In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Iron Butterfly’s 1968 opus is considered one of the first prototypes for heavy metal music. I knew it as psychedelic rock as I grew up listening to it. What really impressed me was that the guitarist was only 17 when it was recorded -I remember that fact all these years later, so I looked him up. His name was Erik Brann. Here’s more about the recording of the song.

The band members, including Ingle, recollect that they were barely, if at all, aware they were being recorded. According to Bushy, 'the engineer just ran the tape and said, "Why don't you run through something and we'll get the balance here on the stuff. Run it through one time." I didn't want to think about it. When those red lights are on, a lot of times it will screw me up. I couldn't see them from where I was.' As the band stormed through the song, Ingle started wondering what was going on: 'We were like, 'Is this guy dense? How much time does he need?' So after we finished, he said 'come on in guys, I'd like you to hear this.' [The engineer] Don Casale... had captured the song on the first take. They immediately overdubbed the vocal and the guitar solo, and the song was complete.

And they didn’t think much of their guitarist at the time.

They ran through the songs, and I said, 'This is terrible, I mean the new guitarist.' And Doug said to me, 'Well, of course, he's only been playing three months.' I said, 'You mean he's been with the band for three months?' He said, 'No, he's only been playing the guitar for three months.' And I thought, 'Jesus!'... But I tell you, this record came out, and, man, it seemed like every college student, like the whole country went out and bought it. It became the biggest record that we'd ever had up to that time - with a band that was just learning their instruments.

Enjoy the music.