songwriter. (She would have a minor hit with her song "When You Walk in the Room" only a couple of months after this concert. The Searchers would have a much bigger hit with it a year after that.)

We're very lucky this concert was recorded at all. DeShannon didn't tour much, and I've never seen or heard of any concert bootleg from her until I came across this one. It exists because the Ash Grove, a folk music club in Los Angeles, recorded just about every concert in its club for years, going back to the early 1960s (though nearly all of those recordings remain unreleased). So not only does this recording exist, but it's a pristine soundboard! From 1963!

DeShannon was a very beautiful 22 year old at the time of this concert, as you can see from this album cover, but she wasn't just another pretty face. So it's no surprise to me that she plays these folk songs very well. She certainly would have excelled in this genre if she'd decided to continue with it. But the Beatles dominated the music world starting in early 1964, and she changed her style to catch the new trend. She even toured with the Beatles for a few months beginning in February 1964. Thus, her folkie phase probably lasted less than a year.

She played two sets in this one evening at the Ash Grove. She played a lot of the same songs in the two sets, and I'm not a fan of having the same song twice on the same album, so I haven't included the songs on the second set that are repeats from the first set. By eliminating the duplicates, this album turns out to be 43 minutes long, which would have been a fine album length for that era.

I also made big edits to two songs. The first song, "Key to the Highway," faded in partially through the song. I knew the song repeated the first verse as the last verse, so I copied the last verse back to restore the missing first verse. (That was a nice lucky break that the song repeats itself like that.) Also, the song "Trouble in Mind" is where her second set starts, and the recording had an announcer talk a lot over the intro to the song. So I found a section later in the song that repeated the intro, and i patched that in.

Note that Ry Cooder is also credited on this album. DeShannon was a capable guitar player herself, but she was accompanied for this concert by Cooder for the lead guitar parts, as well as David Cohen for some bass playing. At this time, Cooder's musical career was just starting and he was a total unknown, so I'm sure his name wouldn't have been on the billing. His participation is only significant in hindsight, thanks to his later successful career. But you can hear him playing some nice guitar solos here and there.

By the way, the one disappointment I have with this concert is that the last song fades out after less than a minute. And that's particularly unfortunate, because it's a cover of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," the only non-traditional song played at the concert. Plus, since it fades out, I don't know if there are other songs after it that didn't get recorded. Plus, the first song of the first set also fades in, so there could be more missing songs there. But we're damn lucky to at least have this much.

01 Key to the Highway [Edit] (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
02 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
03 Frankie and Albert (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
04 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
05 Silver City Bound (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
06 Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
07 Betty and Dupree (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
08 Black Eye Blues (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
09 James Alley Blues (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
10 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
11 Ninety-Nine and a Half (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
12 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
13 Mean Old Bed Bug Blues (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
14 Trouble in Mind (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
15 Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
16 The House of the Rising Sun (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
17 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
18 Dink's Song [Fare Thee Well] (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
19 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right [Incomplete] (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TuFp4ic3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QZxlCWqT6Ccncxn/file

I found it nearly impossible to find a good color photo of DeShannon from 1963 for the cover art. I had to resort to using a photo from her 1963 self-titled album. In February 2025, I upgraded it somewhat with the Krea AI program.