Text by Bruce Gallanther (Downtown Music Gallery, January 2nd, 2025) 

“Groovin’ Is Easy” by The Electric Flag, from their debut album, A Longtime Comin (released 1968)

Groovin’ is easy, baby, if you know how.
Groovin’s so easy, baby, if you know how.
You don’t have to keep yourself forever, baby,
Go out and chase whatever you’re cravin’,
It doesn’t have to be,
No, no, it doesn’t have to be,
So hard on you.

There’s nobody stopping you, baby, there’s just yourself,
And if you can’t see that, baby, girl you need help.
I could teach you things, you never could learn,
Show you just exactly how you got burned.
It doesn’t have to be,
No, no, it doesn’t have to be,
So hard on you.

It’s easy to see now, baby, you’re nobody’s fool,
But you won’t gain nothing, baby, by staying cool.
Better leave all your troubles and worries behind,
Give in to something, well it crossed your mind.
It doesn’t have to be,
No, no, it doesn’t have to be,
so hard on you.

1968 was the year when several “horn bands” popped up, each one better than the last one: Butterfield Blues Band, Blood, Sweat and Tears, The Electric Flag, Chicago Transit Authority, Sons of Champlin, and Cold Blood, are/were some of my faves.

“Groovin’ is Easy” comes from the first studio album by the Electric Flag, led by Mike Bloomfield. Electric Flag debuted at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967. The band made one excellent record (this one) and several mediocre ones. Their lead singer was Nick “the Greek” Gravenites, a close friend of the early Butterfield Blues Band (he wrote “Born in Chicago”) and a friend and collaborator with Quicksilver Messenger Service. Gravenites wrote the above song under the pseudonym Ron Polte. There is often a feeling of universal coolness or hipness in his words, as if the author knows something that only other cool folks know. I suppose I thought I was cool at that point, as I used to understand the inside jokes that many hipster lyricists would use but rarely explain.

This song was recently covered by my favorite current psych/jam band, The Third Mind, and it opens their last album, Third Mind 2, released around one year ago. The Third Mind features Dave Alvin from the Blasters, two members of Camper Van Beethoven, and Jesse Sykes, my current favorite singer-songwriter-bandleader. They were just on tour on the West Coast, don’t miss them if you get the chance. They will have a live record out in March. Both of their albums are great!