ALBUM: Iron Butterfly, ‘Ball’

I first discovered Iron Butterfly — like a lot of folks, I reckon — when I was a teenager. I had heard tell of this “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” thing and decided I needed to hear what all the ruckus was about. I checked out the album from my local public library (remember those?), slapped that sucker on my record player, and promptly let the good times roll.

While the title track is what got all the attention, and what lured me to the album in the first place, I started out by listening to the shorter songs on side one. I flipped the record over, dug the freak-out that was “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” then went back to side one again. Nobody ever really talked about those tunes, and after listening to them a few times, I couldn’t quite understand why. They were actually pretty consistent in quality, and in some ways more accessible than the 17-minute behemoth that graced the album cover and all of side two.

I still dig the shorter — defined as not long enough to cook a frozen pizza by — songs from that album. In their better moments, Iron Butterfly was able to create songs that had a psychedelic tinge to them, but without going overboard. They held enough of a melody to keep the weak at heart from being driven back to their Bobby Sherman teen mags.

As a group, the Butterfly doesn’t really get the credit they deserve. “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” as a song is seen as either epic or excessive. It represents the good and bad aspects of late-1960s music, depending on who you ask. What is forgotten amidst the trips and the snickers is the talent in the band. Doug Ingle was the main vocalist, and his voice was certainly distinctive, plus he played a mean organ. Erik Brann provided some wicked guitar (and occasional vocals). While Ingle and Brann were the main Iron Butterfly sound to me, bassist Lee Dorman and drummer Ron Bushy made the group’s sound even more unique. All four of them were pretty solid players.

This brings us to Ball, the album Iron Butterfly released a mere six or seven months after In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Barely half a year had gone by, and somehow these guys were able to tour and promote one album while recording another one. Given those circumstances, one would be excused for expecting a rush job in Ball, given the relatively short amount of time they took making the album.

One would also be pleasantly surprised at how well the album turned out when it was released in early 1969. This time around, they opted to keep the lengthy solos tucked away — most of the songs are under five minutes — and created an album that fits more in line with their shorter and under-appreciated types of tunes I mentioned earlier. The arrangements and overall production are well thought out, and the band sounds great. There’s a lot of melody to be found here, but with an acceptable amount of psychedelia sprinkled (psprinkled?) on top.

Don’t be put off by that “psychedelic” stuff I keep mentioning. Most fans of psychedelic music prefer really freaky sounds in their music. What the Butterfly was able to do is give their material a little something extra without going off the rails into Electric Kool-Aid land. I’m not talking about the crazy bells and whistles that you might find in an anti-drug episode of Dragnet, but more of a “feel” that takes a melodic song and gives it a little bit of an edge. You can enjoy it no matter what condition your condition is in.

Check out “It Must Be Love” which kicks off side two of the original album. The band is in great form, and there’s a nice little guitar solo that shows some of that good ol’ late ‘60s flair without the fear of drowning in lava lamp goo.

Ball sold well enough at the time, and actually charted higher than Vida. Somehow over the 46(!) years since it was released, the album has fallen through the cracks. It’s an easy album to find in the used record bins, but nobody seems to want it.

Thanks to the fine folks at Real Gone Music, however, Ball is getting another much-deserved shot at being reexamined, and it couldn’t be in better hands. The entire album has been reissued with the addition of both sides of a non-LP single released later in the year to round out the whole experience.

I must say with no provocation at all that I’ve purchased quite a few Real Gone CDs over the past couple of years, and they really know how to do it right. I always hope for top-notch sound quality, good packaging, and informative liner notes whenever I buy a CD, and Real Gone did not let me down with their reissue of Ball, from the excellent remastering to their homage to the original Atco label on the cd itself. Bill Kopp’s liner notes do a great job in providing a brief history of the band before and after Ball, and there is some discussion about each track as well.

In other words, if you’re a fan of the album, this CD is well worth picking up.

If you’re not familiar with Ball but are familiar with In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (not just the song, but rather the whole album), ask yourself how much you enjoy the songs on side one. If you dig what they were able to pull off, then you should give Ball a serious listen. Some of the songs will get you the first time around, while the others will sink in after a few listens. Even the bonus tracks fit into the whole aural package very nicely; if you didn’t know better, you’d think they were part of the original album.

To be honest, Ball is not the place to start if you’ve never heard Iron Butterfly before. Not to sound like a record label A&R guy, but a cursory listen to this album doesn’t really provide any candidates for a single. Two were released, but they didn’t do much more than scrape the bottom of the charts. Then again, since they were seen as an album-oriented group, they probably didn’t lose much sleep over the lackluster performances on the singles charts.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad album; it’s just not the place to start if you’re new to the group. Also, once you get around to hearing Ball, it will probably take a few spins for the songs to start sinking in. Once that happens, chances are you’ll dig the melodies and the musicianship that went into making this album. A lesser person would even suggest you’ll have a ball listening to it, but I’ll spare you the pain of a bad joke and suggest you check out Real Gone’s reissue instead.

To get your copy of Iron Butterfly’s Ball, head over to the Real Gone Music online shop!

George Brandon

George Brandon is the office manager of a large bookstore in Tennessee. In his spare time, he lives, breathes, reads about, writes about, and listens to rock, pop, and soul music from the 1950s through the 1970s. He has more records and CDs than he probably needs, but he’s always looking for more musical treasures.