- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Vanilla Fudge released as their first single a psychedelicized cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”, and applied this formula to a wide variety of other hits.
Vanilla Fudge – Vanilla Fudge (1967): If I remember right, I saw a display at the local Record Bar store showing Poco emerging from Buffalo Springfield; and Cactus growing out of Vanilla Fudge, a key American psychedelic rock band. The group started out as a blue-eyed soul band called the Electric Pigeons (later just the Pigeons) with Mark Stein (organ), Tim Bogert (bass), and Joey Brennan (drums), plus a late addition Vince Martell (guitar). After replacing the drummer with Carmine Appice, and at the request of their record label, the Atlantic Records subsidiary Atco Records, the group changed their name to Vanilla Fudge, a favorite ice cream flavor of the band. Inspired by a Long Island band called the Vagrants (featuring future Mountain guitarist Leslie West), whose cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” was moving up the record charts on the East Coast (before Aretha Franklin’s definitive version of “Respect” propelled them from the charts), Vanilla Fudge released as their first single a cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”, a Supremes song that they both rocked up and slowed down in a psychedelicized manner.
The band applied this formula to a wide variety of other hit songs; their debut album, Vanilla Fudge (1967) is filled with them: two Beatles songs, “Ticket to Ride” and “Eleanor Rigby”; an Impressions classic “People Get Ready”; the Zombies song “She’s Not There”; and Sonny and Cher’s “Bang Bang”. In early 1968, Vanilla Fudge performed “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” on The Ed Sullivan Show and headlined a show at Fillmore West with Steve Miller Band. Near-constant touring and a successful re-release of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” that reached the Top Ten that time pushed Vanilla Fudge to #6 on the Billboard album charts. Vanilla Fudge basically set themselves up for the so-called sophomore jinx with their second effort, a more textured and ambitious concept album constructed around another Sonny and Cher song (“The Beat Goes On”), called The Beat Goes On (1968). Nonetheless, both The Beat Goes On and their third album, Renaissance (1968) made the Top 20. Vanilla Fudge had the good fortune to tour with Jimi Hendrix, was the opening act in several concerts on Cream’s last tour, and finally began touring with the brand-new Led Zeppelin opening for them. After hanging in there for several more albums (Sundazed Records has reissued four of them), the band broke up in early 1970. After unsuccessfully reforming in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Vanilla Fudge made a more serious comeback with their 2002 album The Return that features a clearer photograph of the female model on the cover of Vanilla Fudge, along with new versions of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”, “People Get Ready”, and “She’s Not There”. Cactus was originally going to be the rhythm section of Vanilla Fudge – Tim Bogert (bass guitar) and Carmine Appice (drums) – coupled with guitar hero Jeff Beck and future superstar Rod Stewart. What a rock band that would have been! Unfortunately, Beck had a bad motorcycle accident and was sidelined for 18 months. Instead, the line-up in Cactus was rounded out by Jim McCarty (guitar), formerly with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, and singer Rusty Day from Ted Nugent’s early band the Amboy Dukes. After Cactus (initially) broke up in 1972, Jeff Beck joined with Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice in a short-lived power trio called Beck, Bogert & Appice, composed of three of the four originally planned bandmembers in Cactus. Their sole album Beck, Bogert & Appice came out in March 1973 and is one of the first rock albums that I can remember being advertised on television; I can still hear the announcer solemnly intoning: “Beck . . . Bogert . . . Appice!” The predictably unpredictable Jeff Beck abruptly abandoned work early in the preparation of the second album by Beck, Bogert & Appice, and that was that.