Tag: 1970s

Bill Champlin | I Don’t Want You Anymore

Bill Champlin, perhaps best known for his membership in the band Chicago during the 1980s and 1990s, earlier served as “lead singer, primary songwriter, keyboard player, rhythm guitarist, and occasional saxophonist in the Bay Area band the Sons of Champlin from 1965 to 1977, shepherding the middle-level San Francisco rock group through seven modestly selling albums,” (AllMusic). “In August 1977, he quit the band that bore his name and moved to Los Angeles, where he became a busy session singer. Not surprisingly, that soon led to his own solo recording contract and his debut album, Single … Champlin had hooked up with producer David Foster to write and record a collection of love songs very much in the mold of Boz Scaggs’ blue-eyed soul blockbuster Silk Degrees.”

The review goes on to describe the album as “sleek — and sometimes slick — ’70s white R&B, as played by a cast of Los Angeles studio pros including all six of the future members of Toto.” Backing vocalists included blue-eyed soul A-listers Michael McDonald and Daryl Hall. “At the center of it all is Champlin, whose soulful, rhythmic voice ranges from a tender tenor to a gruff baritone, sometimes in the same line … This is an album concerned with style, not substance, and it is a state-of-the-art example of studio craft, circa 1978. So, why didn’t anybody buy it? Probably because it went almost completely unpromoted …”

Between a hyperkinetic rhythm section, multi-layered and intensely syncopated backing vocals, intermittent assists from shimmering synths, and yes, plenty of emphatic cowbell, the full chart for the funk-driven uptempo pop tune “I Don’t Want You Anymore” might rival an orchestral score. Although the lyrics are a bit of a downer, the yacht rock quotient is otherwise strong here! After a short instrumental break (2:44), the tune shifts up a whole step at 2:54.

Little River Band | Happy Anniversary

“If you were listening to Top 40 around 1977-78, you know all about ‘Happy Anniversary,’ which narrowly missed the Top 10 at that time,” (Something Else Reviews). “For those of you who weren’t around, ‘Happy Anniversary’ was one of those snappy, mildly country-ish pop tunes laden with rich harmonies that sounded like soft California rock at its finest –except that these blokes were from Down Under. The deal-sealer is that funky undercurrent; the popping bassline not only works with the Nashville elements of the song, it makes the song downright irresistible.

The upbeat tone … belies that fact that it’s about a busted relationship, but hey, it’s got that funky bassline, so everything’s good. In fact, the album from which this ditty came, … Diamantina Cocktail, is arguably the best CSN album that Crosby, Stills and Nash never made.”

After the tune starts in E minor, there’s a shift at 1:15 – 1:36 for the early bridge, which features a lighter feel, agile ornamentation from a (likely real) string section, and a D major tonality. After the bridge, the return to E minor also brings a rock feel driven by an energetic funk-inspired bassline. There are several ingredients here that might suggest yacht rock. Yacht or Nyacht lists several LRB tunes, but they score low on YON’s scale. “Happy Anniversary” doesn’t make the list at all; despite checking a few boxes, it was released a little too early, and was a bit too short on breezy escapism, to have made the cut.

The Sylvers | Boogie Fever

“Among the more popular family acts on the ’70s R&B circuit, Memphis’ Sylvers (featured) no less than nine of the ten brothers and sisters in the family … the group was viewed as a Southern version of the Jackson 5,” (AllMusic). “Bassist James Jamerson came up with the ‘Boogie Fever’ bassline, and he clearly based it on the riff from the Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper,'” (StereoGum). “If it was anyone else biting ‘Day Tripper,’ the various ex-Beatles might’ve had some reason to get annoyed. But all through the ’60s, Jamerson was the bassist for the Funk Brothers, the legendary Motown session band. For years, Jamerson did fascinating, inventive things with his instrument. And Paul McCartney paid close attention; McCartney’s bass work on the Beatles’ mid-’60s music carries a clear and pronounced Jamerson influence. So if James Jamerson wanted to use the ‘Day Tripper’ riff for a bubblegum disco jam about a boogieing pandemic, nobody was going to stop him.

And ‘Boogie Fever’ (1976) really is top-shelf bubblegum disco. (Songwriter and producer Freddie) Perren manages to capture a whole lot of the magic he had with the early Jackson 5 … But Perren also updates that sound, adding in a relentless disco pulse that fits it nicely … but the real joy is in hearing all those different siblings layering up intricate, joyous harmony lines all over that beat. Because there are so many of them, they become a whole massed choir, breaking into little subgroups and then coming back together to yelp out the song’s title … “

This performance from 1970s/1980s late-night TV staple The Midnight Special seems to feature energy-to-burn live vocals (not lip synching) as well as a live band(?) After a start in F major, a bridge shifts up to G major at 1:32 – 1:46 and again from 2:26 – 2:39.

Rickie Lee Jones | Last Chance Texaco

“With her expressive soprano voice employing sudden alterations of volume and force, and her lyrical focus on Los Angeles street life, Rickie Lee Jones comes on like the love child of Laura Nyro and Tom Waits on her self-titled debut album (1979),” (AllMusic).

The personnel on the album leaned heavily towards players from the jazz genre, creating a sound that “follows the contours of Jones’ impressionistic stories about scuffling people on the streets and in the bars. There is an undertow of melancholy that becomes more overt toward the end, as the narrator’s friends and lovers clear out … But then, the romance of the street is easily replaced by its loneliness. Rickie Lee Jones is an astounding debut album that simultaneously sounds like a synthesis of many familiar styles and like nothing that anybody’s ever done before.”

“Last Chance Texaco” starts out with an apparent focus on auto maintenance — and its elevated importance as one’s location grows increasingly remote. But it later becomes clear that the focus is much broader, even though the automotive euphemisms endure throughout. Intermittent swelling and fading hints of a lonesome highway are evoked instrumentally during the verses, joined by Jones’ own multi-layered wordless backup vocal around 3:30. The easy 6/8 feel of the F# major chorus transitions to a poignant, restive chorus in E minor (first heard from 1:01 – 1:39). Make sure to check out the gorgeous lyrics, as Jones’ delivery varies hugely in both volume and clarity.

It’s her last chance
Her timing’s all wrong
Her last chance
She can’t idle this long
Her last chance
Turn her over and go
Pullin’ out of the last chance Texaco
The last chance

Loretta Lynn | Coal Miner’s Daughter

“When President Obama gave Loretta Lynn the Medal of Freedom in 2013 – the nation’s highest honour recognising significant achievements in politics, world peace, science and culture – he noted that she began writing her own songs with a $17 dollar guitar,” (Holler.Country). “‘With it,’ he said, ‘this coal miner’s daughter gave voice to a generation, singing what no one wanted to talk about and saying what no one wanted to think about.’ … (Lynn’s) career has always been about her humble life story, something that’s perfectly expressed in 1971’s Coal Miner’s Daughter, a record which might just represent the peak of her singular songwriting and creativity. When Loretta signed her first recording contract in 1960, she already had a handful of kids and an immoral husband who’d married her when she was just a teen … On ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’ every tiny, stark, heartfelt memory of Lynn’s life until that point came flooding to the fore. It’s an understated masterpiece of concision, drama and imagery – every verse a short story that’s rarely been equaled, even in a genre where storytelling and authenticity are the most prized assets.

Every song on Coal Miner’s Daughter would go on to hit home with Lynn’s fans, many of whom were women much like her, living near-identical lives. Throughout her career, she refused to be fenced in, kicking down country music complacency and putting up a flag for feminism (even if she was ambivalent about the label) with her honky-tonk directness … Infidelity, lechery, drunkenness – and even divorce – were grist to her mill … as fellow country legend Minnie Pearl simply put: ‘Loretta sang what women were thinking.'”

Lynn passed away this week at the age of 90. Of the 86 singles she released, “Coal Miner’s Daughter” might be her most memorable. It topped the Billboard country songs survey and becoming her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 (AllMusic). Textbook half-step key changes hit at 1:04 and 2:00.

Milton Nascimento | Raça

Brazilian vocalist Milton Nascimento “remembered how as a boy he had been obsessed with female singers and grew despondent when his voice began to break,” (The Guardian). “Only after hearing a Ray Charles recording of ‘Stella By Starlight’ age 13 did he grasp the beauty of the male voice. ‘He cured me that day,’ he said.” After many decades and 40+ albums, “News of Nascimento’s (Spring 2022) retirement has sparked an outpouring of nostalgia, a box office rush, and celebration of his astonishing vocal cords and vision. ‘[His voice] is strong at the same time that it’s delicate and fragile. It is precious … something that can convey such conflicting ideas at the same time. It’s unique,’ said Maria Rita, shedding tears as she described her affection for a man who took her under his wing after her mother’s premature death. ‘It feels like it’s from the soul … from a place that is familiar, but we don’t know yet – and I think that’s what my mom meant when she said that if God had a voice [it would be Milton’s].'”

” … Nascimento enjoys a vast global audience,” (AllMusic). “In addition to a resonant reedy tenor, he possesses an otherworldly falsetto that has led many to describe his music in spiritual terms. His self-titled 1967 debut established his meld of MPB, Brazilian folk forms, Tropicalia, rock, and samba” He went on to win several Grammy awards and recently completed a farewell tour at age 80.”

Released in 1976 as his material first became available in the United States, “Raça” (which translates to “race”) features a short melodic theme which alternates between two keys and cycles through many different strata of groove. The key shifts from C major and A major at 0:57, then back at 2:12.

The Real Thing | You To Me Are Everything

“You To Me Are Everything” was released as a single in 1976 by the British soul group The Real Thing. In an interview last month with the Guardian, Ken Gold, who produced and co-wrote the song, recalled that he and Mick Denne came up with the chorus quickly and wrote the whole song in less than an hour. “We were in the studio – the Roundhouse in London – the very next week,” Gold said, discussing the subsequent recording session. “Chris [the lead singer] wanted to take the melody in his own direction. He said he was trying to put some soul into it. But sitting up there in the control room, it just wasn’t working for me and I remember getting very nervous because he was starting to get a little combative. I said: “Honestly, Chris, I’d just like to hear you sing the melody exactly as it was written.” And that’s what we did. If you can write a melody that gets into someone’s head after just one play, then you have something people can sing.”

This track was the group’s only #1 hit, sitting atop the UK Singles chart for three weeks. The tune begins in C and shifts up to D at 2:41.

The Roches | Hammond Song

“The Roches were a magical musical act, influenced by barber-shop style tight harmonies, Irish melodies, bee-pop and the Brill Building writers,” (HotPress.com). “They wrote – either solo or in various combinations – songs about: their lives together and apart; sweaty train journeys; cheating husbands; dogs; waitressing; family secrets; trips to Ireland; and, sometimes, even an impossible and improbable relationship.

They didn’t fit in, but by not fitting in they presented the perfect template for all the rest of us who felt we didn’t fit in either. They eventually found a way to fit in by creating – stealing might even be a better word – a space for themselves in a music business distracted and preoccupied by rock, disco, and punk …they were not scared to show their horizons lay way beyond the perceived limits of folk, or any other contemporary music, for that matter.”

A track from the trio’s debut self-titled album (1979), “Hammond Song,” gives voice to the inevitable forks in life’s road and the consequences which follow. The Roche sisters’ keening vocal delivery is immediately recognizable after only a few notes. Their nearly vibrato-free vocal style would be quite unforgiving of any intonation issues, but the Roches’ excellent ears and unfettered originality turned into their force-of-nature delivery into their indelible signature. After a start in Eb major, 2:37 brings a shift to Bb major, and then there’s a reversion to the original key at 3:28. Both modulations slip by during relative lulls in the volume and texture of this otherwise rich vocal tapestry.

Natalie Cole | This Will Be

“Natalie Cole bloomed into a superstar with her debut single, ‘This Will Be,’ released in 1975 when she was 25 years old.” (JazzIz) With its funky, soulful sound, the song helped her step out of the shadow of her father, Nat ‘King’ Cole, one of the most iconic vocalists of the 20th century. Since its release, it has also been featured in several movies and was used in a long-running series of eHarmony commercials.

‘This Will Be’ was written and produced by Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy. It became a Billboard hit and earned Natalie a couple of GRAMMYs, including that for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, a category that had been dominated by Aretha Franklin up to that point. As mentioned, it also turned Cole into a major star and her popularity continued to soar through the ’70s. While drug issues would slow her down, she would launch a comeback that peaked with her 1991 album, Unforgettable … with Love.”

The track has a unique layout which doesn’t adhere to traditional songwriting structure; there doesn’t appear to be a chorus! After starting in Bb major with an extremely long groove-driven intro for a tune that clocks in at less than three minutes total, two verses unspool as Natalie sings an impeccable duet with herself. As the third verse begins, there’s a transition up to Db major at 1:02. Each verse has a different overlay of vocal melody, but the underlying chords are the same. A stop-time bridge appears at 1:29. The intensity ramps up right to the end; even as the volume fades, Cole unfurls more and more of her powerhouse upper range belt. The swing momentum, effortless vocal prowess, and the sheer joy she communicates through her performance are reminders of the Cole family’s jazz and pop legacy, which started in 1940.

The Street People | Jennifer Tomkins

In 1979, British-American singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes had a hit with “Escape (The Piña Colada song),” a Billboard #1, and a top song of the ’70s. But a decade earlier, he was working as a session musician on a planned release by the Cuff Links, a pop band with sugary hits like 1969’s “Tracy”. The Cuff Links’ singer was Ron Dante, also the voice of The Archies. Due to contractual restrictions, Dante was pulled from the project; Holmes released one of the tracks they’d been working on, 1970’s “Jennifer Tompkins,” under the name “The Street People.” That release made it to #36 on Billboard‘s Hot 100.

The lyrics tell the hard-luck tale of the song’s eponymous subject, offering an odd contrast with the sprightly musical track. Despite a running time of only 1:50, the song packs a satisfying series of modulations. The first half-step mod comes at 0:34. There’s a whole step mod at 1:18, followed by half-steps at 1:26, 1:34, and at 1:42 during the fade out.