My last diary on music went great. Thanks! What fantastic posts people made, listing their favorite world music. So, since I got such great suggestions from the community on DKos that time, I'm very selfishly doing another diary. What's a great song from the 1970s, that all of us loved loved loved, but have completely forgotten about?
Here are some of my favorites. Enjoy them all! (And do post your own!)
The credit for this diary, in addition to the other posters on my World Music diary of a few days ago, goes to the great, inimitable Bonnie Raitt, whose cover of Del Shannon's My Little Runaway is, for me, one of the three best cover versions ever made. Check out the amazing Norton Buffalo--what's he keep reaching into his coat for? Why, he's reaching for the next of the four different harmonicas he's switching between, for his great solo! Can you beat that? Was he great, or what? But don't forget to concentrate on Bonnie's great singing, too (yes, I plan to overuse the word "Great" in this diary. Prepare). It was after listening to this tune that I felt I had to post this diary. Hope you enjoy it.
(The other two greatest covers were Gladys Knight's version of I Heard it Through the Grapevine, and Santana's version of Well All Right, from Inner Secrets. Though the Gladys Knight version of Grapevine came out in the 1960s, so I'll save it for the 1960s diary, and won't post it here. Oops, I did. Oh well. It's great, isn't it?)
The Singer-songwriters
The 1970s were a great time for the singer-songwriter, who got up with his or her guitar or piano, and composed unforgettable pieces that stood the test of time, decades later.
Harry Nilsson, for example. Listen to Without You, and try not to cry. I could list about a million from this master, but this one is probably going to knock you guys out for the rest of the afternoon, so save it for when you want to tear up. And many of you remember the cartoon, The Point, for which he added such great music as this song?
As long as I've got your hearts breaking, how about Harry Chapin? The poor taxi man...
Randy Newman, of course, stands out. Some of you probably went right to this song, after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. I did. But to move you out of the sad songs, I always found his version of his own song to be much more erotically charged than Tom Jones' (taking nothing away from Tom Jones, of course).
So many hat-tips, I can hardly keep track of them, but tlemon reminded me of Jim Croce, another great one.
How come no women on this list? J'arrive, j'arrive! Did you love Karla Bonoff's version of Someone to Lay Down Beside Me? Or did you prefer the version her friend, popster Linda Ronstadt did? I do, but the studio version--they yanked it from Youtube! Mad!
From the same years and the same -- well, sales demographic, if you'll forgive me -- came Carly Simon, with this hit (okay, not a forgotten hit so much, but ain't it great?).
For less commercial singers, how about Laura Nyro? You remember her from the wedding song ("Bill!/I love you so/I always will/...'til ya marry me Bill!"). She did a few hits like that, but it was her later music that I really was able to sail away with. She sure seemed a warm-hearted, good and thoughtful person. Rest in peace!
And if we're highlighting female singer-songwriters, then of course my very favorite one, one of my three favorite songwriters (Peter Gabriel and Earth, Wind and Fire, if I may class them as "a songwriter," being the others), is Joni Mitchell. Listen to this song, from Hejira, called Strange Boy. She had complained that her previous bass players had "set up a black picket fence through my work...ploddy, ploddy, ploddy." So it was on this album that she started to really move further into jazz fusion, using the wonderful bassist Jaco Pastorius, who was a great influence on me as a bassist. She also has Pat Metheny on this song, with his haunting e-bow work on guitar. This song... it's the only one of hers I'll list here, but listen to it... we don't think of Joni as a sex girl, but this song, speaking of erotically-charged, it's one of the most erotically-charged songs I've ever heard. It feels like the song itself plunges you into a deep relationship. Wait until the house is quiet, and get into it.
Hey, this guy isn't going to leave the 70s without giving time to Stevie Wonder, is he? No way! My favorite Stevie Wonder song here, bar none. "As." Wait for his singing fills at 5:30-5:37, or if you're tempted to skip, skip there. Isn't that marvelous?
Anyone love Jackson Browne? Here's For a Dancer, a good funeral song. Something I love about Jackson Browne is that his conversational singing tone and mellow piano playing fit in so well with the conversational tone of his lyrics. You'll never hear him writing some phony, "She's So Perfect I Can't Stand Myself" sort of love song. He writes about real, imperfect, complicated, flesh-and-blood people, as he did in this song, Fountain of Sorrow. His song For Everyman is pretty heavy.
A great singer-songwriter, who I'm proud to name as a Bay Area denizen, is the wonderful Dan Hicks, whose I Scare Myself is what he's best known for, I think. Not enough stuff by him on Youtube, we've got to do something about that.
Singer-songwriters... well we must give attention to the magnificent Elton John, eh? Gotta Get a Meal Ticket, here, from Captain Fantastic, was a good rocker for him (OK, he's not Zeppelin, but he could rock out in a good Abba mode). But my favorite, my very favorite, by him is Where to Now St. Peter?, which you might know from its verse, "I took myself a blue canoe..." Whenever I hear it, I feel as if I really am floating down a river somewhere, into the woods and into my own thoughts.
The 70s were great times for movies with fantastic soundtracks. When you think of Harold and Maude, what's the first aural impression you think of? Has to be Cat Stevens, doesn't it? He had so many fine songs, like Morning has Broken. Or how about Oh Very Young? (BONUS POINTS: Can anyone tell me the name of the wonderful backup singer on the studio version of that song? I've been searching for ages, but haven't found out. Thanks!) Changes IV was always one of my favorites by him.
Movies and 1970s Music
Speaking of Movies, how many of you remember Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, by Scorsese? He makes odd music choices sometimes, but boy, sometimes he just knocks one out of the ballpark. Gabriel in the Last Temptation of Christ, or in the 70s, Mott the Hoople's All the Way from Memphis, or the great T Rex, in the aforementioned movie. My first introduction to them. Bravo. Here's Twentieth Century Boy, by them. Still grateful to Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon for reminding me of the song Planet Queen; but it's not on Youtube yet in its full length, I guess.
Glam
Hey, what was with the boa on Marc Bolan of T Rex?? Well, I'll tell you, my man gender-indeterminate androgynozone: Glam!
How about the Sweet? Are they Glam? Well, let the debate over what really constitutes glam commence, but one thing's for sure: the guitar solo, and the haircuts, and the costumes, and the little guitar fill from 3:01-3:02, WERE the inspiration for Spinal Tap, I'm sure of it.
Bowie, in any case, is unimpeachably glam. Neat time signature on this song, too.
Prog Attack vs. Punk
(EDITED after someone made the great suggestion of adding the Damned; also, meant to add the Sex Pistols links in the first place, so here you go. And, why did I mix the Punk section with the Prog-rock section? Well, what is Punk if it's got nothing to fight with?) Progressive Rock! Horreur! What would Johnny Rotten say? Well, he DID say it: "People we Hate," said the t-shirt he and Malcolm McLaren owned, listing the progressive rock stars like Yes, or, as Johnny fairly spat out the words, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. OK, so sometimes things got a little inflated. But tell me this song, by King Crimson, which included some ELP alumni, didn't rock pretty hard.
This has to be the best Sex Pistols song, IMO. The Sex Pistols, I have been put to know, set much store by The Ramones, who had toured shortly before the Sex Pistols were formed. If you go to Berlin, be sure to check out the Ramones Museum. Ja Toll! The Damned was cool.
Malcolm McLaren didn't list Peter Gabriel on his enemies list, though. I'm glad. Peter Gabriel still rules my world, then as now. This was a beautiful song that he wrote with his wife, Jill. His old band, Genesis, wrote this song, "Deep in the Motherlode," when they were about to change from the Genesis I liked to--what they became...At this point, they'd just let Steve Hackett, the guitarist, go. Deep in the Motherlode is poignant to me as a Californian. My hometown of San Jose was settled partly by members of the Donner Party (though that was decades after its 1777 founding by the Spanish), and the images in the song, of poor wagon-train pioneers moving into the west, were always much in my mind, as I looked out over the hills above my city, and thought of what those folks must have gone through to get here. For those of you who love Steve Hackett, though, here's I Know What I Like, a song from the Gabriel years, but done here after Peej left.
Ska
Wha? How could I have left out SKA entirely, and how could those of you who urged me to include Punk have forgotten it? That's okay, we both know we both love it, so that's all good.
A good transition from Punk to Ska has to be (BIG hat tip to Bush Bites, although I was searching for this already) the Buzzcocks! GREAT Stuff!
A great tune by The Specials, yeah?
The English Beat ruled, didn't they? I saw them tour in recent years, and met their snotty princess of a sax player, so I hope he's not with them anymore. But their place as one of the ska greats is assured, nonetheless.
I don't know if The Jam should really be thought of as Ska, in this song, at least, but love 'em, whatever it is.
Wanna go Dark?
Peter Gabriel's collaborator, and huge Anglo-zone star (except in America, for some reason) in her own right Kate Bush sometimes did, it seemed. So did the Zeppelin, of course. Real beaters, though, as they called their songs. The Stones, too. But if you're going there, for the sake of some rock and roll with crunch, then surely it's about Sabbath.
But I hope I haven't put off my Christian readers with the dark stuff, so if so, here's Kansas to put it back on the narrow way, if not the right-hand path. A bizarre thing about that is that Kerry Livgren, one of the most Christian of that Christian band, did an album with Ronnie James Dio, of--Black Sabbath. I know, right? ? Well.
Funk and Soul
The 70s and Funk confused me. I LOVED Funk, and still do. I also LOVED soul music, and still do. But Disco? Uhhh... Well, anyway, what about that great Funk? Stuff like Fight the Power, by the Isley Brothers. Hey? That's legitimate, eh? And, above all, my main group, the best American band ever in my opinion: Earth, Wind and Fire. They did several interesting albums before this one, but this song, Mighty Mighty, was the first glimpse we really had of the real Earth, Wind and Fire sound. See them play when they come to town, Philip Bailey and Verdine White are still sounding great, and you may see Ralph Johnson with them too.
Oh, all right: Disco
Sorry about the omissions, but oh, okay: here ya go. If you're talking about disco, then we've got to talk about Thelma Houston's great cover of Don't Leave Me This Way, right? It lets you dance, but there's also no denying the pure, incredible talent of a great voice. Enjoy it!
Also, hat tip to the posters below who mentioned this song by Donna Summer. A dear family friend, just my age, grew up to be an exotic dancer, and she used to dance to this song, when we grew up as pre-teens to teens, with a sulfurous expression on her gorgeous, dark face. Whew. Boy, was she a good-looking and wonderful person.
This song was another she'd dance to, which drove me a little crazy. Bless her heart.
Andrea True Connection's More More More was another one. Apparently, she was a pornodarstellerin, as the Germans say; hence the lyrics: "Get the cameras rollin'/get the action going." Whew x2. Well--disco WAS about sex, wasn't it?
Were Kool and the Gang disco, or funk? Whatever they were, this song ROCKS! I can listen to the horn riffs all day long. Those of you who really know music, what are they doing there? My FAVORITE Kool and the Gang song, by far.
Jumble Sale and Inconclusion
I really love this tune by 10CC. It's not so unknown as to be forgotten, I suppose, but had to include it on the 70s diary. I just love the first line. They're trying to establish that he's a fish out of water, about to get rolled, and the first line says that he's walking down the road, "concentratin' on truckin' right." :D I just love that! He's so unsure of himself that he has to concentrate on trucking properly. Another one I loved by them, around this time, was Wall Street Shuffle: "you need a yen/to make a mark/if you wanna make/money." I'm surprised they haven't resurrected this, in the last few years, for the crisis. Godley and Creme seemed to have a lot of success when they split off, but I really loved the Gouldman and Stewart compositions best.
Well--I'm outraged. I'd WANTED to conclude this by posting Streetwalker, by the Kinks, but it's not on Youtube! (Remember when I was gobsmacked happy just to have a Youtube at all? What a bitch I am sometimes, eh?)
So until they post it, I suppose I'll have to come at you with:
Humble Pie!
Oh, and okay--maybe War's Cisco Kid.
Oh, and that reminds me! From that same year, 1973: Curtis Mayfield, doing Superfly. A shame not to have the beautifully arranged and produced studio version. As a bass player, I love most of all the rhythm section on that studio version, where the bass seems to float above the solid drumming for the verse, and then coming down to earth and locking in for the chorus. It illustrates the gritty city, and the disoriented, disconnected man floating around in it, perfectly. RIP Curtis Mayfield--genius job!
And at the end--the Skinny Ties! YAAAAH! Tommy Tutone? (Sorry, can't bring myself to post it.) What happened??? Well, Zeppelin, The Who, and Skynyrd (listen to the great Leon Wilkerson "f-you bass" going back in from the solo to the last verse--he sort of personified "ornery" to me) all lost members and left us. Rock and Roll went away, all in those last few years of the decade.
But there is always hope. Even in a skinny tie. Elvis redeemed them.
Another hat tip to tlemon: Timeless and unclassifiable, Steely Dan was and remains a unique act. Caves of Altamira is, even for them, an ODD song. Their lyrics are always enigmatic, but this one, particularly, is very mysterious. I like that. Also, the way he just blasts into that vocal line: "I recall/when I was small/how I spent my days alone/the busy world was not for me, so I went and found my own..." On "I recall," he sings it in a way unlike any other vocal I can think of; he just hits at an eighth note here and then jumps to another, in a really direct way. Isn't that unique?
And, sorry about the awful visuals on this video, but Frank Zappa's Dirty Love was really necessary. Listen and look away. Hat tips to tlemon and frankzappatista for reminding me of Zappa! I love the way the song fades out on the words: "little curly head/little curly -- (fades out)"
I have to add this great band, The Tubes. This song, "You're No Fun," was one of the first songs I learned on the bass. I first got a bass, and was taught a 12-bar blues by a guitarist friend. Then, I learned "One Way or Another," by Blondie. But then, I set to work on this song. I've never forgotten it. When I first became able to play it, I thought: "naw--I must be doing it wrong, somehow." :D Funny, eh? And I'm sure it didn't sound letter perfect, but no, I was playing it well. Listen to the masters doing it on this album version, though: the classy piano glissandos of the great Vince Welnick, who left us too soon, a few years ago. The very advanced for their time synthesizers of Michael Cotten, Rick Anderson's solid bass-playing, and above all, the incredible drumming of Prairie Prince. Whew. What a band. See them today, they still do an incredible show, and with many of their original players, including singer Fee Waybill (can't imagine the Tubes without him, of course). Here's Boy Crazy, by them. This Town and Pound of Flesh, by the same band too, are a couple of tours de force. Awesome band. Keep playing, Tubes!