Tag: 1970s

Sugarloaf | I’ve Got a Song

“The end of the 1960s set the stage for Sugarloaf, with its beginning as the Denver band Chocolate Hair. Keyboardist/vocalist Jerry Corbetta and guitarist Bob Webber … plus Bob Raymond on bass and Myron Pollock on drums … (later) took the name of a mountain summit in the foothills above Boulder … transforming the rock quartet into Sugarloaf,” (Colorado Music Hall of Fame).

“… A mix of rock, R&B, and jazz licks became the basis for the debut LP … the band (produced) a major national hit: “Green-Eyed Lady,” which peaked at No. 3 in October 1970. The song resonated with psychedelic rock fans coming down from the high of the Summer of Love and quickly became the group’s biggest hit.” The band later released another hit, “‘Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You.’ An amusing song about the fickle music industry, the dance-friendly track spelled out, touch-tone style, the phone numbers for CBS Records … (it) became a hit, reaching #9 in March 1975.”

The band’s 1975 uptempo release, “I’ve Got a Song,” didn’t fare as well, only reaching #110 on the US pop charts. Starting in A major, the piano-driven tune shifts into D major after the intro (0:39) and ends in Eb major (3:10).

Al Green | Happy Days Ahead

“It starts with the voice. You either get it or you don’t — and though it took too long, by now almost everyone does,” (Robert Christgau). “Al Green’s mid-range generates a mellow burn like good single-malt Scotch and is cut by a rotgut roughness when he growls and a signature falsetto finer than wine. It’s hard to believe the Michigan-raised, Memphis-based Arkansan, born Albert Greene and now 61, was once dissed for being less manly than Otis Redding–women have always adored him. He seemed both vulnerable and passionate, and he minded his subtle touches like a love man should.

Green started in gospel, and after a return to Jesus and a fall from grace on the charts, he reinvented himself as a gospel singer in 1980 and eventually amassed a sacred catalogue to rival (although not equal) his secular one. That catalogue, especially his miraculously consistent Hi (label) albums with producer Willie Mitchell, has replaced macho pleas and pledges as the epitome of soul … Truth ‘n’ Time, the final album before (Green) devoted himself to his ministry (1978), is yet another expression of his mixed feelings about God and Mammon … Mammon just wasn’t doing it for him anymore.”

Starting in E major, “Happy Days Ahead” shifts to C major at 0:37, only to return to first key at 0:57. The pattern continues throughout.

Kestrel | The Acrobat

“(A Newcastle, UK band,) Kestrel, debuted in 1975 … a symphonic rock quintet that were doing the London college circuit when they caught the attention of producer John Worth, who signed them and released their one album in 1975 (Background Magazine) … The (self-titled) original album was almost 45 minutes long and contained eight tracks.

Right from the start you hear you’re dealing with a progressive rock outfit. Not so strange when you do know that (guitarist/vocalist Dave) Black was influenced at the time by acts such as Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Camel, Yes, and Genesis. However, don’t expect that kind of music on this release. The songs the band recorded for their album were more radio-friendly than most of the bands that had influenced them … They were great in the lead and harmony vocals and could shine on their instruments as well. At the same time, they mixed their complex compositions with rather catchy sounding three-minute songs … which gave them a couple of hits in their own country. Unfortunately, the lack of promotion of by their record company at the time made it impossible that Kestrel would receive the same international success … the band had certainly everything to make it bigger.”

On “The Acrobat,” after a quiet rubato intro, the groove kicks in for the first verse in A major at 0:35. A rangy, often highly syncopated vocal melody, kept front and center in the mix, is very much the focus from there on. The tune touches on C major around the 1:00 mark, A major at 1:06, C minor at 1:11, etc., etc. At that point, we’re more or less harmonically unmoored. 2:58 brings a Fender Rhodes-led jazz interlude which decays into something resembling self-parody before we return to more familiar territory at 3:41. At 4:35, we circle back to a new verse at last. Light in the Attic called the album “(an) unsung prog-rock gem … boasting an abundance of technical musicianship and inhabiting a space somewhere between golden-age prog and AOR.” Whether or not you agree, we hope you packed a lunch!

Starship | Jane

“Jane” (1979) is “a track that represents big changes in the history of a band renowned for them,” (UltimateClassicRock). “Formerly Jefferson Airplane, the group had lost vocalists Grace Slick and Marty Balin in the run-up to their fifth album, Freedom at Point Zero. They hired former Journey drummer Aynsley Dunbar and, up front, gambled on singer Mickey Thomas – who wasn’t even sure he wanted to be in a rock band.

… ‘Jane’ proved to be the perfect showcase for Thomas’ talents, pointing the band towards the stadium rock sound that would see them through the ‘80s as Starship … ” The track peaked at No. 14. It later appeared in the films Cocaine Bear and Wet Hot American Summer, and in the gaming world as part of Grand Theft Auto IV and Rock Band 4.

Built in E minor overall, the bridge (1:47 – 2:15) shifts to F# minor and also shifts from a hard-driving rock texture to a gentler reggae-inflected feel.

Mike Curb Congregation | Burning Bridges (from “Kelly’s Heroes”)

Kelly’s Heroes (1970) featured Clint Eastwood “and a rowdy gang of G.I. goofballs including roughneck Telly Savalas, new agey Donald Sutherland, bitter wiseass Don Rickles and young, harmonica-playing, exactly-the-same-looking Harry Dean Stanton (credited as Dean Stanton). It kinda feels like one of those fun ensemble war pictures like The Dirty Dozen or The Great Escape, except the idea behind it is much more cynical,” (OutlawVern.com). “Clint plays Kelly, a once great soldier, demoted and disillusioned after an incorrect order caused him to blow up some of his own men. When he finds out about a stash of gold bars in a German bank, he finally has a mission he can believe in again.

… The theme song ‘Burning Bridges’ (is) performed by The Mike Curb Congregation. Curb … scored The Wild Angels and The Born Losers … and was also the president of MGM Records. ‘Burning Bridges’ was the Congregation’s biggest hit (#1 in Australia!), though they also had some success with a version of ‘It’s a Small World’ from an album of Disney covers, (and) were featured on Sammy Davis Jr.’s version of ‘The Candy Man.’ … I thought the cornball vocals of ‘Burning Bridges’ added kind of a flower children-y touch to the movie, but I’m not sure Curb would like that characterization. In the same year Kelly’s Heroes came out, he made a splash by dumping The Velvet Underground and other groups from MGM because he thought they promoted drugs. In 1978, Curb was elected lieutenant governor of California, a Republican working under Jerry Brown. Still, the Congregation found time to record ‘Together, a New Beginning,’ the theme song for Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign. So, not really the hippie I took him for.”

In Curb’s version, half-step key changes hit at 0:58 and 1:40. Keep scrolling for a mellower version (performed by Clint himself) which features an artier V/IV upward half-step shift at 1:55 and skips the second modulation of the original. Clint’s version wasn’t in the movie itself, but was also released as a single. Many thanks to our regular poster Rob P. for this submission!

Brad Mehldau | Don’t Let It Bring You Down

“Locked down in the Netherlands (during COVID), pianist Brad Mehldau decided to compose a 12-part cycle (Suite: April 2020) that reflects his response to our new normal (Downbeat) … Don’t come looking for Mehldau’s long, lustrous improvisations—or even short ones, though there might be some light embellishments here and there. This is a composer’s work. If its bite-size pieces are easily digestible, so are its penetrating melodies. Like the thinned-out harmonies, they emphasize the isolation at the heart of both the work and the context. Well, that and the pure strangeness …

Neil Young’s ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’ is fraught with tension …” The track, originally released by Young in 1970 and covered by Annie Lennox in 1995, alternates quickly between A minor and A major throughout. It’s only as the lone chorus arrives (1:41) that the piece settles into A major in earnest for more than a measure, but even that respite from ambiguity is briefly interrupted by A minor just before the piece ends in A major.

The Treasures | Right Combination

The Treasures were a female R&B vocal trio who appeared on The Midnight Special, a popular late-night television show focusing almost entirely on music, in 1974.

We have scoured the web and couldn’t find one piece of information on the group, other than the fact that their nearly empty IMDb page matches the date of the Midnight Special performance on the video. Not one! There may have been a studio album which featured “Right Combination,” but if so, we could find no information on it. A truly unusual problem!

Hopefully we’ll be forgiven, though, because it’s a memorable tune — performed by a trio that sounds like the Supremes and Aretha Franklin had a baby! Starting in C minor, the horn-driven arrangement shifts to Eb minor at 0:34 for the chorus. At 0:57, the verse returns in C minor.

Claudia Telles | Eu Preciso Te Esquecer

“Daughter of one of the most important female singers of the bossa nova (Sylvia Telles), Claudia Telles recorded for the first time in 1976 (the ballad “Fim de Tarde” by Robson Jorge/Maura Motta), which scored a hit,” (AllMusic). “After recording other singles, she recorded her first LP, Claudia Telles, in 1977. Along with her bossa nova interpretations (covering her mother’s hits), she also dedicated a CD to the samba masters Cartola and Nelson Cavaquinho.

She passed away due to complications from endocarditis at age 62 in 2020. “‘Each of the fans who made her career, her life the way it was: she had immense affection for each one of you’, said Bruno Telles, the singer’s son, to the newspaper O Dia.” (uol.com).

Built primarily in A major, 1978’s “Eu Preciso Te Esquecer” (I Need to Forget You) features a late downward key change to Ab major (3:32 – 3:47) before reverting to the original key. Many thanks to our Brazilian reader and contributor Julianna A. for this submission!

George Strait | Amarillo by Morning

Made famous by country singer George Strait, “Amarillo by Morning” was written by Terry Stafford and Paul Fraser in 1973. The song, sung from the perspective of a rodeo cowboy, has appeared in lists of the best country songs ever written, and reached #4 on the Hot Country songs Billboard chart.

The tune begins in D and modulates up to E for the last chorus at 1:38.

Commodores | Funny Feelings

“Known as Zoom in the UK, the Commodores’ eponymous fifth LP (1977) was … very much a transitional work, highlighting the greasy southern funk that the group so ably practiced before pianist and saxophonist Lionel Richie firmly took centre stage,” (BBC). “The album was a huge hit in the US, setting the Commodores up for their chart-topping scene stealing as the 70s became the 80s. In the UK, the reaction was a little more muted. However, ‘Easy’ paved the way for ‘Three Times a Lady’ and ‘Still,’ and Lionel Richie’s unshakeable place as a favourite artist of millions.”

Another track from the album, the midtempo “Funny Feelings,” features an intro in F# minor. At 0:15, however, the first verse settles in with B minor. At 1:01, the chorus shifts to E major. From 1:22 – 1:36, an instrumental interlude mirrors the intro; the cycle continues from there, keeping a laser focus on the funk groove throughout.