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. 

50 Years of Music • January - March, 1970

50 Years of Music Series • 1970

January - March | April - May

Simon and Garfunkel at the 1971 13th Annual Grammy Awards | Bettmann/Getty Images

Something old, something new... part of the good luck tradition for a bride on her wedding day. In the past several months I haven't seen any brides floating about, but thought I'd borrow the expression.

Three weeks ago, I put together a playlist of "something new" music releases from January-March, 2020 thinking that might be popular with so many people home and online. It wasn't a dud but maybe not the #ComfortSongs to go along with maybe some of the #ComfortFoods you've been wanting or having at your #StayatHome. By the way, has cooking made a comeback at your house too?

Last week, I put together the 50th anniversary of CSN&Y's Déjà vu album, and Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon, and that got a pretty good bump of blog hits coming in. With that in mind, I'll continue the "something old" theme by highlighting albums released from January - March from 1970. It's an amazing collection of albums and the number of great songs within those albums are truly impressive.

Here are a few thoughts I strung together while putting this 100+ Playlist together derived from my Wikipedia source, 1970 in music.

I'll start with the Grammy album of the year for 1970,
Bridge over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel. What's not to like on this entire album. If I have to pick one to start off the playlist, I'm going with Cecilia an all-time favorite which also reminds me of a quick story growing up in a Baptist Church. I remember when Love The One You're With was a hit by Stephen Stills in late 1970 and a girl in my youth group commented to me, "I just can't stand these dirty songs like Cecilia and Love The One You're With." About a year later, I came up to her at church and said, "Guess you'll have to add Change Partners to your dirty songs list."

The Magic Christian was a February 1970 movie starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. The soundtrack, Magic Christian Music is by the band Badfinger and features their first big hit written and produced by Paul McCartney, Come and Get It. I thought this was going to be a quick skip-through album, but I kept saying to myself, "wait a minute, this one's good...this one's good" and so on. Like so many albums I discover fifty years after their release, Magic Christian Music's a gem from a truly great band as most people only know their hits.

Last week I watched a 2011 documentary about George Martin (the 5th Beatle) on Amazon Prime called, Produced by George Martin (link here) that I highly recommend. George Martin produced Ringo's first solo album, Sentimental Journey and the two make a great team doing a complete album of "standards" that had not had been attempted by any rock star until Ringo did it. Ringo has always been maligned by the press over the years, but now most critics say he's not only a great drummer but a very good singer to boot. Listen to Ringo sing Night and Day by Cole Porter.

When I was fifteen, I would have never have listened to Frank Sinatra's Watertown, much less Ringo's Sentimental Journey. In Watertown, Sinatra takes a 1970 ride on the singer-songwriter wave with a themed-based album.  All the songs were written by the same team of  Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes which is something Frank had never done before. This indeed was a risky move as Watertown was Frank's worst selling album, but the critics loved it and I think it's a wonderful album too. It's a heartbreaking tale of a wife who leaves her husband and two children searching for stardom. Make sure you listen to, The Train.

If I didn't mention the band Mountain here, I'd probably get a concerning phone call from my old friend and childhood next door neighbor Ron Zieman wondering if I lost my mind. Ron introduced me to the best "heavy" rock bands over the years starting with Cream. Felix Pappalardi who produced some of Cream's albums started Mountain with Leslie West and their first album Climbing climbed the charts with their big hit, Mississippi Queen. When the group proceeded to record "Mississippi Queen", Pappalardi insisted on numerous takes. Growing weary, Corky Laing the drummer started using the cowbell to count off the song. Pappalardi liked it so much he left it in the mix, creating the song's recognizable intro (Wikipedia). And as Christopher Walken would say, "More Cowbell."

Moondance is simply one of the greatest albums of all time. As a teenager I really didn't appreciate Van Morrison until I got to San Diego State and started rooming with my buddy Mark Hunter. Mark was from Millbrae CA, just south of San Francisco and if you're from the Bay Area you know "Van the man." Every song on this album is fantastic. In the last several years, I've really taken a deeper dive into his music and loved seeing him in Las Vegas in February. Check out Into the Mystic, this song is right up there...

The personnel on Leon Russell's debut album is largely a who's who of rock 'n' roll royalty, not to mention half of England. Again, so many great songs on this album including the all-time, "A Song for You", written by Russell, is a slow, pained plea for forgiveness and understanding from an estranged lover, the tune is one of Russell's best-known compositions. It has been performed and recorded by over 200 artists, spanning many musical genres. Elton John has called the song an American classic (Wikipedia).

I purchased Nilsson Sings Newman in a used record shop after Harry Nilsson become really famous with his 1971 album, Nilsson Schmilsson. Again, this album is filled with great songs. Both albums followed me to college and I listened to them often in my dorm room and then in a series of forgettable apartments. In fact in my first forgettable apartment, my complete stereo system was stolen (a high school graduation present) with Harry Nilsson's 1974 Pussy Cats album on the turntable. I'll never forget coming home, opening the door and seeing a large empty space where the stereo system used to be with now the Pussy Cats empty album jacket laying in its place. My first thought was F***!!!!!, then I thought, well Pussy Cats was not Harry's finest hour on vinyl. But as long as I'm talking today about great "standards" albums like Sentimental Journey and Watertown today, check out Nilsson's 1973 A Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, a classic and one of Harry's finest hours.

Mary Kit says to me, "108 videos this week, man you must have some spare time..."