Tag: 1970s

Peter Allen | Continental American

“In the 1970s, Peter Allen gained recognition both as a composer of romantic ballads such as ‘I Honestly Love You’ and ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud,’ and, contrastingly, as a flamboyant stage performer,” (AllMusic). Allen, an Australian, later served as an opener for Judy Garland. In 1970, Allen played his first show as a solo act at the Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village.

“Allen became interested in the trend toward introspective singer/songwriters in the early ’70s, and in writing more commercial music. Employed as a staff writer at Metromedia Records, he co-wrote ‘Jennifer’ with Carole Bayer Sager,” co-wrote “I Honestly Love You,” with Jeff Barry, (a #1 hit for Olivia Newton-John), and provided Melissa Manchester with the Top Ten song “Don’t Cry Out Loud” (co-written with Carole Bayer Sager). Rita Coolidge released a Top 40 hit with another Allen-Sager ballad, “I’d Rather Leave While I’m in Love.” Allen, Bayer Sager, Burt Bacharach, and Christopher Cross co-wrote the theme for the film comedy Arthur, which was a #1 hit for Cross in the fall of 1981 and won Allen and his fellow songwriters the Academy Award for best song. His songwriting career continued until he passed away from complications of HIV in 1992.

“Continental American (1974) was a dour singer/songwriter collection that used show business clichés in music and words to express a world view of regret and resignation.” Starting in G minor, the tonality of album’s title track flips over to the relative major (Bb) at 0:45. After another verse and chorus, an extended interlude starts at 2:25 in Bb mixolydian before a downward shift of tonality to A minor at 2:54, leading to the familiar flip to the relative C major. 3:34 brings a shift to Db major for another chorus, then upward again to D major at 4:o3 and yet again for another jump to C major for the tune’s multi-layered ending. Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for this intriguing tune!

Heatwave | Whack That Axe

“Rod Temperton,” (Heatwave’s keyboardist) “could write … Temperton might have been the brains, but the rest of the guys did a great job executing his vision,” (SomethingElseReviews). “Party bands have gotten so pre-fab these days, relying so much on sampling and studio help. Heatwave, however, was a real band. The musicians who played on stage were the same ones who played it in the studio, with a minimal amount of session players brought in for Central Heating (1977). The musicianship … makes this period music hold up so well to the present day.

The vocals, led by brothers Keith and the late Johnnie Wilder, were well above the pack, too. Keith’s harder-edged vocal was perfectly complimented by Johnnie’s velvet-smooth croon. In the studio, they often added layers upon layers of choral vocals that rivaled in richness to contemporaries Earth Wind and Fire.” The band formed in the UK but had a mixed roster of two Brits, two Americans, a Swiss citizen, a Czechoslovak national, and a Jamaican!

Built in C major overall, “Whack That Axe” (written by Temperton and sharing an album with one of the band’s three biggest hits, “Grooveline”) gently flips over to the relative A minor for the brief bridge (2:08 – 2:26).

The Four Guys | Too Late to Turn Back Now

“Formed in the late 50s … in Steubenville-Toronto, Ohio, USA, (The Four Guys) group moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in April 1967,” (AllMusic). “Their reception was such that they became regulars on the show and built lasting popularity from this engagement.” The group worked with Hank Williams, Jr., Jimmy Dean, and Charley Pride.

The quartet were “just as much at home on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry as they are on the Las Vegas circuit” (Slipcue) … The Four Guys released several albums and a number of singles from the early 1970s through the early 1980s.

“Too Late to Turn Back Now” (1974) featured the quartet’s famous vocal blend; the tune shifts up a half-step at 1:31.

Jethro Tull | Teacher

“English progressive rock giants Jethro Tull are a unique phenomenon in popular music history,” (AllMusic). “Led by enigmatic frontman Ian Anderson — a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and rock’s premier flutist … their mix of heavy rock, flute-led folk melodies, blues licks, surreal, impossibly dense lyrics, and overall profundity defies easy analysis, yet in their 1970s heyday, they garnered a massive level of commercial success, notching a string of gold and platinum records and securing their place within the classic rock canon with releases like Aqualung (1971), Thick as a Brick (1972), and A Passion Play (1973). Even as critics cooled on them, Tull remained popular through later phases with their folk-rock records of the late ’70s, the electronic experimentation of the early ’80s, and eventually a Grammy Award-winning return to hard rock with 1987’s Crest of a Knave.

Benefit (1970) was the album on which the Jethro Tull sound solidified around folk music, abandoning blues entirely. Beginning with the opening number, “With You There to Help Me,” (Ian) Anderson adopts his now-familiar, slightly mournful folksinger/sage persona, with a rather sardonic outlook on life and the world…”

The mid-tempo track “Teacher” is built in A major overall, but the chorus features a D major/minor mix and then an instrumental section in B minor (first heard at 0:48 and 1:02). The pattern continues with verse 2.

The Tubes | I Want It All

“Produced by Todd Rundgren, Remote Control (1979) is a concept album that could be seen as the next installment in Utopia, so similar are the two,” (Progrography). “Rundgren is credited with co-writing two songs (‘Love’s a Mystery’ and ‘TV Is King’), but his fingerprints are all over Remote Control, from the high-register choruses to the compressed and sped-up arrangements. Of course, sounding like Utopia isn’t a bad thing; in fact, this is probably my favorite Tubes album after their first. The album generated a legitimate hit (okay, in the UK) with ‘Prime Time,’ and should have had a second with ‘Love’s a Mystery (I Don’t Understand).’ If the reports are true that the band entered the studio with a concept but without any songs, then this record is a testament to the band’s creativity, because there isn’t a bad song in the batch.

Along with (Rundgren and Utopia albums) Adventures In Utopia, Healing, and Swing To The Right, Remote Control represents a sort of Rundgren renaissance for art pop fans between 1979 and 1982. The Tubes never made another album like it, and they never made a better one after it. If you haven’t heard this or the three Utopia/Rundgren records I just mentioned, turn off the TV tonight and turn on to some great music instead.”

Starting in B major with plenty of compound chords ringing out over the tonic pedal point, the chorus (0:40 – 0:55) shifts into D mixolydian; the most prominent building block at that point is a D/C chord until the next verse returns to B major. The pattern continues until the second portion of the bridge (2:14 – 2:45) in G# dorian before the chorus returns at 3:00 and fades to the end.

Average White Band | Why

“Cut the Cake (1975) was a difficult album to make for the Average White Band. They were still mourning the loss of drummer Robbie McIntosh, who had died of a heroin overdose the previous year,” (Popdose). “It got to the point that producer Arif Mardin considered pulling the plug on the whole thing. Fortunately everyone soldiered on, and the result was an album that topped the R&B chart, and made it to #4 on the pop chart. AWB has made many more albums over the years, but they never again attained that lofty height.”

“Steve Ferrone, a black drummer from London, England, was hired as a replacement — ironically, he became the first black member of a Scottish soul/funk band that had a very African-American sound and a largely African-American following,” (AllMusic). “Despite the fact that AWB’s members still had McIntosh’s death on their minds when they were writing and recording Cut the Cake, this isn’t a depressing or consistently melancholy album; far from it … If anything, they honor McIntosh’s memory by showing their resilience and delivering one of their finest, most engaging albums.”

After both starting in E minor, the track’s first and second verses glide through quite a patch of key-of-the-moment color before arriving at the chorus, where the tonality shifts to E major (1:45). At 2:07, the verse continues after a jump to G major. 2:28 brings an interlude in E minor which then pivots into another chorus at 2:51, starting this time in F major but ending in Ab major at 3:12 as the tune fades.

Tom T. Hall | Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine

“There’s little preparation needed to approach a Tom T. Hall song,” (TheMusicalDivide.com). “His work is the embodiment of country music, perhaps not in sound – his weapons of choice included warm acoustics, dobro, and, every now and then, strings; not moaning steel guitar or fiddle – but certainly in the unpretentious, straightforward spirit it was meant to stand for as music of the real, everyday forgotten people. Hall’s songs have a casual feel of a late-afternoon chat at a local diner, or an all-night conversation between two old friends catching up on old times and having a riot recounting those old stories.

… Old dogs are there for you even when you stumble and make mistakes; children are too young to understand the concept of hate and are how we map the world’s future; and watermelon wine … well, that one isn’t explained directly with a line. But I’d like to think there’s a beauty in two road-weary adults taking the time to appreciate life’s simpler pleasures and remember the good in the world, or remember that it’s not all lost or faded, at least.”

The leisurely country track, released in 1975, begins in F major; in the middle of the tune at 2:04, it shifts up a half step. But just for good measure, Hall adds another half-step key change late in the game (3:30).

The Meters | People Say

“In the 1970s, The Meters were one of the leading rhythm & blues/funk acts doing the rounds in America at a time when there was an explosion of funk, soul, and R&B going on, and acts such as Stevie Wonder, Cutis Mayfield, and Parliament/Funkadelic were in their prime,” (NowhereBros.com). “Originally from New Orleans, The Meters not only performed and recorded their own energetic and highly charged style of R&B/funk, but also played as backing musicians for acts such as Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, and were amazingly talented musicians in their own right. The band’s style was heavily influenced by their hometown New Orleans and was characterized by the extensive use of piano and organ, horns, and a strong emphasis placed on syncopated rhythms which gave their sound an underlying funk feel. This hybrid of funk and R&B has often been described as New Orleans R&B, and as a style was best represented on their 1974 release Rejuvenation …

Rejuvenation is a high-class mix of funk and R&B, serving as a showcase for the individual band members and their talents as players … These guys lock in together so well as a band on this album … the quality of the playing on this album means that the Neville Brothers’ soulful vocals are often overshadowed by the instrumental backing and don’t feature as prominently as they probably should … these guys were such in-demand backing musicians within the R&B genre, and in many ways, you could describe them as being the 1970s version of The Roots … “

The tune is based on the tonic chord of D minor overall except for the brief “people say” chorus, which goes up to the IV chord. But the track shifts up a whole step to E minor from 3:11 – 3:38 during its bridge. Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for sending in this classic funk track!

Liza Minelli | Liza with a Z

“It already seems like yesterday’s news but for the sake of perspective, we are now at the point in human civilization where we can plug different artist names and keywords into a computer and Artificial Intelligence technology will render a new piece of music sounding like whatever you can think of. Drake and The Weeknd collab? Biggie rapping Nas songs? A new Beatles song? It’s all happening now,” (Decider.com). “And people dig it. Some say this is where we’ve been headed all along, ever since the advent of multi tracking and Auto-Tune and that Tupac hologram. It’s a far cry from the days of old when entertainers could sing and act and dance all at the same time in front of a live audience, holding them in the palm of their hand. People like Liza Minnelli.”

Songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb (better known as Kander and Ebb) wrote scores of songs together, but perhaps among the best known were those from the classic musicals Cabaret and Chicago. Liza Minelli became one of the performers most associated with both shows. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Kander and Ebb later wrote a tune custom-designed just for Liza and her famously big personality, “Liza with a Z” as part of a 1972 show of the same name.

Just as the lyrical stream of this over-explainer of a tune morphs into a tsunami, the key of “Liza with a Z” also ratchets up a half step (2:42).

Steely Dan | Any World (That I’m Welcome To)

“(Katie Lied) captures Steely Dan in the thick of it all, still hungry and energized by their early burst of creativity but not taking anything for granted,” (Pitchfork). “Before Katy Lied, Steely Dan were a rock band, but this is the record where they became something else … Katy Lied lives at the midpoint of Steely Dan’s first act. Behind them were three records that were incrementally more sophisticated and less rock-centered. After this one were three increasingly finicky and obsessive albums that would find them reaching for a kind of perfection, albums that found them chronicling the decadence around them from the inside. Where they once wrote about the delightfully sleazy underbelly of life in America from a remove, they started to write more about what they saw around them. Katy Lied is the fulcrum in this progression—it’s messier, less sure of itself, besotted neither with youthful confidence nor veteran polish.

… The characters flailing clumsily throughout Katy Lied (1975) are paralyzed by desires they aren’t introspective enough to understand, so all they can do is keep stumbling forward. ‘I got this thing inside me,’ Fagen sings in a bridge on the late album highlight ‘Any World (That I’m Welcome To)’, ‘I only know I must obey/This feeling I can’t explain away.’ … This band was always about asking questions instead of giving answers … They wanted desperately to render their tragically amusing scenes just so, and the sonic purity they’d been chasing would soon be theirs. But here they give failure a kind of twisted majesty.”

The track alternates between Bb mixolydian on the verses and C mixolydian on the choruses (first heard from 0:39 – 0:54). The tune takes us through a short bridge (1:52 – 2:10), but holds off on modulating until an additional verse and chorus are added in. At 3:07, a chorus/tag jumps up to D mixolydian, with the utterly distinctive focus of frequent collaborating vocalist Michael McDonald (pre-Doobie Brothers and his own solo career) ringing out alongside of Donald Fagen’s lead vocal.