https://exchange.prx.org/p/594315
This week's show is all about what could be heard on FM rock radio around 1970 or so, with the bulk of the tracks actually released in 1968 and 1969, including selections from debut albums by King Crimson, Jethro Tull and a couple other well-known bands. We then move up one year to 1971 to finish out the show with a track from the first album to feature the classic Genesis lineup of Banks, Collins, Gabriel, Hackett, and Rutherford.
Artist: King Crimson
Title: 21st Century Schizoid Man
Source: CD: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Writer: Fripp/McDonald/Lake/Giles/Sinfield
Label: Discipline Global Mobile (original US label: Atlantic)
Year: 1969
There are several bands with a legitimate claim to starting the prog-rock movement of the mid-70s. The one most musicians cite as the one that started it all, however, is King Crimson. Led by Robert Fripp, the band went through several personnel changes over the years. Many of the members went on to greater commercial success as members of other bands, including guitarist/keyboardist Ian McDonald (Foreigner), and lead vocalist/bassist Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) from the original lineup heard on In The Court Of The Crimson King. Additionally, poet Peter Sinfield, who wrote all King Crimson's early lyrics, would go on to perform a similar function for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, including their magnum opus Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends. Other original members included Michael Giles on drums and Fripp himself on guitar. The uncannily prescient 21st Century Schizoid Man, as the first song on the first album by King Crimson, can quite accurately be cited as the song that got the whole thing started.
Artist: Cream
Title: What A Bringdown
Source: CD: Goodbye Cream
Writer(s): Ginger Baker
Label: Polydor/Polygram (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Right around the time that Cream's third LP, Wheels Of Fire, was released, the band announced that it would be splitting up following its upcoming tour. Before starting the tour the band recorded three tracks, each one written by one of the three band members. Both Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce worked with collaborators on their songs, while drummer Ginger Baker was given full credit for his tune, What A Bringdown (which was sung by Bruce). As it turned out those would be the only studio recordings on the final Cream album, Goodbye Cream, released in 1969, which in addition to the three new songs had several live tracks from a 1968 performance at the Los Angeles Palladium.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: What Is And What Should Never Be
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s): Page/Plant
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
Due to contractual obligations with another label, singer Robert Plant did not received any writing credits for songs on the first Led Zeppelin album. By the time the band's second LP was released, Plant had been able to get out of his previous contract, and his name began appearing as co-writer of songs such as What Is And What Should Never Be. The song itself was based on a true story concerning Plant's attraction to his girlfriend's sister.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title: Walk On The Water
Source: LP: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Writer(s): John and Tom Fogerty
Label: Fantasy
Year: 1968
Having money and power doesn't necessarily mean you are qualified to make wise decisions. Case in point: since 1959, brothers Tom and John Fogerty, along with Doug Clifford and Stu Cook, had been making music together as the Blue Velvets, releasing a handful of singles on the Oakland, California based Orchestra Records. In 1964 they made their first recordings for Fantasy Records, which had recently had national success with Vince Guaraldi's Cast Your Fate To The Wind. This success had given the labels owners, including one Max Weiss, the kind of money and power it takes to change the name of a band signed to your record label without consulting the band itself. Thus, when the Blue Velvets' first single came out on the Fantasy label in late 1964, the band's name was now the Golliwogs, which pretty much proves my point about money and power. The group ended up releasing several singles on both Fantasy and its subsidiary label Scorpio, including a song called Walking On The Water, over the next three years. In 1967 Fantasy found itself with a new owner, Saul Zaentz, who gave the band the opportunity to pick a new name for themselves. The band soon came up with Creedence Clearwater Revival, and released their first LP in 1968. One of the songs on that album was a newly recorded (and slightly retitled) Walk On The Water, which would end up being the only CCR song to be credited to both John and Tom Fogerty (John having taken over as the band's sole songwriter sometime in 1966).
Artist: James Gang
Title: Funk # 48
Source: CD: Yer Album
Writer: Walsh/Fox/Kriss
Label: MCA (original label: Bluesway)
Year: 1969
Cleveland's James Gang was one of the original power trios of the seventies. Although generally known as the starting place of guitarist/vocalist Joe Walsh, the band was actually led by Jim Fox, one of the most underrated drummers in the history of rock. Fox, who was the only member to stay with the group through its many personnel changes over the years, shares lead vocals with Walsh on Funk # 48 from the band's debut album on ABC's Bluesway label (they moved over to the parent label for subsequent releases). Yer Album, incidentally, was the only rock LP ever issued on Bluesway .
Artist: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Mean Mistreater
Source: CD: Closer To Home
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.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: Serenade To A Cuckoo
Source: CD: This Was
Writer(s): Roland Kirk
Label: Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Jethro Tull did not, as a general rule, record cover tunes. The most notable exception is Roland Kirk's classic jazz piece Serenade To A Cuckoo, which was included on their first LP, This Was. For years, the Kirk version was out of print, making Jethro Tull's cover the only available version of this classic tune throughout the 1970s.
Artist: Fairport Convention
Title: Matty Groves
Source: LP: Liege And Lief
Writer(s): Trad., arr. Fairport Convention
Label: A&M
Year: 1969
Britain's Fairport Convention was quite prolific in 1969, releasing no less than three LPs that year. The last of these was Liege And Lief, considered by some to be the greatest British folk-rock album ever made. The album is notable for several reasons, including the fact that it was the group's first album to consist entirely of rocked out adaptations of traditional British folk tunes such as Matty Grove, along with a handful of original compositions done in a similar style. It was also the first Fairport Convention album to feature guitarist Martin Carthy (who had made a guest appearance on the band's previous album, Unhalfbricking) and drummer Dave Mattacks as full-time members. Finally, Liege And Lief was the last Fairport album to feature vocalist Sandy Denny and bassist Ashley Hutchings, both of whom left to form their own British folk-rock bands (Fotheringay and Steeleye Span, respectively). Like many British folk songs, Matty Grove tells the somewhat morally ambiguous tale of a low-born rascal who beds the wife of his Duke, only to have said Duke catch them in the act, killing them both. Trust me, it sounds better coming from Fairport Convention that it does me.
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: Genesis
Title: The Musical Box
Source: CD: Nursery Cryme
Writer(s): Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label: Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year: 1971
In a sense, the story of the rock band known as Genesis gets underway with the release of the 1971 album Nursery Cryme. Technically it was the third Genesis album. However, the first two albums, From Genesis To Revelation and Trespass, were not really rock albums at all. It was only after the departure of original guitarist Anthony Phillips and his replacement by Steve Hackett, along with the addition of drummer Phil Collins, that Genesis became a true electric rock band, albeit one with a heavy element of British folk music. Although Genesis sounded nothing like harder British progressive rock bands like Yes or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, their music was every bit as innovative and complex, as plainly can be heard on the ten minute long opening track from Nursery Cryme, The Musical Box. The lyrics of the song are based on a fairy tale by Peter Gabriel about two children in a country house, one of which (a girl) kills the other by beheading him with a croquet mallet. From there, it only gets weirder (and more adult). The Musical Box is considered one of Genesis' s most influential works, and has even inspired a group of young musicians to call themselves The Musical Box.
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