https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/449810-dc-2248
The first half of this week's show focuses on the year 1970, with classic tracks from David Bowie, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Guess Who, among others. From there we move to 1974 and work our way backwards in time, one year at a time, finally arriving in 1969.
Artist: War
Title: Why Can't We Be Friends
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): War/Goldstein
Label: United Artists
Year: 1975
One of the most popular songs of 1975, War's Why Can't We Be Friends, from the album of the same title, repeats the title line over forty times in under less than four minutes. The song even made it into outer space that summer, when NASA beamed it up to the world's first international space mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, in July. These days, unfortunately, the answer to the song's question is too clear.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: American Woman
Source: CD: American Woman
Writer: Bachman/Cummings/Peterson/Kale
Label: Buddha/BMG (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1970
From 1968-1970 I was living on Ramstein AFB, which was and is a huge base in Germany with enough Canadian personnel stationed there to justify their own on-base school. For much of the time I lived there I found myself hanging out with a bunch of Canadian kids and I gotta tell you, they absolutely loved everything by the Guess Who, who were, after all, the most successful Canadian rock band in history. In particular, they all loved the band's most political (and controversial) hit, the 1970 tune American Woman. I rather liked it myself, and immediately went out and bought a copy of the album, one of the first to be pressed on RCA's Dynaflex [shudder] vinyl.
Artist: American Dream
Title: Big Brother/The Other Side
Source: LP: The American Dream
Writer(s): Jameson/Van Winkle
Label: Ampex
Year: 1970
In 1970 Albert Grossman, best known for being the manager of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and others, decided to form his own record label, Bearsville Records. One of his first acts was to sign ex Nazz bandleader Todd Rundgren as a producer and engineer for the new label. The first album released by Bearsville was the debut album of a Philadelphia band called the American Dream, featuring guitarists Nick Jameson, Don Van Winkle and Nicky Indelicato, bassist Don Ferris and drummer Mickey Brook. Being from Philadelphia himself, Rundgren was the natural choice to produce the album, which actually came out on the Ampex label (as did a handful of other early Bearsville releases). Jameson, who wrote Big Brother, and Van Winkle, who wrote The Other Side, were the principle songwriters of the band, which broke up shortly after the album was released. Jameson is best known for his ability to accurately portray a wide variety of non-American accents, and has amassed a lengthy resume in movies and television, including a three-year stint on the hit show 24 as Russian president Yuri Suvarov.
Artist: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title: Fresh Air
Source: CD: Just For Love
Writer(s): Jesse Oris Farrow (Dino Valenti)
Label: BGO (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
Although Dino Valenti helped form Quicksilver Messenger Service, he found himself a guest of the California Criminal Justice System literally the day after the band was conceived. In fact, Valenti was not on the scene at all when the original lineup of the band made their official debut. It was only after the group had recorded three moderately successful LPs for Capitol that Valenti, now released from prison, rejoined the band he had never actually been a member of. His presence, however, was immediately felt. Quicksilver's fourth LP was a complete departure from the improvisational jams of the band's first two efforts. In fact, all but one of the songs on Just For Love were written by Valenti (although most were under the pseudonym Jesse Oris Farrow). Valenti also took over the lead vocals for the album on songs like Fresh Air, which was also released as a single and was the nearest thing to a top 40 hit (hitting the # 49 spot) that Quicksilver Messenger Service would ever have. Just For Love is also notable for the fact that the band included prolific session pianist Nicky Hopkins as a full member.
Artist: Focus
Title: House Of The King
Source: 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s): Jan Akkerman
Label: Sire
Year: 1970
Dutch band Focus released House of the King as a single in 1970, between their first and second albums. After getting considerable airplay in Europe and the UK, the song was added to later pressings of their debut LP, Focus Plays Focus (also known as In And Out Of Focus). The song finally appeared on a US LP when Focus 3 was released three years later. Contrary to common belief, the song was not re-recorded for the 1973 album.
Artist: David Bowie
Title: All The Madmen
Source: CD: The Man Who Sold The World
Writer(s): David Bowie
Label: Parlophone (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1970
Although most critics agree that the so-called "glitter era" of rock music originated with David Bowie's 1972 LP The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, a significant minority argue that it really began with Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold The World, released in 1970 in the US and in 1971 in the UK. They point out that World was the first Bowie real rock album (the previous two being much more folk oriented), and cite songs such as All The Madmen, as well as the album's title cut, as the prototype for Spiders From Mars. All The Madmen itself is one of several songs on the album that deal with the subject of insanity, taking the view that an insane asylum may in fact be the sanest place to be in modern times. Whenever I hear the song I think of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
Artist: Kinks
Title: Preservation
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s): Ray Davies
Label: Reprise
Year: 1974
The Kinks' Preservation was a song that served as a summation of the band's 1974 concept album, Preservation-Act 1. Oddly enough, the song itself was not included on either that album or its followup, Preservation-Act 2, instead being released as a non-album single in 1974. There were two versions of the song, the longer of which is heard here. My copy is a bit on the scratchy side, but given the fact that the single failed to chart, I consider myself lucky to have a copy of it at all.
Artist: Three Man Army
Title: Let's Go Get Laid
Source: German import CD: 3
Writer(s): Adrian Gurvitz
Label: Revisited Rec.
Year: Recorded 1974, released 2004 (dates approximate)
The Gurvitz brothers, Adrian and Paul, got their first taste of international fame as two thirds of the band Gun, whose Race With The Devil was a monster hit in Germany and the UK, among other places. Following the breakup of Gun, the brothers went their separate ways for a year or so, reuniting in 1971 to form Three Man Army. The first album featured three different drummers, but the next two featured the talents of Tony Newman, formerly of the Jeff Beck Group. Plans for a fourth album were shelved when Newman left the group, to be replaced by Ginger Baker (prompting a name change to Baker-Gurvitz Army), but not until several tracks had already been recorded. Those tracks remained unreleased until 2004, when a German label released 3 (so named because it was the third album to feature Newman). Probably the best track on the album is Let's Go Get Laid. I'll leave it to you to figure out what the song is about.
Artist: Cheech And Chong
Title: Ralph And Herbie
Source: LP: Big Bambu
Writer(s): Marin/Chong
Label: Ode
Year: 1972
Conventional wisdom dictates that if you want to project a family-oriented image, use kids and dogs as props. Cheech and Chong turned that truism on its ear with Ralph And Herbie, a track from their second LP, Big Bambu, that includes such canine behavior as humping, chasing cars and "pinching a loaf".
Artist: John Baldry
Title: Let's Burn Down The Cornfield
Source: LP: It Ain't Easy
Writer(s): Randy Newman
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1971
Long John Baldry (so-called because of his 6'7" height) was one of the first Britishers to sing the blues professionally in various London venues, first as a member of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and later fronting several bands of his own, including Steampacket (with co-lead vocalists Rod Stewart, Julie Driscoll and keyboardist Brian Auger) and Bluesology, with guitarist Caleb Quaye, saxophonist Elton Dean and keyboardist Reg Dwight (who used Dean and Baldry's first names for his own stage name when he took over the band). Baldry had a British #1 hit in 1967 with a song called Let The Heartaches Begin, but the other members of Bluesology refused to play the song live, forcing Baldry to play the backing tracks from a tape recorder onstage. His most successful solo album was It Ain't Easy, released in 1971. One side of the LP was produced by Stewart, while the second side was produced by the aforementioned Reg Dwight, now known as Elton John. Former bandmate Caleb Quaye played guitar on Randy Newman's Let's Burn Down The Cornfield, the opening track on the John-produced side of the LP.
Artist: Bloodrock
Title: Dier Not A Lover
Source: CD: Bloodrock 2
Writer(s): Pickens/Gummett/Hill)
Label: One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year: 1970
Although lighter in tone lyrically than their first album (DOA excepted), Bloodrock's second LP, released in October of 1970, continued in the Ft. Worth, Texas band's hard rocking direction established on their debut earlier the same year. According to one review, Bloodrock 2 includes a couple songs with socially conscious lyrics, one of which is Dier Not A Lover (and yes, I looked it up and dier is a real word). Let's be honest here, though; with a band like Bloodrock, is anyone really paying attention to the lyrics anyway (again, DOA excepted)?
Artist: Yes
Title: Looking Around
Source: CD: Yesterdays (originally released on LP: Yes)
Writer(s): Anderson/Squire
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
Comparing the British and American discographies of the band Yes, you'd almost think you were looking at two different groups altogether. The first A sides are the same, but from there they go in entirely different directions. For instance, Yes's biggest American hit, Roundabout, was never released in the UK as a single. Nor was their cover of Paul Simon's America. On the other hand Looking Around, the second single taken from their debut LP, was not issued in the US.
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