Max Picks …songs from 1971

1971

This year may be the best ever for albums. You had Who’s Next (My number one), Led Zeppelin IV, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin On, and so much more.

We will start off with what I think is the greatest rock song ever played in a concert environment. I’ve seen The Who play Won’t Get Fooled Again twice and of all the concerts I’ve gone to… I’ve never heard anything this powerful live.

Roger Daltrey’s Scream is considered one of the best on any rock song. It was quite convincing…so convincing that the rest of the band, lunching nearby, thought Daltrey was brawling with the engineer.

Now let’s visit Led Zeppelin and they released IV or Zoso a few weeks after The Who released Who’s Next. Stairway To Heaven…this song is considered by some as the best song in rock history. The song was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

Marvin Gaye released this great song and it came off the album of the same name. A powerful song from a powerful performer. The song was written by Al Cleveland, Renaldo Benson, and Marvin Gaye.

The Moody Blues released the album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and this song was on it. It may be my favorite song by them. Story In Your Eyes.

Great melody in this song. I bought the album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour just because of this song and I ended up liking the album a lot. The song peaked at #23 on the Billboard 100 in 1971. The song was written by Justin Hayward.

This is almost a perfect song…by the one and only Janis Joplin. There are few artists who give everything they have all the time. Bruce Springsteen is one…Janis was one. On film it comes through…she gives everything she has and more. It was written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster.

She would die on October 4, 1970. Her nickname was Pearl and that was the name of her last album. She left $2,500 for her wake…. 200 guests were invited with invitations that read…”Drinks are on Pearl”…

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

55 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1971”

  1. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss! Does it get any better than that? Now where into the Classic Rock material with Grumpy Pete and Crazy Bonzo! The Who and Zep two heavy hitters none the less!

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    1. Yes they were the big boys around this time as far as hard rock. That is the best line ever…it’s so true.

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  3. I can’t let 1971 go by without acknowledging Carole King’s “Tapestry”. While not her first foray into performing her own music, it stayed at #1 for weeks and made everyone see her as more than just a writer of songs for everyone else. “Maggot Brain” by Funkadelic. “Every Picture Tells a Story” by Rod Stewart (with its great cover of “I’m Losing You”). “Muswell Hillbillies” by the Kinks. “The Concert for Bangladesh” – almost like a precursor to “The Last Waltz” in the number of guests who appeared. The single release of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” – along with The Last Poets, he was one of the fathers of rap and hip-hop. John Prine’s debut album with nothing but masterpieces on it. The Grateful Dead’s live album (commonly known as “Skull and Roses”). Bonnie Raitt’s debut. “The Low Spark of High-heeled Boys” by Traffic. The Youngbloods’ answer to “Okee from Muskogee” with “Hippie From Olema #5”. BB King “Live in Cook County Jail”. Taj Mahal’s “The Real Thing”, maybe the only album with a tuba section. Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks “Where’s the Money?” What a year! I think it’s fitting that you chose “Stairway to Heaven” to represent Led Zeppelin. Funny how much that intro sounds like “Taurus” from Spirit only three years earlier.

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    2. Personally…I think 1971 was my favorite ever in albums period. So many like the ones you mentioned and more.
      I thought about The “Muswell Hillbillies” while making this one.
      I would like to do a separate post on just albums on this year.

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    1. Yea that was on The Kids Are Alright…probably my favorite rock band bio. I want to do a separate post just on the albums of this year.

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  7. Some good picks there, and timing was good to have Janis on there on the anniversary of her dying. ‘Story in Your Eyes’ ranks high up there on my list of Moody Blues songs, and would probably hit my top 5 for that year too if I made up a list.

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    1. Wow… that’s right about Janis… I forgot about that! I wrote it weeks ago and didn’t think about when it posted.
      These picks were easy

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  8. From a boomer perspective it is little wonder that anyone with an interest in music started to look beyond simple dancey Archies bubbleydumb fluff and wanted to delve deeper into what their bands or artists were really thinking/singing about. So you shelved the 45 and delved into the albums.

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  12. What an incredible year in music. That clip of The Who performing “Won’t Get Fooled Again” at Shepperton has to be one of the greatest moments in rock history. I really don’t think rock music gets much better! Pete Townshend at times looks like he’s possessed! 🙂

    As much as I’ve criticized Led Zeppelin, a band whose music I love, for refusing to give credit to Spirit, I still would consider “Stairway to Heaven” the best rock song of all time. If they just could have gotten over their silly egos – it wouldn’t have taken away ANYTHING from the song. Obviously, there’s much more to it than the acoustic intro in question.

    BTW, The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” would be a close contender for best rock song of all time.

    Marvin Gaye probably is my all-time favorite soul vocalist. “What’s Going On” just is an incredible gem, both the song and the entire album.

    Obviously, I also love Janis Joplin and dig the Moody Blues as well, though as a long-time Carole King fan, I would have picked “Tapestry”, but obviously, picking just five albums is nearly impossible when you’ve got so much great music to pick from!

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    1. Being in a live enviroment…I’ve never heard better than Won’t Get Fooled Again…it has built in dynamics.
      Gaye was so awesome…..that golden voice he hd.
      I have to say…1971 was easy to pick from! This one was simple.

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  13. Story in Your Eyes is one of my all time favorite songs of that era. It’s one of those forgotten ones today even for classic rock stations, it seems. My disdain for the Led Zeppelin hype doesn’t stop me from agreeing that Stairway to Heaven belongs on the list. We Don’t Get Fooled Again is definitely an anthem too. It is timeless. What’s Going On is a good representation of the issues we were still living with. I love Janis’ version of Me and Bobby McGee, but my apologies to her fans, I think I would have put American Pie in that spot.

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    1. Uh oh….you blew my day!!!!!
      I had American Pie in 1972…oh geez….I can’t believe you are the only one that caught it….that depresses me…that will teach me to talk on the phone while doing these…I was talking to Ron…geez…I would have replaced Gaye with that one….sorry but I’m a huge Janis fan… Why did I think it came out in 72?
      Oh I know why….if you look up the charts like for 72….I think it’s still on there….yes it is. That is what I saw.
      It was released in Oct of 1971 therefore it was listed under the 1972 charts.

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    2. Please indulge me….Under the “Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1972”
      American Pie…dang….I can’t believe I did that! My rules is the year it was released in

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  14. I might reminisce that as a young man starting a music curriculum in college from 1971, many of these iconic rock tunes influenced me to go full forward as a counterculture devotee. 

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  15. Quite the line-up and on board with every one. I remember Led Zep album the most. It’s a crying shame how terminally overplayed that song is, as it is a damfine song. When someone has set aside money for a wake like that you have to wonder if she knew the drugs would take her 😦

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  16. I’d like to scan the albums list for this year and see what else I might think needed to be up there but I just don’t have the time. On a totally different topic, I was reading about a Joni Mitchell song on an album I’ve never heard, where she sings about throwing a drink on Jan Wenner who used to helm Rolling Stone Magazine. It’s called “Lead Balloon.” Could I ask a special request for you to do a little research on that song and the context for one of your posts? Pretty please??

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    1. Sure I’ll do that. She threw a drink on Wenner…thats enough for me to like the story! I don’t like that man at all. ‘
      I’ll look into it…also…you know what? I still haven’t posted that Peter Asher post you wanted…I moved them all around…but yes…Lead Balloon…I can guess where that came from.

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      1. With Wenner he did an interview not so long ago that directly dissed Joni. Now he’s a has-been and she’s back and going strong. She who laughs last… No worries on Peter Asher. I forgot that request until right now 🙂

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      2. I’ve never liked Wenner AT ALL! I can’t stand him. The Peter Asher oneis coming though soon….but yes I’ll look into this. Wenner has kept bands out of the Hall of Fame because he didn’t like them.

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      4. That sounds right…I read “Sticky Fingers” about halfway through…and I had to stop…it was that bad. I never stop halfway through anything.
        I can’t stand the guy anyway…so this only adds to what I knew was there. He is a creep. The power of RS Magazine went to his head. He is the reason many bands and artists are not in the Hall of Fame…because he didn’t like them.

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  18. One of my favorite albums of all time, although not overly relevant to this blog, was released in 1971. AeroPlane by John Hartford, one of the first new grass albums. That, and its follow up, Morning Bugle, opened a shade of bluegrass that influences pickers. I have honestly played those two records more than the entire library from Led Zeppelin. Like I said, not overly relevant to this blog, but great music nonetheless.

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