Metal Bulletin Zine: Vanilla Fudge - The doomed out heaviness of 1967

"This has no right going as hard as it does. Vanilla Fudge was something else, man." - YouTube comment by @heyheyhey33351

Vanilla Fudge

1967

ATCO

side one

1. "Ticket to Ride" John Lennon, Paul McCartney 5:40

2. "People Get Ready" Curtis Mayfield 6:30

3. "She's Not There" Rod Argent 4:55

4. "Bang Bang" Sonny Bono 5:20

Side two

5. "Illusions of My Childhood-Part One" Carmine Appice, Tim Bogert, Vince Martell, Mark Stein 0:20

6. "You Keep Me Hanging On" Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland 7:26

7. "Illusions of My Childhood-Part Two" Appice, Bogert, Martell, Stein 0:23

8. "Take Me for a Little While" Trade Martin 3:27

9. "Illusions of My Childhood-Part Three" Appice, Bogert, Martell, Stein 0:22

10. "Eleanor Rigby" Lennon, McCartney 8:24

The American band Vanilla Fudge specialized in a very particular style of rock music in the 1960s. They took rock music and transformed it into a slowed-down heaviness that captured the attention of rock audiences. For a long time, they have been recognized as pioneers in taking psychedelic rock toward a new form of heaviness. It's actually pretty crazy when you think about it. For example, their 1967 debut album opens with a cover of The Beatles' cheerful song "Ticket to Ride," which Vanilla Fudge slowed down to the most extreme degree imaginable in 1967. If they had slowed it any more, they would have had to almost stop the music altogether. So, Vanilla Fudge took a fantastic Beatles song, and made it into something very different in 1967, and people said it was "heavy" because it was hard to verbalize what they were hearing. Wikipedia points out that according to Classic Rock Magazine, the album's cover tracks "were all slowed down to near doom pace, and given a hard-style treatment." The publication also stated, "Released a year before Led Zeppelin blasted into action, the Fudge are one of those crucial bands who mixed heavy blues, psychedelia, and raucously progressive musicianship in a way that helped pioneer what we now regard as metal." Wikipedia describes the album as: "It consists entirely of half-speed covers and three short original instrumental compositions."

Wikipedia also observes: Vanilla Fudge's 1967 psychedelic rock remake titled 'You Keep Me Hanging On' reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100 chart a year after the release of the Supremes' recording. While the edited version released on the 45 RPM single was under three minutes long, the album version was 7:26 and features a markedly slower and more aggressive interpretation of the song. The recording, done in one take, was Vanilla Fudge's first single. Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice talked about the band's decision to record the song in a 2014 interview:

That was Mark and Timmy [the band's keyboardist and bassist]. We used to slow songs down and listen to the lyrics and try to emulate what the lyrics were dictating. That one was a hurtin' song; it had a lot of emotion in it. "People Get Ready" was like a Gospel thing. "Eleanor Rigby" was sort of eerie and church-like ... like a horror movie kind of thing. If you listen to "Hangin' On" fast ... by the Supremes, it sounds very happy, but the lyrics aren't happy at all. If you lived through that situation, the lyrics are definitely not happy.

Legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple/Rainbow) has stated about this period of rock music history, according to the publication called Far Out, in an article published in 2025:

“Back in the late ’60s, there were few organists who could play like Jon,” he said of his prog-pioneering pal. “We shared the same taste in music. We loved Vanilla Fudge – they were our heroes,” he told Guitar World in 1991.

The same article, by Tom Taylor, has the following excerpt:

The potent group from Long Island, New York, were renowned for their on-stage ferocity. While their drummer, Carmen Appice, obviously he had a vested interest in singing his own group’s praises, he told Songfacts, “We played with Hendrix, Cream, The Who, and at times, we blew everybody off the stage. We were a very hard act to follow. We were known for being very aggressive live and different from anyone else. We were wondering who was going to blow us off the stage – it was Led Zeppelin.”

Blackmore’s assessment ratifies his claim. “They used to play London’s Speakeasy and all the hippies used to go there to hang out – Clapton, The Beatles – everybody went there to pose,” he recalled. “According to legend, the talk of the town during that period was Jimi Hendrix, but that’s not true. It was Vanilla Fudge.”

They weren’t just fierce and ferocious, they were also innovative, too. As Blackmore concludes, “They played eight-minute songs, with dynamics. People said, ‘What the hell’s going on here? How come it’s not three minutes?’ Timmy Bogert, their bassist, was amazing. The whole group was ahear of its time.”

They might not have had huge commercial success beyond ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’, which may well be the greatest Motown cover of all time, and they stuttered in and out of periods of inactivity, but they certainly had a big influence.

As Appice concludes, “So, initially we wanted to be a Vanilla Fudge clone. But our singer, Ian, wanted to be Edgar Winter. He’d say, ‘I want to scream like that, like Edgar Winter’. So that’s what we were – Vanilla Fudge with Edgar Winter!”