Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly formed in San Diego, California, in 1966 but soon
moved to Los Angeles where they were spotted at the Whiskey
A-Go-Go and signed to Atlantic's subsidiary label,
Atco.
The band
blended hard rock with ornate, acid-friendly textures. Early in
1968 they issued the Heavy album which bulldozed its way
into the lower regions of the US Top 100.
Later that summer, Weis and Penrod departed, superseded by Lee
Dorman and teenage guitarist, Erik Braunn, and this line-up
subsequently recorded In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
Late one night,
drummer Ron Bushy came home from his job as a pizza chef to find
that singing keyboardist Doug Ingle had sunk a bellyful of red
wine and composed a new song. Too drunk to speak properly, Ingle
slurred the title, which Bush wrote down phonetically. And so it
was that "In the Garden of Eden" became "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".
Originally a ballad, the new band developed the track on the
road, eventually recording a lysergic leviathan of droning guitar,
mystical organ and exploratory drum solo. The result was a classic
album which was a huge hit with the nascent FM radio format and
hit the US Top Five, becoming the very first album to be certified
platinum, for sales of over one million copies (in fact the album
went on to sell over three million copies).
 The edited title track - trimmed from the 17 minute album
version - gave them additional success in the singles
chart.
About eleven minutes into the album version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,
organist Doug Ingle can clearly be heard playing a few bars of the
Christmas song God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
With the album still riding high in the charts, their 1969 Ball
album bounced into the Top Three.
In 1970, Iron Butterfly
introduced the twin-guitar assault of Mike Piera and Larry
Reinhardt who featured on their Top 20 set Metamorphosis.
They split soon after, only to surface again in 1975 with two
poor efforts, Scorching Beauty and Sun And Steel.
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was performed as a hymn in the
classic episode of The Simpsons where Bart sells his
soul to Milhouse.
Erik Braunn died in 2003.
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