Yahoo LAUNCHCAST song of the day

Artist:The Fraternity Of Man

Song:Don't Bogart Me

Album:Easy Rider Soundtrack-Expanded Edition

Of course Dennis Hopper's 1969 film Easy Rider broke new ground as a counterculture film. But the soundtrack album was also influential. Hopper couldn't afford a musical score so he showed the film to Columbia execs put to music he had been hearing on the radio. They wanted to keep the music in the film. So they made a deal with ABC-Dunhill Records to release an album of songs from the film and left it to them to acquire the rights for the songs. They did pretty well for the most part except they couldn't get the rights for The Band's The Weight from Capitol. So they substituted a version of the song by Dunhill group Smith. They were fortunate that Steppenwolf was signed to ABC. The album was a huge hit and launched the concept of various artist soundtrack albums. The Fraternity Of Man song Don't Bogart Me is a goofy pro-pot country music spoof complete with steel guitar. They were on ABC too. Even fans familiar with the song don't know the group. They were a short lived group from Los Angeles that came out of Lowell George's group The Factory minus George. Group members included Martin Kibbee on bass, Warren Klein on guitar/sitar, Ritchie Heyward on drums, Elliot Ingber on guitar and Lawrence "Stash" Wagner on vocals. Ingber was from Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention and he brought Mothers producer Tom Wilson with him. Don't Bogart Me is a stoner classic. The group only made two albums and split. The Easy Rider soundtrack was unavailble for years because of music rights issues. But Universal got that straightened out and issued an 2CD Expanded Edition in 2004 on Hip-O. The second CD has hits from the late 60s "inspired" by Easy Rider. So we have Easy Rider to thank for all the various artists soundtracks that have been released over the years. Here's a video set to the tune of Don't Bogart Me. He looks stoned too.