Butterscotch
"Your Own Love"/"Three-O-Nine"
Splitsound Records SSDG 6-2, 1967
Produced by Dan Gates
All across America, a huge percentage of the best hidden local gem 45s were cut by teenagers. This 1967 Splitsound 45 by Tucson's Butterscotch is no exception, and features a wonderful cover of The Association's sunshine pop classic "Your Own Love," the B side of their 1966 hit "Along Comes Mary." However, the real gem here is the B-side written by Fred Porter, a classic slice of authentic teenage pop-psych. Butterscotch's initial line-up consisted of Palo Verde High School kids: Chuck Maultsby (future member of Stinky Felix and Tucson's '70s country rockers Chuck Wagon and The Wheels), Fred Porter (also later of Stinky Felix and current owner of Tucson's long-standing Porter Sound Recording Studio), Mike Northey and Walter Hicks. The group's beautiful harmonies were inspired by the vocals of their favorite local band, The Dearly Beloved. Butterscotch would later change their name to The Jon Sorrow who enjoyed a minute of unfortunate cloaked fame with a track called "Till You're Through" on the Hell's Angels 69 Soundtrack LP, released on Capitol Records. Without their knowledge, someone in the process changed the group›s name to The Stream of Consciousness...Bad trip, man!!! The track "309" is not on YouTube currently but can be heard on the Think of the Good Times, The Tucson '60s Sound CD on Bacchus Archives/Dionysus Records.
Lee Joseph grew up in Tucson. He's a DJ (Luxuriamusic.com), marketer of cool shit (Reverberations Media) and founder/CEO of internationally respected Dionysus Records, an indie label that has long specialized in releasing super-rare music, and more. He came of age in the first wave of Tucson punk rock and is an expert on Tucson music. He now lives in California. Vintage Vinyl is a new, monthly column in the Tucson Weekly.
