''At Your Birthday Party'' is the third

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by Canadian-American rock band Steppenwolf. The album was released in March 1969, by

ABC Dunhill Records ABC Records was an American record label founded in New York City in 1955. It originated as the main popular music label operated by the Am-Par Record Corporation. Am-Par also created the Impulse! jazz label in 1960. It acquired many labels befo ...

Background

It was the first Steppenwolf album to feature bass player Nick St. Nicholas; and the last album to feature guitarist Michael Monarch, who left the band in August 1969. Although it was less critically acclaimed than their successful first two albums, '' Steppenwolf'' and ''

The Second ''The Second'' is the second studio album by Canadian-American rock band Steppenwolf, released in October 1968 on ABC Dunhill Records. The album contains one of Steppenwolf's most famous songs, " Magic Carpet Ride". The background of the origin ...

'', it contains a few well-known hits, such as "It's Never Too Late" and "Jupiter's Child", as well as "Rock Me," which had been featured in the 1968 film ''

Candy Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language an ...

''. Although the band would be very successful in the early 1970s, ''At Your Birthday Party'' would be their last top ten album and features their last top ten single. The album showcases Steppenwolf coming out of, but not yet completely abandoning, the psychedelia of ''The Second'' and stepping into the distinctive hard rock of their later releases.

Cover art

The album's cover was designed by art director Gary Burden. The original LP was a

gatefold A gatefold cover or gatefold LP is a form of packaging for LP records that became popular in the mid-1960s. A gatefold cover, when folded, is the same size as a standard LP cover (i.e., a 12½ inch, or 32.7 centimetre square). The larger gatefo ...

with a punched-out front cover; the punchout revealed a photo of the band which comprised the inner sleeve's

recto ''Recto'' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. Etymology The terms are shortened from ...

. This photo of the band was shot by Henry Diltz, and it shows the band sitting in the remnants of amplifiers and equipment in a charred house which had belonged to

Canned Heat Canned Heat is an American band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. The group is noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists and rock music. It was founded by two blues enthusiasts Alan Wilson and Bob ...

. (A 1969 fire ripped through Canned Heat's house and rehearsal studio on Lookout Mountain Ave in

Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neighb ...

.) Original lead guitarist Michael Monarch did not show up for the photo shoot. Steppenwolf producer

Gabriel Mekler Gabriel Mekler (2 December 1942 – 4 September 1977) was an American songwriter, musician, and record producer who attained fame in the 1960s, helming albums for Steppenwolf, Three Dog Night, and Janis Joplin. He also collaborated with R&B singer ...

bore a physical resemblance to Monarch, and it was decided that Mekler would take Monarch's place in the photo. Mekler was able to hide himself all the more in the photo by sporting a pair of sunglasses. Initially, not too many noticed. Monarch was still in the band, however. (A dispelled myth is that Monarch was no longer in the band at the time of the photo shoot; he was in the band until the latter part of 1969, and the album came out in early 1969.) The LP was reissued on CD by MCA in late 1980s. MCA decided to not use the photo for their CD re-issue and opted only for the original unfinished war mouse painting, originally intended as the LP's cover. The resulting CD artwork indeed looks bare as a result. The surrounding black-and-white image of the LP's gate-fold sleeve was made by importing images of cartoon mouse heads onto the bodies of soldiers within an image of a U.S. Civil War trenched battlefield. The black-and-white portion of the album art was a collage made by Gary Burden, who planned to enlist Rick Griffin to paint a final version of the album art, but Dunhill Records declined to pay for the painting and so used Burden's black-and-white prototype.

Track listing

Personnel

Steppenwolf

* John Kay –

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

Michael Monarch Michael Monarch (born July 5, 1950) is an American guitarist. He is best known for his work with the band Steppenwolf. Monarch was born in Los Angeles. As the original lead guitarist with Steppenwolf (1967 through most of 1969),lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

Goldy McJohn John Raymond Goadsby (May 2, 1945 – August 1, 2017), known as Goldy McJohn, was a Canadian keyboard player best known as the original keyboardist for rock group Steppenwolf. Originally a classically trained pianist, he was a pioneer in the ...

–

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Nick St. Nicholas Nick St. Nicholas (born Klaus Karl Kassbaum on September 28, 1943) is a German bandleader, bass guitarist, singer and songwriter; best known for his partnership in Steppenwolf. Early life He was born in Plön, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany ...

– bass,

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

and lead vocal on “Sleeping Dreaming” *

Jerry Edmonton Gerald Michael Edmonton (born Gerald McCrohan, October 24, 1946 – November 28, 1993) was a Canadian-American musician who was the drummer, and secondary lead vocalist for the rock band Steppenwolf. Early life and career Edmonton was born in O ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

and lead vocals on “Lovely Meter”, and “She'll Be Better”

Technical

– producer * Bill Cooper –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

Richard Podolor Richard Allen Podolor (January 7, 1936 – March 9, 2022) was an American musician, record producer and songwriter. His career started as a session musician in the 1950s, and he was best known as the producer of Three Dog Night. Life and career ...

– engineer *

Gary Burden Gary Burden (May 23, 1933 – March 7, 2018) was an American artist specializing in the field of album covers. He is considered one of the pioneers of the concept of album cover art. Early life Gary Burden was born on May 23, 1933, in Cleveland, ...

– cover design *

Henry Diltz Henry Stanford Diltz (born September 6, 1938, in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American folk musician and photographer who has been active since the 1960s. Career Among the bands Diltz played with was the Modern Folk Quartet. While a member of ...

–

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

Charts

Album -

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

(United States) Singles - Billboard (United States)

References

{{Authority control 1969 albums Steppenwolf (band) albums ABC Records albums Albums produced by Gabriel Mekler Dunhill Records albums