Fifty Years of Music • April, 1973

April of 1973 finds me instantly buying Seals and Crofts Diamond Girl as the soft rock duo is at the height of their careers. 

Their 1974 follow up, Unborn Child would smack their young fans in the face with their anti-abortion stance as Roe v Wade had just been passed in January of 1973. Looking back 50 years later, I guess the duo got their wish as the Supreme Court ended Roe v Wade last June, not to mention our current political landscape. For me, Unborn Child was an awakening of how religion and rock 'n' roll simply don't mix. 

Diamond Girl, and Seals and Crofts' previous albums had played that middle ground of rock 'n' roll fan tolerance, as we all love a good song about peace and unity without dipping deep into the religious dogma. My enthusiasm for Seals and Crofts (and their fan base) dropped off instantly. Also, anybody remember Yusuf Islam?

But in 1973, I was a huge Seals and Crofts fan and wore out Diamond Girl and Year of Sunday on my portable record player in my room.

Upon the release of David Bowie's, Aladdin Sane, I hardly gave it a thought as "glam" rock was not in my orbit. However, by the summer of '73 I was dating the Judge's daughter and she had just bought that album. In any event, I heard a lot of Aladdin Sane and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars that year, and my appreciation for Mr. Bowie continues to this day, with one big caveat. Bowie, looking past the Ziggy Stardust character should have never dropped his guitar player and arranger, Mick Ronson. What a team those two made! David was always the star without having to throw out Mick Ronson with the bath water. 

If it's one thing most bands who become famous seem to forget and eventually lose, is that duality of talent that got them to the big stage in the first place. There's a lot to be said about the Rolling Stones, but you have to give a tip of the hat to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as those two seemed to figure it out through periods of separation, and not the finality of divorce.

In listening to Paul McCartney and Wings Red Red Speedway, and Stephen Stills and Manassas' Down the Road, I was a little more impressed 50 years later, but back in 1973, not so much. I was a huge fan of both and it seemed that the quality had dropped off by many of the 1960's rock 'n' roll gods.

However, three albums that came out in April, 1973 would quickly change my spirits. 

On April 17, 1973 one of my favorite albums of all-time, Desperado was released by the Eagles. That will be my feature next week.

In two weeks, Paul Hobbs returns with his take of the April 1973 release of The Beatles' two compilation albums, 1962-1966 and, 
1967-1970. 

Enjoy the playlist my friends.

50 Years of Music • September, 1970

Repipe came in through the bathroom walls

September, 2020 finds me in my (almost) 50 year old house and she's starting to show her age. The past several months have been, "Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling" as the ol' copper pipes sounded like a jackhammer when we turned the water on. This condition in the plumbing biz is actually called, "water hammer" or as the plumber called it, "Hammer Time."

This past month has been a scene right out of Beetlejuice as the walls would rattle and the downstairs bathroom floor tiles were getting warmer and warmer. It finally dawned on me, "Dear I believe we've sprung a hot water leak underneath the concrete slab."

Well, After consulting my old buddy and contractor, Ron Zieman he guided me to go with a complete "Pex" repipe of the entire house. A repipe, cuts off the copper lines leading under the slab and are replaced with the Pex pipe rerouted within all of the walls and ceiling. Why, because you don't have to tear out the floor and slab to fix one leak, and then do it all over again somewhere else in the house and keep rolling the dice.

Anyway, the repipe and drywall jobs went great and I just have to repaint the exterior stucco by the kitchen, the kitchen, downstairs bedroom, laundry room and this downstairs bath just completed yesterday to the missus specifications.

The really cool thing now is we have new shower and bath fixtures in both bathrooms with great water pressure throughout the house, and you don't have to worry about flushing the toilet in the downstairs bathroom and scalding the person taking a shower in the upstairs bathroom anymore!

I still found time this week to musically go back in time to 1970 where 'they' came up with the brilliant idea to put the plumbing system underneath the concrete foundation.

Music wise September, 1970 was a great month with releases from: The Byrds, The Rolling Stones (Live also featuring B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner), Billy Preston, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, The Allman Brothers Band, Seals and Crofts, Jesus Christ Superstar, Glen Campbell, Santana, Johnny Winter, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and James Brown.

So, I now got a new playlist to whistle while I work. Enjoy my friends, register to VOTE, and stay well.

Seals and Crofts and the Tree of Oneness

Quick update 9/9/17 - Paul Hobbs my dear friend and a musical mentor to me requests adding Ridin' Thumb and Tin Town from Seals and Crofts 1970 album, Down Home to the Youtube playlist. I would listen to that album with Paul at his house in high school, so Pauly here you go...

I often get inspiration to write a blog after listening to a song by an individual artist or band. Such was the case last week on my trail run with my trusty Amazon Music Phone App set to online shuffle. The song, Year of Sunday by Seals and Crofts came on from their 1971 (and best album) of the same name. As is so often the case on my runs, I reflect about things and my mind was on Charlottesville and the division of hate spreading across our land. The Year of Sunday is a song that comes from Jimmy Seals and Dash Crofts practice in the Bahá'í Faith "a religion teaching the essential worth of all religions, and the unity and equality of all people."

Now I'm not a religious person but want to emphasise my own secular humanism and spirit in general has a spirituality that continually directs my inner compass. With that said, it doesn't mean that I can't connect with "religious music" or content, in fact I love many different traditional hymns and especially gospel music as essentially the roots to folk, the blues and on to rock n' roll.

So Year of Sunday comes on and a flood of memories and emotions come rushing over me as I played that album to death in high school, but also the current, and why are we still so divided as a nation over race?

We all live in the Year of Sunday

So many things are in store for us

Oh, what a gift to be born in

Sunday's beautiful light way down here in the dusk

People, return to the tree of oneness

Oh, won't you hurry the presence is there

Down on our knees in the darkness of Sunday

We'll find the answers to all of our prayers

So I'm listening to the lyrics and the line, " People, return to the tree of oneness" washes over me. Those are words to live by and guide me. I'm just one person but take great comfort in John Lennon's line, "but I'm not the only one."

Seals and Crofts carried that spirit with them as they strived forward in their personal lives along with that same passion to bring their music forward and "to make it" in the very tough music business. And boy did they make great music! I love their musicianship with Jimmy Seals on guitars, sax and violin (he was Texas State Fiddle Champion at 9 years old) and, Dash Crofts on mandolin and guitars. The combo of acoustic guitar and mandolin were perfect timing in the golden era of the singer-songwriter (shouldn't it be "songwriter-singer," in that order?). Seals and Crofts were a great band as you have to listen to their deep cuts. Other than the 1973 hit, "Diamond Girl," I really didn't care for all their other hits that I didn't include on my playlist below. In fact in putting together the playlist from basically 1970 - 1978, I could hear how their label, Warner Brothers increasingly overproduced that original acoustic guitar and mandolin sound with orchestration and 70's pop arrangements to sell their records. If you have time, go the Seals and Crofts Wikipedia site to get the backstory including their time with Glen Campbell in the band, The Champs and on their homepage for a recent update.

I found it interesting that there is not a lot video of Seals and Crofts in concert or on TV other than their hits. So this playlist is going to be a listening experience and possibly one where you haven't heard many of these recorded songs that take me back to putting on the vinyl and sitting back for a good listen. And as Ringo would say, "Peace and Love."