Fifty Years of Music • January, 1971

1969 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser Station Wagon

"Well it's been fifty years somewhere." 

–Anonymous

As we roll into 2021, I'm going to keep the monthly feature of going back to reconnect with music released 50 years ago from the current month, and so that takes us to January, 1971. Here's a quick timeline of events and a special automobile.

• Jan. 1- The last cigarette commercials on U.S. television and radio were broadcast, and tobacco manufacturers spent $1,250,000 for the farewell advertising prior to the ban that went into effect at midnight. The last commercial was a 60-second ad for Virginia Slims that was run by the Philip Morris company at 11:59 during a break on The Tonight Show on NBC. The company had bought the last pre-midnight ads on the late night talk shows of all three networks, with ads for Marlboro on CBS on The Merv Griffin Show and for Benson & Hedges on ABC on The Dick Cavett Show.
• Jan. 5 - Former world heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston was found dead in his Las Vegas home, after having last been heard from a week earlier. A coroner determined that Liston had probably died on December 30 after falling while alone. The date was arrived at based on the number of newspapers and milk that had been delivered to his home but not picked up.
• Jan. 12 - The landmark television sitcom All in the Family premiered on CBS at 9:30 in the evening, opposite the ABC and NBC made-for-TV movies.
• Jan. 25 -The murder trial of serial killer Charles Manson and three of his "Manson Family" followers ended with the jury returning guilty verdicts against all four. Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins were convicted of seven counts of first degree murder in the Tate–LaBianca murders of August 9 and 10, 1969, and Leslie Van Houten was found guilty of the five murders committed on August 9.
• Jan. 30 - The UCLA Bruins college basketball team began a winning streak of 88 consecutive games, defeating UC-Santa Barbara 74-61, seven days after losing to the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, 89-82. Ironically, Notre Dame would end the streak, defeating UCLA 71-70 on January 19, 1974.
• Jan. 31 - Apollo 14, carrying astronauts Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell on the first manned lunar mission since the failure of Apollo 13, lifted off from Cape Kennedy. 
  From January 1971, Wikipedia

That puts me at almost sixteen with still just a Driver's Permit behind the wheel of the family station wagon with either mom or dad. Here the car pictured above from a Google search is the spitting image of how our Vista Cruiser looked in 1971. I couldn't wait until my birthday in March to take my driver's test, and captain 'the big boat' by myself.

My lasting memories of the ol' wagon are: the smell of cigarettes embedded in the green vinyl seats as my mom had banned my dad from smoking in the house; sitting in the second row bench seat and looking up through the progressively designed tinted top and sides sun roof windows; and, telling friend Bill DeVoe a story while driving- looking at him instead of the road, Bill yelling, "look out!" and then me swerving like the tour guide on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland to avoid rear-ending a car waiting to make a left turn- I made a hard right, narrowly missing the car, and corrected with a hard left to avoid the sidewalk curb, and a then a moderate right back to center in the road, and continued on the way to my house. Bill just looked at me and said, "You lucky bastard."

The playlist this week brought back memories too. Janis Joplin had just died in October, 1970 from a heroin overdose at the tender age of twenty-seven. At fifteen, I remember thinking, how does someone die at twenty-seven when not in a war, or car accident? Her album, Pearl was released in January, 1971 that went #1 on the Billboard 200 for nine weeks. Me and Bobby McGee also went to #1 as a single from Pearl as her cover of this Kris Kristofferson song brought him into the spotlight.

Nantucket Sleighride from the band Mountain was also released in January, 1971 but it missed me because my friend and next door neighbor Ron Zieman had moved back to New York the previous summer. Ron was a big Mountain fan and I know I would have been blasted in the confines of Ron's bedroom to the sounds of Nantucket Sleighride. Sadly, Mountain's big man Leslie West who played lead guitar and vocals just pasted away on December 23, 2020. Recently, Ron and I connected on the phone to talk about West and his talented bandmate (Cream and Mountain Producer), Felix Pappalardi, who was shot and killed by his wife Gail Collins in 1983. 

'Fifty years of Music' is a great exercise for me to rediscover musicians and bands who I was not exposed to back in the day. Ian (or Iain) Matthews is a perfect example of somebody who I have heard of mainly through his band Matthews Southern Comfort, but really haven't heard his music. That is now changing as I started listing to his second solo album, released in January, 1971, If You Saw Thro' My Eyes. As I was listening to the album, I kept saying to myself, "Why do I not know this guy?" If you like folk/Americana, you're going to want to dive into Iain Matthews.

Lastly, The Point! a children's story and album by Harry Nilsson is a long time favorite of mine. As a bonus, I've included the entire one hour and fourteen minute adaption of the story as its available as a YouTube video! You can watch it, only if you first listen to my playlist (just kidding, kinda). The Point, an animated adaptation of the story, first aired February 2, 1971, and was the first animated special ever to air in prime time on US television; it appeared on the ABC television network as an ABC Movie of the Week. The film was directed by Fred Wolf and produced by Murakami-Wolf Films in association with Nilsson House Music. YouTube

Stay well my friends and mask-up!

The Point, 1971 Animated Movie 

Story Narrated by Harry's friend, Ringo Starr

Note - There is a slight glitch in this video as it starts at almost the end?

With your cursor, simply move the red 'Time' bar left back to the beginning at 0:00. 

September & October 1969, 50 Years of Music

In the past several weeks I have highlighted The Beatles' Abbey Road and Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry, both released in September of 1969. This week, I focus on other albums released in September and October of that year with an ear to AM Radio. Being fourteen and a white kid from a small farming town, my main exposure to music of the day came from AM stations.

Even though I never purchased a 45 single or album from Motown (until Stevie Wonder in the 70's), I constantly was exposed to pop, soul and R&B by black artists on AM Radio. I didn't realize it at the time, but those tunes sunk in deep in my soul, and as I got older, I began to appreciate them more and more, and don't you know they stand the test of time.

Three of my all-time Motown favorites are featured here with releases by the singing duo of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Tammy died in 1970 at the age of  twenty-four from brain cancer. For me, this was Motown's best singing duo that was cut way too short and as the saying goes, "the good die young." Also got to give a shout out to The Temptations and The Supremes who made an album together in 1969. The Supremes are a very special group in the history of american music as their world wide fame reached across the races and opened up the door for many black artists to perform center stage in any city.

So here's my own TOP 40 (actually now 44) from that period that include some BIG hits and some songs you may have never heard before. Enjoy my friends.