This year was very interesting. I had a hard time with the 5th pick. You have The Who and Led Zeppelin releasing albums and with me…normally I would go with the Who but in this year…Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti won out. I think it would be hard to say that none of these belong. I like all of them of course or they would not be on here.
Born To Run broke Bruce Springsteen through to the masses after two very good to great albums but commercial failures. Columbia Records got behind this album, too much so for Bruce’s tastes, and they hit gold with it. With his face on Newsweek and Time magazine…everyone was introduced to Mr. Springsteen. In simple terms… 1975 was Springsteen’s year.
This was on the great album Blood on the Tracks. In my opinion Bob Dylan‘s best album of the seventies. When I first got this album I couldn’t quit listening to it and I really wore this song out. I could sing this song in my sleep…I know every word because it’s ingrained in my head.
This would make my top 5 Bob Dylan songs. I’ve seen Bob 8 times and the first 6 times I saw him I kept waiting for this song because with Bob you don’t know what you will get. He finally played it on the 7th time and I was surprised the next time because it was the only older song he played.
Talking to Ron Rosenbaum, Bob Dylan once told him that he’d written “Tangled Up in Blue”, after spending a weekend immersed in Joni Mitchell’s 1971 album Blue.
Queen used so many overdubs that the tape was virtually transparent on Bohemian Rhapsody. All the oxide had been rubbed off. They hurriedly made a copy so they could preserve what they had already. They were working with a 24-track machine but they still had to bounce tracks. They used `180 overdubs… The song took 3 weeks to record. The song was on A Night At The Opera album.
This made a huge comeback courtesy of Waynes World in 1991. The song was written by Freddie Mercury.
Elton John owned the early to mid-seventies Billboard Charts. Even Elton said he was tired of hearing himself in America on AM radio. Philadelphia Freedom was just another #1 for Elton.
Elton had an interesting B-side on this single. The B-side was a live duet of The Beatles hit “I Saw Her Standing There” that Elton recorded with his friend John Lennon. Elton had previously sung on Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Through The Night” and also released a version of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” which was written by Lennon. This song was written by Elton John and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin.
Led Zeppelin‘s Kasmir is one of their best if not their best song. It was on the Physical Graffiti Album released in 1975. The song did not chart but is hugely popular on the radio.
The song is hypnotic to listen to. The drums are the key to this song… Jimmy Page has said this about John Bonham on Kashmir… It was what he didn’t do that made it work.
The song was written by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Bonham.
I love watching this from time to time. Yes, it’s bad…really bad but it’s so bad it’s good. All the celebrities who are in different phases of their careers, cross paths in this epic of a show. First, let’s go through all of the stars. It’s probably remembered most for KISS’s first television appearance.
Paul Lynde of course,
Billie Hayes (Witchiepoo from H.R. Pufnstuf)
Margaret Hamilton (The witch from Wizard of Oz)
Tim Conway (No seventies variety show was right without Tim Conway)
Florence Henderson (Brady Bunch mom)
KISS (their first TV show appearance)
Billy Barty (was in many films)
Betty White (Everyone knew Betty White)
Roz Kelly (Pinky Tuscadero from Happy Days)
Donny and Marie Osmond! (just to top it off)
The plot… which really doesn’t matter.
I always thought Paul Lynde was wickedly funny. In this, he was watered-down and could not be his Hollywood Squares best. He had a quick campy wit at times and the writers probably toned it down for prime time. I first noticed Lynde on Bewitched as Uncle Arthur and he was great in that role. It was his delivery that made everything work in his comedy.
This special has comedy bits and music…oh yes the music. You have KISS, you have the disco and you have Florence Henderson singing “That Old Black Magic…” Most of the comedy bits fail but the real comedy is how bad it is… The only thing missing from this extravaganza was a guest appearance from Harvey Korman and/or Don Knotts.
The main reason many people have watched it since it aired is it was KISS’s first TV show appearance…not including concert material.
It is a train wreck but one I like watching over and over again. At no other time could a show like this have been aired. It only aired once…for good reason.
What other show does Paul Lynde play a trucker who wants to marry Pinky Tuscadero?
I’ve covered a lot of Springsteen’s songs and I was going to look at my post of this one. I never covered it so I’m correcting that mistake today. This is one of those epic songs like A Day In The Life, Stairway To Heaven, Layla, and Free Bird.
1975 was the year of Bruce Springsteen. He was featured in Newsweek and Time magazine to his horror. The magazines were each granted interviews with Springsteen. Although they both featured similar details about his background and newfound stardom after his first two albums failed, the two articles were strikingly different in tone.
Time magazine wrote an article called “Rock’s New Sensation” in which he heaped praise on the new star. The writer knew music and realized how great Bruce was at the time. Newsweek was a different story. They wrote a story called “The Making of a Rock Star,” and looked at Columbia Records’ marketing campaign for ‘Born to Run’ and concluded it was pretty much hype. The ironic thing was that Bruce hated hype. Before he played the Hammersmith Odeon in London he ripped down a Springsteen promotional poster inside the Theatre before going upstairs and joining his party, after talking to a couple of the Record Company Executives he told his manager to instruct CBS to stop the hype and let the music sell itself.
Springsteen did try to use the Time and Newsweek covers to his advantage the next year. While touring Memphis he went to Graceland and jumped the fence but Elvis’s people were not amused. They escorted him out and told him that Elvis was in Lake Tahoe…which he was at the time. Bruce wanted to give him a song that he later gave the Pointer Sisters…Fire.
Now the song Born to Run. I think it’s fair to say that Born to Run is the song and album that broke him into stardom. On this album he had rock critic Jon Landau help him with the recording. That set off problems between Bruce and his manager Mike Appel…Appel wanted to stop Landau from working with Bruce after the album was made. That started a long saga of Bruce suing Appel which he didn’t want to do but he had to.
We all know Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” Well Bruce did his own Wall of Sound in this one. Springsteen has said that he counted 24 guitar overdubs in this track…that is why it sounds so huge. This was the only song on the album that Ernest “Boom” Carter played on. The original drummer Vini “Maddog” Lopez was fired in 1974 and Carter came in and helped out. He played this one song and then Max Weinberg took over the drums and still holds that spot. Carter left for a career in jazz. The keyboard player David Sancious only played on this song also and left for a very successful career in jazz. He would work on Springsteen’s solo albums later on.
Springsteen had other names for the album until deciding on this song as the title song. Other names he had were War And Roses, The Hungry, The Hunted, American Summer, and Sometimes At Night.
The song peaked at #23 on the Billboard 100 and #53 in Canada in 1975. It didn’t chart in the UK until 1987 when a live version peaked at #16. There was talk of making this the official state song of New Jersey.
Bruce Springsteen: “One day I was playing my guitar on the edge of the bed, working on some song ideas, and the words ‘born to run’ came to me,” he recalled. “At first I thought it was the name of a movie or something I’d seen on a car spinning around the circuit. I liked the phrase because it suggested a cinematic drama that I thought would work with the music that I’d been hearing in my head.”
Bruce Springsteen: “This is a song that has changed a lot over the years. As I’ve sung it, it seems to have been able to open up and let the time in. When I wrote it, I was 24 years old, sitting in my bedroom in Long Branch, New Jersey. When I think back, it surprises me how much I knew about what I wanted, because the questions I ask myself in this song, it seems I’ve been trying to find the answers to them ever since. When I wrote this song, I was writing about a guy and a girl that wanted to run and keep on running, never come back. That was a nice, romantic idea, but I realized after I put all those people in all those cars, I was going to have to figure out someplace for them to go, and I realized in the end that individual freedom, when it’s not connected to some sort of community, can be pretty meaningless. So, I guess that guy and that girl out there were looking for connection, and I guess that’s what I’m doing here. So, this is a song about two people trying to find their way home. It’s kept me good company on my search, and I hope it keeps you good company on yours.”
Before playing this song on December 9, 1980, Springsteen said before starting this song: “If it wasn’t for John Lennon, a lot of us would be someplace much different tonight. It’s a hard world that asks you to live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it’s hard to come out here and play tonight, but there’s nothing else to do.”
Steven Van Zandt: “Bruce and I were just friends at this point. He said I wanna play you my new record. And he played ‘Born to Run’ for me, with me lying on the floor of the studio. He’d been working on it for months – I mean, literally months on one song, which is incredible now. But he played it from me, and I said, Oh, that’s great. I particularly love that minor riff, very Roy Orbison, something The Beatles would do. And he said, ‘What minor riff? What do you mean?’
What was happening was he was doing a Duane Eddy style riff, with a bunch of echo on it, and he was bending up to the last note. But you never heard him bending up to the notes, it didn’t register in your ear. He said, ‘Oh my f—ing God,’ and then played it how I heard it for the other guys, and I guess they all started to hear it the way I was, which was the way the whole world was gonna hear it! So they had to redo the guitar part and then the whole f–‘ing mix. The mix alone took them a couple of weeks, because in those days there was no automation and there was a lot going on in the song.”
Born To Run
In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway nine,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin’ out over the line
Oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
‘Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet rims
And strap your hands ‘cross my engines
Together we could break this trap
We’ll run till we drop, baby we’ll never go back
Oh, will you walk with me out on the wire
Girl I’m just a scared and lonely rider
I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
I want to know if love is real
Oh can you show me?
Beyond the palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
Girls comb their hair in rear view mirrors
Boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the street tonight
In an everlasting kiss
One, two, three
Highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight
But there’s no place left to hide
Together wendy we can live with the sadness
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Oh, someday girl I don’t know when
We’re gonna get to that place
Where we really wanna go
We’ll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
Baby we were born to run
Tramps like us baby we were born to run
Tramps like us baby we were born to run
The first time I saw and heard Van Morrison was on November 4, 1978, on Saturday Night Live. I was 11 and didn’t know anything about him. I hadn’t even heard of Brown Eyed Girl. He was playing the song Wavelength and it sounded great. I would not become a fan until 1985 when I got a compilation album with Brown Eyed Girl on it.
When I heard Brown Eyed Girl I read everything I could about Van Morrison. The first album I purchased was Tupelo Honey so I went from there and bought most of his ’70s albums… plus a Them compilation.
Kingdom Hall kicks the album off as the opening track. It’s very radio-friendly and commercial-sounding. The album was one of his best sellers up to that time. Jehovah’s Witnesses use Kingdom Halls for worship and Bible lessons. During the 1950s, his mother Violet was a steady member of the Witnesses for a few years and Van occasionally accompanied her. Evidently, he had a good time at those at least during the singing.
The album Wavelength peaked at #28 in the Billboard Album Charts, #31 in Canada, #27 in the UK, and #9 in New Zealand in 1978.
I was lucky to see him in concert on March 7, 2006, at the Ryman. If you ever get the chance to see him…don’t pass it up. His voice is even better in concert than on record and that is saying something.
Van has a complicated history. Some have said he was the nicest person in the world to them and some not so much. I guess that describes a lot of us.
Harvey Goldsmith (Morrison’s manager): “Every single person that had been involved with him, be it record company, publishing, promoting, agency or whatever, had a tremendous respect for him. But everyone also said that he was the most difficult person in the world to deal with.”
Kingdom Hall
So glad to see you
So glad you’re here
Come here beside me now
We can clear inhibition away
All inhibitions
Throw them away
And when we dance like this
Like we’ve never been dancin’ before
[Chorus:]
Oh, they were swingin’
Down at Kingdom Hall
Oh, bells were ringin’
Down at the Kingdom Hall
A choir was singin’
Down at the Kingdom Hall
Hey, liley, liley, liley
Hey, liley, liley, low
Do do do do do do, do
Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do, do
Do do do do do do
Good body music
Brings you right here
Free flowin’ motion now
When we’re shakin’ it out on the floor
Good rockin’ music
Down in your shoes
And when we dance like this
Like we’ve never been dancin’ before
[Chorus]
Down at the Kingdom Hall
They were havin’ a party
They were havin’ a ball
Bells were ringing out
And the choir was singin’
Hey, liley, liley, liley
Hey, liley, liley, low
Do do, do do, do do, do do
Sugar was there
Did you see Sugar
Down at the Kingdom Hall
Sugar was tough
After appearing on the covers of Time and Newsweek in October 1975, Springsteen sometimes changed the words to “Tell your papa I ain’t no freak, ’cause I got my picture on the cover of Time and Newsweek” when he performed it live. This wasn’t a “hit” at the time but it still lives on in classic radio and is a key song in Bruce’s catalog.
I’ve seen Bruce do this song live and it is special. It’s one of the best live songs I’ve ever heard along with The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again. The song is exciting as he pleads with Rosie and calls out the nicknames of their friends.
I was around 7 years old when this was released. I remember being in a tire swing in my Aunt’s front yard when I heard this Hollies on a radio that was playing from a car that someone was working on. I still remember smelling the grass and the green surroundings of that day.
This song would be way up in my favorite songs ever. Graham Nash had left by this time and the band turned a corner when he had gone. They went from a pop sixties band to more of a rock/pop band with hits like Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress, He Ain’t Heavy (He’s My Brother), and finally this song which was their last top ten hit in the US and Canada. It was written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood.
Great song great music great voice. This song was performed by Rufus with Chaka Khan and written by Stevie Wonder. The Talk-Box which Frampton later used sounds great in this song.
Rufus evolved from a group called The American Breed, who had a hit with “Bend Me, Shape Me.” They took their name from a column in Popular Mechanics magazine called “Ask Rufus,” later shortened to Rufus when Chaka Khan joined the band in 1972.
Paul McCartney‘s Band on the Run was one of his best songs since the Beatles. This song fell in a grey area. The album was released in December of 1973 but the single was released in April of 1974 so it could have gone in either year.
The song was recorded in two parts, in different sessions. The first two were taped in Lagos while the third section was recorded in October 1973 at AIR Studios in London. Paul was robbed at knifepoint in Lagos, Nigeria and they took the tapes that he had at the time. They were never recovered and Paul figured they recorded over them.
The song was off the album Band On The Run which was I think Paul’s best solo album. It was written by Paul and Linda McCartney.
Trying to figure out Elton’s lyrics has always been interesting…not what they mean…I won’t even try that. No, it’s… what is he singing? “He’s got electric boots a mohair suit You know I read it in a magazine, oh” I wasn’t even close. I thought “masseuse” was in there. I don’t think I can even spell what I’ve been singing along with for years. Mick Jagger does this well also.
Regardless of the hard-to-decipher words…I love the song.
Elton wrote the music to this song as an homage to glam rock, a style that was popular in the early ’70s, especially in the UK…and of course, Bernie Taupin co-wrote it with Elton.
Not Boris Karloff but the Edgar Winter’s 1973 #1 model.
The song has a killer riff that as a kid I could not get out of my head. It pounded you over the head. It was a big instrumental hit in the seventies. The song was seventies indulgence but that was ok. Keyboard solo, guitar, drum solo, saxophone and it drove the song on.
The videos have Edgar Winter running around with a keyboard slung over his shoulders like a guitar and playing anything he can get his hands on. It’s been used in a lot of movie soundtracks when they cover the seventies.
The song is called Frankenstein because of the heavy editing that had to be done in the studio to put it together. Back then they would have to cut the tape and then tape it back together in the correct place… Now it would just be cut and paste digitally.
Frankenstein was a B side to a song called “Hanging Around” but disc jockeys flipped it because they saw its potential. If you have a lot of patience and time…this is the Old Grey Whistle Test 9-minute version.
The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard Charts, #1 in Canada, and #18 in the UK in 1973.
I don’t do anniversaries very much but some things I try to keep up with and this is one of them. I’ve posted this in the past few years on October 20.
It’s been 46 years since Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashed in a swamp in Gillsburg, Mississippi. The band had just released the album “Street Survivors” and it was probably their best well-rounded album. With new guitarist Steve Gaines, they were primed for commercial success but on October 20, 1977, they lost singer-songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, and road manager Dean Kilpatrick. The plane crash also claimed the lives of pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray Jr.
I believe that if the crash had not happened they would have moved into the most successful stretch of their career. They were leaving the “southern rock” label behind and into one of the top rock bands in the world.
A year earlier Steve Gaines joined the band and he was pushing them in directions they never had gone. Listening to “Street Survivors” you can hear his influence with the songs I Never Dreamed and I Know A Little. Steve was a super-talented guitarist, songwriter, and singer and I have to wonder where his career would have gone.
On this tour, they were headlining and moving up in status after years of touring as mostly an opening band.
Below is a good Rolling Stone article on the crash. The song below that is “I Never Dreamed,” a song heavily influenced by Gaines.
Pink Floyd released one of the biggest albums of all time…Dark Side of the Moon.
Roger Waters put together the cash register tape loop that plays throughout the song. It also contains the sounds of tearing paper and bags of coins being thrown into an industrial food-mixing bowl. The intro was recorded by capturing the sounds of an old cash register on tape and meticulously splicing and cutting the tape in a rhythmic pattern to make the “cash register loop” effect. Waters also wrote the song.
Like many of their songs, this was not released as a single in the UK, where singles were perceived as a sellout…but it was released as a single in America in 1973
Another positive song that was written by George Harrison. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)” replaced Wings’ “My Love” at number 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart…For the week ending 30 June that year, the Harrison and McCartney songs were ranked numbers 1 and 2 respectively.
This song was based on a true story that happened to the band. Smoke On The Water took inspiration from a fire in the Casino at Montreux, Switzerland on December 4, 1971. Deep Purple was going to start recording their Machine Head album there right after a Frank Zappa concert, but someone fired a flare gun at the ceiling during Zappa’s show, which set the place on fire when Deep Purple was watching. It was released in May of 1973.
Music stores would not be the same without this song. It was written by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice.
Allman Brothers released this song in August of 1973. It was the band’s biggest hit that almost didn’t get released. The band thought it was too country and almost didn’t release it. This one was written by Dickey Betts.
My sister had a Jim Croce greatest hits album and I played it non-stop. This one is easy for kids to remember. This song has been played to death but I still love it. This one remains one of the most remembered songs from the early seventies. Jim Croce wrote this one.
This song was a part of my childhood growing up. I never knew much about them but when I was 7 (1974)…my sister was watching Midnight Special and to see them…you didn’t forget. Then in 2014, the Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy came out and the song was part of my son’s childhood. It is a very good pop song from the 1970s. They were the first Native American band to have a top 5 hit.
Native American brothers Patrick and Candido “Lolly” Vasquez-Vegas were born in Coalinga, California. The brothers played with Oscar Peterson at the Monterey Jazz and Pop Festival before relocating to Los Angeles in 1963. They were serious musicians. They started to play around on the Vegas Strip.
They opened for Lenny Bruce, as well as Richard Pryor while writing and playing on records by Tina Turner, Sonny & Cher, James Brown, Little Richard, and Elvis ( on the soundtrack to the film “Kissin’ Cousins”), among other recording artists.
Jimi Hendrix saw them play and was knocked out. Jimi stated that Lolly Vegas was the best guitarist he had ever heard and suggested that they create a band. Knowing they were Native Americans, Jimi suggested a name that reflected their roots. The name that Jimi suggested was “Redbone”, a Cajun term for a mixed-race person.
The Vegas brothers met guitarist Tony Bellamy, and collaborated on the Jim Ford album “Harlan County”. The trio hired drummer Pete DePoe and signed with Epic Records in 1969.
Come and Get Your Love peaked at #5 on the Billboard 100 and #25 in Canada in 1974. The song has recently gained a new following by being on the “Guardians of the Galaxy” soundtrack. The band was not a one-hit wonder though. They had one other top 40 hit called The Witch Queen of New Orleans.
Come and Get Your Love
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with your head, yeah
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with your mind
And your sign an-a, oh-oh-oh
Hail (hail)
Nothin’ the matter with your head
Baby find it, come on and find it
Hail, with it baby
Cause you’re fine
And you’re mine, and you look so divine
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with you feel right
Don’t you feel right baby
Hail, oh yeah
Get it from the mainline, all right
I said-a find it, find it
Go on and love it if you like it, yeah
Hail (hail)
It’s your business if you want some, take some
Get it together baby
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love, now
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love, now
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love, now
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love, now
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with you feel right
Don’t you feel right baby
Hail (hail), all right
Get it from the main vine, all right
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. la, la
Come and get your love
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. woohoo
Come and get your love
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. la, la
Come and get your love
La, na, na, na, na, na, da, boom
Come and get your love
La, da boom, boom, boom, ta, daba, boom, boom
Come and get your love
La, la, la, la, la, la
Shocking Blue was a band out of the Netherlands with a sensational singer named Mariska Veres. She sounded like Grace Slick to me… Robbie van Leeuwen was the guitar player and he wrote most of the songs including this one.
This band had the worldwide number 1 hit Venus but I like many of their other songs more like Never Marry A Railroad Man (which should have been a hit), Mighty Joe, their version of I Ain’t Never, and Love Buzz which Nirvana covered.
This one has guitar hooks all over the place. The solo that Robbie Van Leeuwen plays is a huge hook itself. Mariska Veres’s voice is great and she has her own unique style that worked well with this band. This song peaked at #6 in the Netherlands and #13 in Belgium in 1971. This was a non-album single.
Shocking Blue was together from 1968-1974. They were known as a one-hit wonder with Venus but their other songs were hits in the Netherlands and were very good and sold a lot of records. They had some edge on their music and that is why I like them. If you are looking to find some old/new music…check this band out.
Mariska sadly died in 2006. With her voice, I’m shocked she didn’t have a more successful solo career.
Out Of Sight Out Of Mind
Love comes very easy and slips easy away
If you gotta go for a long, long time
Your baby promised you’ll be on his mind
Don’t be surprised if it turns out wrong
Out of sight, out of mind
That’s what happened a million times
Out of sight, out of mind
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Love has many faces and shows them all
When you have to kiss your baby goodbye
There is a presentiment you can’t deny
Will he come back, yes or no
My sister’s car in the 70s plus AM radio gave me my own soundtrack. This is one of the songs along with Leon Russell’s Tight Rope that was on the most played list on our AM station WMAK in Nashville.
Right Place, Wrong Time was Dr. John’s only trip to the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. It peaked at #9 in 1973 and #6 in Canada. For the longest time, I thought the name was “Brain Salad Surgery”. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer later used that name for their fourth album.
The song was on the album In The Right Place released in 1973. It peaked at #24 on the Billboard Album Charts. Before this album he was a musician’s musician but after he became a pop star.
Dr. John (Malcolm John Rebennack) put a little New Orleans in everything he did. Gregg Allman liked Dr. John when he first met him in Boston before the Allmans made it. Gregg took drugs but after seeing what John took…he thought that the Allmans were tame. Gregg was not a fan of the New Orleans gris-gris that John brought around…and he had a good reason not to be.
Gregg Allman: Dr. John also had a gris-gris situation going on too. Basically they were these bags that he had hanging around each shoulder which were leather or goatskin and smelled kinda funky. Inside the bags was this New Orleans voodoo stuff called gris-gris. He threw that gris-gris shit all in my brand-new Hammond—he was throwing whole handfuls of that shit. Gris-gris, my ass. It was gold glitter, and it went down through the keys, down into the stops, gumming the oil up. They had to take the organ apart and scrape down each piece. They said, “What is this crap?” and they charged me $190, which meant I could eat, but I couldn’t drink a cold beer for two weeks.
Dr. John: “That was my life for a long time. At the same time I was in the wrong place at the right time, and the right place in the wrong time, too. That was the problem. We’re always shifting those gears.”
Dr. John: “Originally, I felt to go commercial would prostitute myself and bastardize the music, on reflecting, I thought that if without messin’ up the music and keeping the roots and elements of what I want to do musically, I could still make a commercial record I would not feel ashamed from, I’m proud of, and still have a feel for – then it’s not a bad thing but it even serve a good purpose.”
Right Place, Wrong Time
I been in the right place but it must have been the wrong time I’d have said the right thing but I must have used the wrong line I been in the right trip but I must have used the wrong car My head was in a bad place and I’m wondering what it’s good for I been in the right place but it must have been the wrong time My head was in a bad place but I’m having such a good time
I been running trying to get hung up in my mind Got to give myself a good talking-to this time Just need a little brain salad surgery Got to cure my insecurity
I been in the wrong place but it must have been the right time I been in the right place but it must have been the wrong song I been in the right vein but it seems like the wrong arm I been in the right world but it seems wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
Slipping dodging sneaking creeping hiding out down the street See me life shaking with every ho’ I meet Refried confusion is making itself clear Wonder which way do I go to get on out of here
I been in the right place but it must have been the wrong time I’d have said the right thing but I must have used the wrong line I’d have took the right road but I must have took a wrong turn Would’ve made the right move but I made it at the wrong time I been on the right road but I must have used the wrong car My head was in a good place and I wonder what it’s bad for
I heard this song as a kid constantly but never knew who was singing it. It was written by Delaney Bramlett, and, according to some sources, by his wife Bonnie Bramlett. It was originally recorded with his band, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, in 1971 on the album Motel Shot.
So many great musicians played on Motel Shot. Duane Allman, Joe Cocker, Jim Keltner, Bobby Keys, Dave Mason, Gram Parsons, Leon Russell, Clarence White, and Bobby Whitelock just to name a few. Delaney and Bonnie were important in the lives of Eric Clapton and George Harrison.
Coming out of Cream…Eric liked the looseness of the band as they traveled around with members going in and out. He jumped in and toured and brought George Harrison with him. Both men developed a deep, abiding, and…as it would turn out, decades-long fascination with acoustic-based music. And a musical linchpin for both of them was the husband and wife duo, Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. Though they enjoyed success on their own, the Bramletts are most often remembered for their associations with other musicians.
As the title suggests…they did record some of the album in a motel room and in Bruce Botnick’s (audio engineer and record producer) living room. They treated the recording like a party. Whichever musicians were there…that was who was on the song. They recorded this in the summer of 1970 and after switching record companies…it was released in 1971. There is still confusion on who played on what track.
The song peaked at #1 in New Zealand, #13 on the Billboard 100, and #6 in Canada in 1971.
Never Ending Song Of Love
I’ve Got A Never Ending Love For You From Now On That’s All I Wanna Do From The First Time We Met I Knew I’d Have Never Ending Love For You
I’ve Got A Never Ending Love For You From Now On, That’s All I Wanna Do From The First Time We Met I Knew I’d Have A Never Ending Love For You
After All This Time Of Being Alone We Can Love One Another Feel For Each Other From Now On
It’s So Good I Can Hardly Stand It
Never Ending Love For You From Now On That’s All I Wanna Do From The First We Met I Knew I’d Sing My Never Ending Song Of Love For You
Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do….
After All This Time Of Being Alone We Can Love One Another Feel For Each Other From Now On
It’s So Good I Can Hardly Stand It
Never Ending Love For You From Now On That’s All I Wanna Do From The First We Met I Knew I’d Sing My Never Ending Song Of Love For You
I’ve Got A Never Ending Love For You From Now On That’s All I Wanna Do From The First Time We Met I Knew I’d Sing My Never Ending Song Of Love For You
Everyone…I messed up last week. While making these, I go to Wiki’s Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles to go over some of the singles and then… I look at album cuts. Well, I didn’t check to see when American Pie was released…it was released in late 1971…but I would never have left that one off…ever. So forgive me…I won’t do this again…but I am leading off with it. It did its damage on the charts in 1972…so this one time I’m breaking my rule. It’s too important of a song.
American Pie… by Don Mclean. Where do I begin with this one? The song has so many references that it acts as a pop culture index itself. We do know the song was inspired by Buddy Holly’s death… What does it all mean? While being interviewed in 1991, McLean was asked for probably the 1000th time “What does the song ‘American Pie’ mean to you?,” to which he answered, “It means never having to work again for the rest of my life.” Now that is a great and honest answer by Mclean.
The holy trinity of power pop for me is…Badfinger, Big Star, and The Raspberries…those were the 70s pioneers. Badfinger was the most successful out of the three…hit wise anyway. You can hear later bands like Cheap Trick, The Posies, Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, and even KISS get something from each three.
This is my personal number 1 Power Pop song of all time. Baby Blue was written by Pete Ham.
He was playing in a Rock and Roll revival show in 1971 at Madison Square Gardens with other artists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Bobby Rydell. Ricky Nelson was releasing new music and he did not look the way he did in the 50s. He had long hair and dressed modern. He started off with some of his old songs the fans responded enthusiastically but then he played “Country Honk” a country version of the Rolling Stones “Honky Tonk Women.” That is when it went south.
Arlo Guthrie seems like the most laid-back guy in the world. His father was the great singer-songwriter, Woody Guthrie. Arlo wrote some very good songs but he didn’t write this one. The City of New Orleans was written by Steve Goodman. Steve did a great job writing this song. Its structure and imagery are fantastic.
After seeing the screenplay, Mayfield jumped into this movie project and was given complete creative freedom. He wrote the songs to suit the scenes, but he made sure they could stand on their own, telling the stories even without the visuals. “Superfly” works very well outside of the film. It was written by Curtis Mayfield. I saw this on the big screen a few years ago.
This song I wrote in 10 minutes…it took me 10 years to think it up though…Waylon Jennings
This is country music that I really like. Waylon was part of the Outlaw country movement of the 1970s and he was a badass. This song is a tribute to Hank Willaims and also questions the extravagance of the modern country stars of the 70s with their “new shiny cars” and “rhinestone suits”.
The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard Country Charts and #21 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks…it also made it in the Billboard 100 at #60 in 1975.
Waylon acted more like a rock star. He took that Outlaw title to heart. He used the Hells Angels as bodyguards and hung out and partied with them. Lynyrd Skynyrd was known as rough and fighters but when they shared a plane with Jennings and the Angels… they gave them plenty of room and stayed quiet like school boys.
In the seventies, Waylon took a pistol to a recording studio one time because he didn’t like studio musicians. He knew they were great musicians but they didn’t give any new ideas so he was joking around with the pistol about shooting someone’s fingers off if they didn’t play well. It wasn’t serious and everyone there knew it was a joke… but rumors got around that he was serious. Later on in 1975 at the Grammys… Waylon Jennings and John Lennon met backstage. They started talking to each other and really hit it off. Waylon was surprised because he told John that he was very funny but he thought he was some kind of madman because of John’s press. John then told him that people in England thought Waylon shot people.
Lennon wrote him a letter after that and there was even talk of Waylon recording a song by Lennon (Tight A$ on Mind Games). Not much came of it but the letter was found when Waylon passed away and sold at auction.
Waylon was hired to play bass for Buddy Holly on that last tour and he gave up his seat on the plane for J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) and ended up saving his own life. So he was in rock and roll before country.
Also…if you see the live clip…Waylon used that guitar for years. My guitar tech was Waylon’s guitar tech. The guitar was at the shop one day and Turner (the tech) told me to come over and play it. Of course, I did…I’ve never seen a guitar with leather…and I’ll never forget it. It was sometime in the late eighties or early nineties. He used that guitar from the 70’s to the mid-nineties.
Waylon Jennings: “I met John Lennon, and we were cutting up and everything at one of the Grammy things, and I said, man, you’re funny. I didn’t know you were funny,’ I said, ‘I thought you were some kind of mad guy or something like that.”
John Lennon: “Listen, people in England think you shoot folks.”
Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way
Lord it’s the same old tune, fiddle and guitar Where do we take it from here? Rhinestone suits and new shiny cars It’s been the same way for years We need a change
Somebody told me, when I came to Nashville Son you finally got it made Old Hank made it here, and we’re all sure that you will But I don’t think Hank done it this way No, I don’t think Hank done it this way
Ten years on the road, makin’ one night stands Speedin’ my young life away Tell me one more time just so’s I’ll understand Are your sure Hank done it this way? Did ol’ Hank really do it this way?
Lord I’ve seen the world, with a five piece band Looking at the back side of me Singing my songs, and one of his now and then But I don’t think Hank done ’em this way I don’t think Hank done it this way Take it home
I hardly ever do birthdays or anniversaries except the ones I repeat…but this one lined up perfectly. John Lennon would have been 83 today. He has been gone 43 years…more than the 40 years he spent alive.
I bought this in the late seventies at Port ‘O’ Call Records in Nashville. One of my favorites of John’s radio hits. It was released in 1973 and peaked at #18 in the Billboard 100, #26 in the UK, and #11 in Canada. It didn’t do great on the charts but has remained one of my favorites and continues to be played on classic rock radio stations.
When Lennon was starting Mind Games…he separated from Yoko Ono and started an 18-month stint known as his lost weekend. He spent the time getting drunk with Harry Nilsson, Keith Moon, and others along with a small reunion with Paul McCartney in Los Angeles. He was living with May Pang and they eventually moved back to New York where he reunited with Yoko and had Sean.
I also bought the Mind Games album and it was the fourth album I had by him. You didn’t have the raw emotion that the first two gave you but it was a good pop album. With songs like “I Know, I Know” it remains in my rotation along with Walls and Bridges his follow-up album.
John got the name from a book called Mind Games by y Robert Masters and Jean Houston. The book was about promoting mental health through a raised consciousness. Some of the content of the book found its way into this song.
The original title was ‘Make Love Not War’ but John saw that as such a worn-out cliche at this time… he couldn’t use it. He tried to make the same message in the song though.
Usually, I don’t mention much about the video…but this one is great if you like John Lennon.
John Lennon: How many times can you say the same thing over and over? When this came out in the early Seventies, everybody was starting to say the Sixties was a joke; it didn’t mean anything; those love-and-peaceniks were idiots. [Sarcastically] ‘We all have to face the reality of being nasty human beings who are born evil, and everything’s gonna be lousy and rotten so boo-hoo-hoo…’ ‘We had fun in the Sixties,’ they said, ‘but the others took it away from us and spoiled it all for us’…‘No, just keep doin’ it.’”
Mind Games
We’re playing those mind games together
Pushing the barriers planting seeds
Playing the mind guerrilla
Chanting the Mantra peace on earth
We all been playing those mind games forever
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil
Doing the mind guerrilla
Some call it magic the search for the grail
Love is the answer and you know that for sure
Love is a flower
You got to let it, you gotta let it grow
So keep on playing those mind games together
Faith in the future out of the now
You just can’t beat on those mind guerrillas
Absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind
Yeah we’re playing those mind games forever
Projecting our images in space and in time
Yes is the answer and you know that for sure
Yes is surrender
You got to let it, you gotta let it go
So keep on playing those mind games together
Doing the ritual dance in the sun
Millions of mind guerrillas
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel
Keep on playing those mind games forever
Raising the spirit of peace and love
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 