In June of 1967, two highly regarded psychedelic albums hit the streets and achieved legendary status: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles and One Nation Underground by Pearls Before Swine, a band that was virtually unknown. The cover art of One Nation Underground was a detail from the Hieronymus Bosch painting “Garden of Earthly Delights” done in sepia monochrome. The back cover had lyrics of a few tunes and a warthog-like logo. There was no picture of the band on the album and no information about them was forthcoming. The music was odd folk, not quite what we call freak folk today, but definitely freaky in the ’60s sense of the word—acid-drenched and woozy. One Nation was melodic, accented by garage-y Farfisas and loaded with exotic Asian and Arab instruments that led you down into some medieval, folk-rock netherworld. The lyrics were poetic, disjointed, and startlingly original, delivered by a singer with a slight lisp and a quivering delivery that sounded both familiar and original. The lack of band photos, the half-sung, half-spoken quality of the vocals, and the acid-folk experimentation of the music led to rumors that it was an uncredited collaboration between Bob Dylan and the Beatles. It was more melodic than Dylan, but touched by the lyrical prestidigitation that was his trademark; hence, the speculation that it was Dylan singing to melodies written by another composer.

One Nation Underground came out on ESP-Disk, an anti-commercial label known for its free jazz albums and a couple of albums by the Fugs, led by Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg. The Fugs were probably the most underground of underground rock bands in the 1960s. ESP had cachet, and if the Beatles and Dylan were to collaborate on something outside of the mainstream, what better home than ESP? One Nation Underground sold about 200,000 copies, and is still ESP’s biggest commercial success—a remarkable achievement for a band that was virtually unknown. It became one of those seminal albums that every hippie household seemed to have stacked next to the stereo in 1967, along with the Fugs’ self-titled second album, the Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico, Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. One Nation Underground obviously didn’t get the attention that Sgt. Pepper did, but it was an essential part of the hippie soundtrack in the summer of ’67.

One Nation Underground was largely created by Tom Rapp, a high school poet from Melbourne, Florida, who made seven more cryptic albums as Pearls Before Swine before dropping back in. He became a lawyer that fights corporate polluters with law books and computers. Rapp’s phrasing—slightly behind the beat, with unexpected pauses—was always a big part of the PBS mystique. Was it a conscious technique? “Yes, I wanted to sound like I was talking to you,” Rapp says today, from his law office in Southwest Florida. “I wanted to give the same weight and duration to words as I would in conversation. I’ve been told I had phrasing like Billie Holiday, but I thought I was just singing my own way. I came from a folk background, so a lot of the songs have no instrumental breaks; just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and out.

“I grew up in Minnesota and I knew country and western stuff and folk music. I learned guitar with a Joan Baez songbook that told you where to put the capo and your fingers. I knew a lot of the Child Ballads and combined them with the folk music I heard in the Midwest. I know I’d listened to the Velvets and Peter, Paul & Mary, but it was mostly old English folksongs meets country and western.

“The original Pearls were three guys I met in high school—Wayne Harley (banjo, mandolin), Lane Lederer (bass, guitar), and Roger Crissinger (piano, organ). We put together a tape and sent it to ESP. They sent back a telegram saying ‘come up and do a record.’ The studio had lots of instruments sitting around—they had just finished recording a few ethnic bands—so we used the ouds, sarangis, and oscillators that were left behind, and that became One Nation Underground’s sound. We did a few rock tunes too, but it was mostly folk-based. We never made any money on it, but it’s remained in print ever since it came out; the same is true for Balaklava [the second Pearls Before Swine album, another forgotten psychedelic milestone]. I remember Murray “the K” [Murray Kaufman, the DJ that took over Alan Freed’s spot on WINS NYC in the ’60s] played ‘(Oh Dear) Miss Morse’ [the chorus was Rapp spelling out F-U-C-K in Morse code] and all the Boy Scout leaders called in and complained. Things weren’t as open as they are now.

“Some people thought the songs were hopeless,” Rapp says about the music’s dark core. “I was being realistic about the pain that’s out there. If you say life is wonderful, people know it isn’t true, but if you talk about the pain, someone will listen.”

After 1968’s Balaklava, Rapp’s buddies left the band and he continued as a solo act, still using the Pearls Before Swine alias. Before he stopped playing music, he made six albums for various labels, including several for Warner/Reprise that were recorded in Nashville. “It was a great experience recording in Nashville,” Rapp recalls. “The session guys are such pros—you just tell ’em what you want and they play it. Reprise was good to me, too. They made a lot of strange print ads and radio spots [for PBS]. They said they knew there was an audience for what I was doing, they didn’t have any idea who they might be, or how to reach them. But the records still sell and still get airplay all around the world. Every so often, I get a check from BMI from Albania or Pakistan for $22.50, so people are still listening.”

So how do the albums hold up after 41 years? Sgt. Pepper is one of the most reviewed and venerated albums of all time, and it still sounds groovy. In the ’60s, it was hyped as a suite of tunes, a pop music circus complete with sideshow, but in retrospect it’s just a very good collection of songs. There are a few clunkers even. “Lovely Rita” is rhythmically interesting and Harrison’s guitar is inventive, but it’s one of the more forgettable Beatles songs. “Good Morning, Good Morning” is a nice bit of Lennon nihilism, but he wrote better tunes with the same subject, including parts of “A Day in the Life.” “Fixing a Hole” is a nice druggy march with the usual stunning harmonies, but it’s another bit of filler.