Tracklist:

1. The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back 3:00
2. Shocking Blue - Venus 3:02
3. Sly & The Family Stone - Hot Fun In The Summertime 2:39
4. Diana Ross, The Supremes, The Temptations - I'm Gonna Make You Love Me 3:08
5. The Turtles - You Showed Me 3:14
6. The Dells - Oh, What A Night 4:06
7. The Youngbloods - Get Together 4:41
8. The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup 2:59
9. The Temptations - I Can't Get Next To You 2:55
10. The Guess Who - No Time 3:37
11. Three Dog Night - One 3:04
12. The Zombies - Time Of The Season 3:34
13. Wilbert Harrison - Let's Work Together 2:43
14. Tommy Roe - Dizzy 3:00
15. Box Tops - Soul Deep 2:30
16. Junior Walker & The All Stars - What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) 2:27
17. Smokey Robinson, The Miracles - Baby, Baby Don't Cry 4:05
18. The Ventures - Hawaii Five-O 1:54
19. Tommy James & The Shondells - Crystal Blue Persuasion 4:02
20. Jerry Butler - Only The Strong Survive 2:35
21. Jackie DeShannon - Put A Little Love In Your Heart 2:38
22. Sir Douglas Quintet - Mendocino 2:42
23. Eddie Holman - Hey There Lonely Girl 3:33

Media Condition: Mint (M)
Sleeve Condition: Mint (M)

Cat # : 2CLR-06, OPCD-2560

Barcode :

Rock, Funk / Soul / Rock & Roll, Pop Rock, Soul, Rhythm & Blues, Psychedelic Rock, Classic Rock

Notes:

Volume 6 of a 30 volume set.

Track durations obtained from software.

Complete liner notes:

It was the year of the rock festival, highlighted by the August 15-17 convergence of more than 400,000 fans in the muddy fields of Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. Called the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, this peaceful celebration of music and communal spirit became a symbol of the counterculture (or "Woodstock Nation," as it came to be known). There were other festivals in 1969 - in Atlanta, Denver, Atlantic City, Seattle and elsewhere - but none achieved the mythic status of Woodstock, which was reinforced by the subsequent release of a movie and two albums documenting the event. 

In fact, many of the year's rock festivals were marred by violence, drug "bummers," gate-crashing and accidents, all reflecting the complex problems created by inviting city-sized populations of hedonistic young people to make themselves at home in a field. The Rolling Stones' free concert held at the Altamont Speedway near Oakland in December was the nadir of big outdoor concerts. The local Hell's Angels, hired as the security force for $500 worth of beer, went on a rampage in front of the stage, resulting in the stabbing death of one person, Meredith Hunter. It was an ugly scene that crystallized the chaotic and dark side of the counterculture just as Woodstock symbolized the "good vibes." 

The careers of such hippie favorites as the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix advanced largely through album releases and progressive-radio play, not singles and Top 40 radio. Filling the mainstream-pop vacuum were singles-­oriented groups like Three Dog Night, a Los Angeles septet built around singers Cory Wells, Chuck Negron and Danny Hutton. The group, whose name came from an Australian phrase for an extremely cold night (i.e., you need to sleep with three dogs to stay warm), had a knack for picking excellent material by often neglected songsmiths, such as Harry Nilsson, who wrote One. 

Perhaps because rock was now both a big business and a serious art form, humor of the sort found in the Turtles' satirical concept album The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands had become an increasingly rare commodity. In this LP, the group portrayed 11 bogus bands (the Atomic Enchiladas, the Fabulous Dawgs, etc.), each one representing a different sound and look. The gentle hit ballad You Showed Me (an early Byrds composition) was performed by "Nature's Children," who were depicted nude on the record jacket, save for the strategically placed palm leaf. 

Teen-oriented acts Tommy James and the Shondells and Tommy Roe also prospered on AM radio, though neither James nor Roe produced anything as calculated as the pubescent ditties by bubble-gum groups such as the Archies. Roe collaborated with future country star Freddy Weller on Dizzy while both were touring as part of Dick Clark's Cavalcade of Stars package show. Though Tommy James's Crystal Blue Persuasion struck many as a barely concealed drug reference, James later explained that he got the phrase "crystal blue" from the Old Testament, and that it simply meant "truthful." 

Canada's premier band, the Guess Who, first charted in 1965 with a remake of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' classic Shakin' All Over, but it wasn't until 1969 that the group hit its commercial stride. No Time was co-written by the group's lead singer, Burton Cummings, and guitarist Randy Bachman, who later formed Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Bachman left the Guess Who in late 1969, finding the libertine rock lifestyle at odds with his Mormon religious beliefs. 

Jackie DeShannon, one of rock's most talented female singer-songwriters, also scored her first hit since 1965 with Put a Little Love in Your Heart. Her earliest success as a writer came in 1961 when she teamed up with Sharon Sheeley (the ex-girlfriend of Eddie Cochran) for the Brenda Lee hit Dum Dum and the Fleetwoods' (He's) The Great Imposter. DeShannon later penned hits for the Searchers (When You Walk in the Room), Marianne Faithfull (Come and Stay with Me), and in 1981 she co-wrote the Kim Carnes smash, Bette Davis Eyes. 

Counterculture themes popped up in Top 40 hits, including the Sir Douglas Quintet's paean to the hippie life, Mendocino, which begins with lead vocalist Doug Sahm thanking his friends "for all the beautiful vibrations." Obviously, these transplanted Texans found the charms of "teeny-boppers" and bucolic northern California a cosmic combination. Wilbert Harrison, whose Kansas City had been a hit in the '50s, also echoed the prevailing utopian spirit with Let's Work Together. This song, a revision of Harrison's 1962 recording Let's Stick Together, was an even bigger hit for Canned Heat. 

Pioneering rock instrumentalists the Ventures returned to the top 10 with Hawaii Five-O. First released in 1968, this brass-heavy television-show theme was reissued in 1969 after the program took off. England's Zombies had a stranger experience when a 1968 release, Time of the Season, became a major hit more than a year after the group had broken up. It first appeared on the group's psychedelic concept album, Odessey and Oracle, recorded in 1967 at London's Abbey Road studio shortly after the Beatles finished Sgt. Pepper there. The Zombies had agreed Odessey and Oracle would be their final record and disbanded in 1968. 

The Youngbloods' hippie anthem, Get Together, was written in the early '60s by Chester Powers, a pseudonym for Dino Valenti (later the lead singer for Quicksilver Messenger Service). The song turned up on albums by Hamilton Camp (1964), We Five (1965) and Jefferson Airplane (1966) before the Youngbloods included it on their 1967 debut album and issued it as a single. A minor hit in 1967, Get Together was revived two years later when the National Conference of Christians and Jews made use of it in radio and television spots promoting Brotherhood Week. When listeners began requesting the song, RCA re-released the single. 

Nineteen sixty-nine was also the year of the oldies revival, as founding fathers Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Jerry Lee Lewis played major concerts; Elvis returned to live performance in Las Vegas; and Richard Nader staged the first of his rock 'n' roll revival shows, introducing a new act called Sha Na Na. Chicago's Dells, one of the smoothest vocal groups of the '50s, recorded an updated version of their 1956 R & B hit, Oh, What a Night. Jerry Butler, another class act from Chicago, found new life in Philadelphia working with producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff on a string of romantic message songs, including Only the Strong Survive. 

Despite the dramatic changes in rock music through-out the decade, Motown continued to pursue a decidedly mainstream approach. Led by Smokey Robinson's sensuous falsetto, the Miracles returned to the top 10 with Baby, Baby Don't Cry, and even Junior Walker smoothed out his raunchy sax attack on the string-laden but soulful What Does It Take (to Win Your Love), Motown also brought together the top two black vocal groups of the '60s, the Supremes and the Temptations, for an album, an NBC-TV special and a hit single, I'm Gonna Make You Love Me.

With I Can't Get Next to You, Norman Whitfield continued to exploit the stylistic innovations of Sly Stone in his productions for the Temptations. Meanwhile, Sly and the Family Stone charmed pop fans with the breezy Hot Fun in the Summertime and mesmerized the hippie audience with ecstatic live performances such as the version of I Want to Take You Higher captured in the film Woodstock. However, it was five young men from Gary, Indiana, who topped the charts with the irresistible I Want You Back. The Jackson Five's Motown debut, the first of four straight No. 1 records, ushered in a new era for Berry Gordy Jr.'s company. 

Though promoted as a Diana Ross discovery, the Jackson Five were actually brought to Gordy's attention by Motown artist Bobby Taylor. In an era of racial and cultural divisiveness, Gordy saw them as the kind of clean-cut group that would appeal to black and white, young and old, radio and TV. In the 11-year-old Michael Jackson, Gordy found an explosive performer who sang with the exuberance of Frankie Lymon and danced like a miniature James Brown. Not even Gordy could have guessed that in 13 years this dynamo would release the biggest-selling album in history (Thriller) and emerge as the most popular entertainer in the world. 

- Joe Sasfy