https://exchange.prx.org/p/543609
This week we have an (almost) all-1970 show. The only exceptions are a track recorded in 1970, but (for rather compelling reasons) was not released until 1971 and a pair of Led Zeppelin tunes from the first album that took about a year for radio stations to catch onto.
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: Living Wreck
Source: LP: Deep Purple In Rock
Writer(s): Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
Deep Purple In Rock was the first studio album to feature what is now considered the "classic" Deep Purple lineup: Richie Blackmore on guitar, Ian Gillan on vocals, Roger Glover on bass, Jon Lord on organ and Ian Paice on drums. It was also the first Deep Purple to hit the top 10 on the British album charts, although the band had done much better in the US with the original lineup. The album is pretty much straightforward hard rock, especially on tunes like Living Wreck, which features Blackmore using a phasing effect and Lord playing through a Leslie rotating horn speaker cabinet.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: Love Like A Man
Source: CD: Cricklewood Green
Writer(s): Alvin Lee
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1970
Cricklewood Green was Ten Years After's fourth studio effort and fifth album overall. Released in 1970, the album is considered by critics to be the apex of Ten Years After's studio work. The best known track from the album is Love Like A Man, which became the group's only single to chart in the UK (in an edited version), peaking at the #10 spot. The band was still considered an "underground" act in the US, despite a successful appearance at Woodstock the year before. However, Love Like A Man was a favorite among disc jockeys on FM rock radio stations, who almost universally preferred the longer album version of the song heard here.
Artist: Derek and the Dominos
Title: Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad
Source: CD: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
Writer: Clapton/Whitlock
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1970
Legend has it that this band featuring Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon was supposed to be called Eric and the Dynamos, but that a stage announcer mispronounced the name and his version stuck. As for the album itself, it initially did poorly on the charts, despite drawing rave reviews from the rock press. It wasn't until 1972, when the song Layla starting getting extensive FM airplay, that the album finally started to catch on, eventually going on to become one of Clapton's best selling LPs ever. Contrary to popular belief, Duane Allman was never an official member of Derek and the Dominos, although his presence as a guest guitarist on the album certainly helped to boost sales.
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Mean Mistreater (alternate mix)
Source: CD: Closer To Home (bonus track)
Writer(s): Mark Farner
Label: Capitol
Year: 1970
By the 1980s the power ballad was becoming a rock music cliche. In 1970, however, it was still a pretty new concept, and one of the first bands to record power ballads was Grand Funk Railroad. Mean Mistreater, from the album Closer To Home, was actually the group's second power ballad. The first, Heartbreaker, had appeared on the album Grand Funk (aka the Red Album), and was already a fan favorite when Closer To Home was released in 1970. Mean Mistreater proved to be even more popular, and remained part of Grand Funk's stage repertoire for the remainder of the band's existence. The version heard here is a more recent mix that includes an organ part and a harmony vocal near the end of the song that was left out of the original album version.
Artist: Full Tilt Boogie Band
Title: Buried Alive In The Blues
Source: CD: Pearl (Janis Joplin album)
Writer(s): Nick Gravenites
Label: Columbia
Year: 1971
The Full Tillt Boogie Band was formed in the late 60s as a side project by New York studio guitarist John Till. All the members, including Till, pianist Richard Bell, bassist Brad Campbell, drummer Clark Pierson, and organist Ken Pearson were Canadian citizens, mostly hailing from the province of Ontario. In 1969, Till, along with several other studio musicians, were tapped to become Janis Joplin's Kozmic Blues Band, backing up the vocalist on her solo debut album. Joplin, however, was not entirely comfortable with all the members of this new band, and after the album itself got mostly negative reviews from critics and fans alike, Joplin decided to disband the group, keeping only Till. Till then convinced her to use the Full Tilt Boogie Band (dropped the second "L" in Tillt) for her next album, Pearl. The new combo started touring in the spring of 1970, beginning work on the album itself that September. At the time of Joplin's sudden death on October 4, 1970, the band had completed all the basic tracks for the album; only one song, Buried Alive In The Blues, lacked a usable vocal track. Although Nick Gravenites, the Electric Flag veteran who had written the tune, offered to provide vocals for the track, the band decided to keep it an instrumental instead.
Artist: Spirit
Title: Mr. Skin
Source: CD: The Best Of Spirit (originally released on LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus)
Writer(s): Jay Ferguson
Label: Epic
Year: 1970
Mr. Skin, a song originally released on the 1970 album The Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, is a playful little number that shows just how far Spirit had moved away from the jazz influences the characterized their first LP in the space of only a couple of years
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: I Can't Quit You/How Many More Times
Source: German made LP: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s): Dixon/Page/Jones/Bonham/Burnett
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
Led Zeppelin has come under fire for occassionally "borrowing" lyrics and even guitar riffs from old blues songs (never mind the fact that such "borrowing" was a common practice among the old bluesmen themselves) but, at least in the case of the first Zeppelin album, full songwriting credit was given to Willie Dixon for a pair of songs, one of which was I Can't Quit You. Still, it can't be denied that messrs. Page, Plant, Bonham and Jones completely revamped the blues classic into something uniquely their own. Like many early Led Zeppelin songs, How Many More Times was originally credited to the band members (except, for contractual reasons, singer Robert Plant). More recent releases of the song, however, list Chester Burnett (Howlin' Wolf) as a co-writer, despite the fact that he and the members of Led Zeppelin had never met. This is because of the similarity, especially in the lyrics, to a 1951 Howlin' Wolf record called How Many More Years. The band tried to trick radio programmers into playing the eight and a half minute song by listing it on the album cover as being three minutes and thirty seconds long. I doubt anyone was fooled.
Artist: Black Sabbath
Title: A Bit Of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning
Source: CD: Black Sabbath
Writer(s): Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1970
According to Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, the band's debut LP was recorded in one day, in a marathon 12-hour session, and mixed the following day. Most of the tracks, including the 14-minute long Warning, were done in one take with no overdubs. The tune itself is listed on the US album cover as three separate tracks, even though it is the same continuous piece that appeared on the original UK version of the album. The reason for this is probably so the band could get more in royalties for three compositions than they could for just one. The Grateful Dead did essentially the same thing on their 1968 album Anthem Of The Sun with the 18-minute long track That's It For The Other One. Both albums appeared in the US on the Warner Brothers label.
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