The band – mixed race and gender – surely stood for a kind of utopia that was not out of kilter for the late 60s counterculture aesthetic. Their first album, “A Whole New Thing,” was released in 1967 and went nowhere. After that, Sly wrote more for the radio because CBS records executive, Clive Davis, told him to, giving us “Dance to the Music.” The band wasn’t all that into the song at first, but it was a Top 10 hit and set the blueprint for the soul and R&B sound that was follow in the early 70s. Go listen to “Dance to the Music” and then go listen to War’s “Low Rider” or definitely “Cloud Nine” by The Temptations and listen for yourself.

music history, musicAmy LivelyJune 10, 2025music, music history, 70s music

Episode 54: Into the 80s! What Came Next for 70s Heavy Metal.

… in 1983, heavy metal was on the verge of its golden era and one of the bands that would open the door was a rock band out of Los Angeles, that had been playing clubs like the Whiskey A Go Go since the mid 70s. Julie Enders-Hudson, writing for the Fort Pierce, Florida Tribune in February 1984 said she was offered a publicity packet for a band she had never heard of in case she would like to write an advance article about them prior to an upcoming concert. She said yes and wondered what she had stumbled upon because she had never heard of Quiet Riot, nor had she heard of the type of music they claimed to play – heavy metal.

music, music historyAmy LivelyMay 23, 2025music history, 80s music, heavy metal

Episode 53: More than Charley Pride - African Americans in 70s Country

“Country music — it's just about time for it to stop being used as a whipping boy. It's a good music. It's the basic music of America, I believe, combined with all the rest of categories that we have — jazz, blues, you name it. Like jazz has been kicked and blues has been kicked. Then it feeds down into the ethnic groups and you start slicing it up. So all that is happening now is a combination of things starting to jell. It's all one ball of wax to me.” — Charley Pride

Episode 40: Honestly Loving Olivia Newton-John

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.