To hell with what they think! There are people out there who like to go to bed and have babies!
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So, what was the New Year’s Eve show in your house? I had pretty young parents, so I am pretty confident that Guy Lombardo was not quite their cup of tea…It was always “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” in my house and Clark produced the first one in 1972 with his co-hosts, Three Dog Night. That means Three Dog Night had the distinction of having the first song played on “American Top 40” and “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.” Clark was definitely taking aim at the king of New Year’s Eve traditions, Guy Lombardo, who played big band music on his New Year’s Eve special. For many years, if you didn’t have plans on New Year’s Eve, Guy Lombardo from The Roosevelt Grille, and then for the last couple of years, the Waldorf-Astoria, was appointment TV. But Clark thought it was too dated.
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So, to suggest that the small town of Sedalia, Missouri was not prepared for what was to descend on it the weekend of July 19, 1974 might be an understatement. Who could have predicted that bags of ice would go for 30 bucks and hookers, who could be found in nearby trailers, would advertise their services for 5? Who could have known that porta potties would be set on fire and livestock in the community was not safe from the hands and butcher knives of hungry rock fans?
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These photos inspired Young to pick up his guitar. Within 15 minutes, he had the lyrics… the chorus…four dead in Ohio…and Crosby began to harmonize with him. Crosby told Graham Nash to schedule some studio time ASAP. “You won’t believe this fucking song Neil’s written.” He had written “Ohio.”
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The Troubadour showcased a wide variety of talent but it is perhaps best known as the heartbeat of the singer-songwriter movement of the early 1970s. James Taylor, a Troubadour regular, busted that door open with “Sweet Baby James” in 1971 and Jackson Browne walked right in. Much of this was playing into the desire for authenticity, or at least music that SOUNDED authentic. James Taylor writes about his own heroin addiction in “Fire and Rain,” Carly Simon writes about somebody in Your So Vain (we find out later its Warren Beatty), and we just assume Jackson Browne is writing about his own life in songs like “Doctor My Eyes.” Judy Kutulas, in her book about living with the changes the 60s wrought, After Aquarius Dawned, said that in the 70s traditional authority had lost its influence, especially over the younger generation, driving them toward a host of new experts with real-world credibility. -- and they gave that credibility to musicians.
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It was the early 70s, before there were laws about kids and seat belts and things like that, so when I went with my mom to run errands, I had to slide onto the bench seat in the front and if that seat was too hot from baking in the sun, I would kind of hover of the seat for a few minutes before lowering myself on it. If you know, you know. My view on these drives was the car radio, which was AM only but had these big silver knobs, one for tuning and one for volume. There were 5 or 6 push button presets and I was not allowed to touch any of this but the power my mom had, a twist of the dial here, a push of the button there and boom there she was…the soft rock queen, Olivia Newton-John.
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Clayton-Thomas said that without him, [Blood, Sweat, and Tears] was just a jazz band but he brought the R&B and soul to make it more of a rock band.
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…this, from journalist Jim Farber in 2021 is a more than apt description: It is a mixture of creamy strings, punching horns, snaking bass lines and fulsome melodies all combined to create something at once complex and light – a sonic soufflé fired by soul. Or, we could simply go with Bobby Eli, producer and guitarist, said the Philadelphia Sound is “funk dressed in a tuxedo.”
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If you got an invitation to the release party for “The Gilded Palace of Sin,” you also got a package of hay. It was a publicity stunt, designed to signal “country” but it was tested to see if it might be marijuana, at the suggestion of the US Postal Service. But nope. No pot, just hay -- but the publicity and the image that it created -- Bob Proehl, the author of a book on “The Gilded Palace,” wrote, “the media buzz the seizure created was better than anything the A&M marketing department could have dreamed up. Before anyone had heard a note of the album, the Burrito Brothers had the exact image A&M wanted: psychedelic cow-punks, drug-addled.”
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“We’re pop but we’re not that kind of bland, unimaginative pop music.” — Richard Carpenter (1973)
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“They’ve…said I’m the most powerful black man in the world.” —- James Brown
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Silly Love Songs by Paul McCartney and Wings from the album Wings at the Speed of Sound. It was the #1 song in America on July 4, 1776. Fitting that one of our favorite British invaders would have the #1 song on that day.
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“…when you watch film footage of David singing this song that he resisted but so many people loved, you would never know he was ambivalent about it -- at least them. ‘It’s a high going out on that stage. You look around and it’s all there for you, people loving you like that.’”
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Marley said of the critics and fans who tried to compare him to Mick Jagger that they were not listening to what he was saying. He said the message is not the same and “Reggae is not the Twist.”
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To give you an idea of how soundtracks were still not very respected, Paramount Studios declined to take any shares of the royalties from the SNF soundtrack. WHOOPS! It was only the best selling album of ALL TIME until Thriller.
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Is there anybody out there who could pull off a musical comedy variety show nowadays?
“Nobody. It’s not possible because the audiences got to the point where the desire is on reality and the desire is on shock. And the Donny & Marie Show was (built) on simplicity and innocence, and we just don’t have that anymore. Nobody could pull that off — not even Donny and Marie” — Donny Osmond
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Don't let the handshake and the smile fool ya
Take my advice, I'm only tryin' to school ya
— Smiling Faces by The Undisputed Truth
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Challenging the idea of art, which is entirely subjective, in the 70s is a very 70s thing. This is the “Me Decade.” The decade of psychotherapy and liberation -- or at least attempts to move toward liberation -- raising consciousness. We did not have a collective vision of what progress meant. It was up to us to explore that, as individuals.
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Dewey Bunnell of the band, America, said that even though “Ventura Highway” is not a real highway, it was inspired by the Pacific Coast Highway and his thoughts of returning there while he was a kid living in Omaha. Also, alligator lizards in the air are clouds.
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