Fifty Years of Music • January, 1974 • Forever Young

I rarely include every song from every album I feature, but I believe the January, 1974 releases were that good. 

Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell's most popular album of her career and is the album that cements her as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time.

Wild Tales, Graham Nash

Graham Nash puts out a good solid album, nothing that compares to his old girlfriend, but he's in a very large group when being compared to Joni. 

The Phosphorescent Rat, Hot Tuna

Hot Tuna is a band I never listened to as a young person. As an older person I can now appreciate Jorma Kaukonen (guitars) and Jack Casady (bass) talent as musicians not only as former members of Jefferson Airplane, but also their ability to write very catchy songs that should have gained them more popular attention back in the day as Hot Tuna.

Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons

Gram Parsons makes the best album of his far too short career, cut short by a combination of a alcohol and morphine overdose. Parsons died at the tender age of 26 on September 19, 1973. I believe if Parsons had lived to see many more years, we would be talking about him in Willie Nelson terms. From my perspective, I see Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris as the modern birth parents of the Americana genre.

Planet Waves, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan can still sing in 1974 and Planet Waves is one of his most passed over albums. Anybody who has The Band as their backup band is going to make an album people are going to listen to. I love that he includes both the fast and slow version of Forever Young on the same album. Bob's average work would be other artists greatest albums. 

Hot Cakes, Carly Simon

She and James are making babies and great albums together and I'm going to be shattered in a few years when they break up. It would be just another chapter in my personal end of the innocence moments of my early twenties. 

Billboard Top 100, January, 1974

Here are a few picks scattered about from the January, 1974 Billboard 100 as most of these songs were released in 1973 but hey, you don't mind.

Enjoy the playlist my friends. May you stay forever young.

Fifty Years of Music • February, 1972

 
February 1972 , I get down to the record shop to promptly purchase Neil Young's new album Harvest. It's got a great album graphic but I'll never forget the tactile textural feel of the recycled paper cover. Vinyl albums for me in the 1970's sometimes became a total sensory experience. Now in my opinion Harvest is a really good album, but not as great as his previous album in 1971, After The Gold Rush. Harvest would become the best selling album of 1972. 

The success of Harvest scares Neil, he's become too mainstream, too popular and promptly retreats into making non-commercial albums for many years thereafter.

Sometime in 1972, I visit my friend Paul Hobbs as he wants me to listen to Todd Rundgren's new double album, Something/Anything? We both love it! In 2003, the album was ranked number 173 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The success of Something / Anything? apparently scares Todd too. He's become too mainstream, too popular and promptly retreats into making non-commercial albums for many years thereafter.

What the f***?

Paul, I guess we were just two young and stupid consumer capitalists feeding the corporate record gods. Geez and 1972 was a good music year too... but not as great as 1971...

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1972 is a continuation from the late 60's of all these wonderful bands just falling apart and members making solo albums or forming new splinter bands. This past week, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Hot Tuna, the break-off project of Jefferson Airplane's members Jorma Kaukonen (guitarist/vocals) and Jack Casady (bassist). I also enjoyed Traffic's Dave Mason and Jim Capaldi's solo albums. But that lead me down the path of 'what if' these bands had just stayed together and made better albums together with their mothership bands. I guess it was just 'too soon' at the time with my break-up traumas of The Beatles and CSNY. Hell, I still haven't gotten over that, not to mention the late 60's break-ups of Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, and The Mamas & The Papas.

•••••••••••

Speaking of  The Beatles and 1972, let's finish this installment with my recommendation to watch Good Ol' Freda. (Here is the link on Amazon Prime.) This is a 2013 documentary about The Beatles secretary, Freda Kelly hired by Brian Epstein when she was only 17 years old. She was also the The Beatles fan club president and worked for them from 1962-1972. I came upon it the other night and thought it was fantastic.

Enjoy the playlist my friends!