"(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet" is a song by the Blues Magoos from their album Psychedelic Lollipop released in November 1966. It was a chart hit in the United States in February 1967. It was written by Ron Gilbert, Ralph Scala and Mike Esposito. The Vox Continental organ riff was closely based on guitarist James Burton's riff to Ricky Nelson's 1962 rock recording of the old George Gershwin standard "Summertime". The Blues Magoos' psychedelic song had also inspired Deep Purple's 1970 hit song "Black Night". (More from Wikipedia)
I was born a couple of years later than Greg Shaw, so I turned 14 in 1965. By then, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were old news; and while I was still paying attention, what was really grabbing me at the time were American artists and bands. First and foremost was "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan; that song – plus the flip side "Gates of Eden" that was nearly as long and every bit as good – captivated me in a way that I just couldn't keep quiet about. Other great folk-rock sounds of that period included the release of the cover of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds and the revamped "The Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. Bob Dylan himself preferred the Byrds' cover to his own recording of "Mr. Tambourine Man"; but in my usual contrarian way, I preferred Dylan's original – it was a lot longer for one thing.
These songs were followed closely by the glorious sounds of garage rock and psychedelic rock that were then in their infancy. Songs like "Pushin' Too Hard" by the Seeds, "We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet" by Blues Magoos, and "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" by the Electric Prunes really made an impression on me. It wasn't until I picked up the Nuggets collection and then the numerous Pebbles albums that I plumbed the depths of this scene, but it was by no means brand new to me either.
At about the same time as "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" by the Electric Prunes but on the opposite coast, a Bronx, New York band called Blues Magoos had a hit single with "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet" that reached #5 on the Billboard charts. Almost immediately after the song's original release, in February 1967, a British band called the Spectres released their own version of "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet". By the end of that year, the band had changed its name to the Status Quo (dropping "the" in 1969 to become Status Quo). In January 1968, they released a psychedelic single of their own, "Pictures of Matchstick Men", which was a #12 hit in the US and a #7 hit in the UK.
(July 2015)
