Free was a UK band that had a strong influence on many other bands, with songs like “All Right Now” and “Wishing Well” being covered numerous times by many great musicians.
These have included Gary Moore as well as later acts that singer and writer Paul Rodgers and other band members went on to play in – such as Bad Company, and the touring combination of Paul Rodgers and remaining members of Queen.
Here is a live version of Free playing “All Right Now” in 1970 at the Isle of Wight Festival in the UK:
I really only connect one song with Boston, and that’s “More Than A Feeling”, which has definitely stuck in my mind.
Of course they had other singles in the Seventies, like “Foreplay/Long Time”, “Don’t Look Back”, “A Man I’ll Never Be” and “Feelin’ Satisfied” – I just don’t remember any of them.
The debut album “Boston” peaked at Number 3 on the album charts, becoming the second best-selling debut album of all time in the USA, and still sells well. Three of the singles from it were Top 40 hits.
“More Than A Feeling” made it to No. 5 on the U.S. singles charts in 1976:
The beginning of “Foreplay/Long Time”, a No. 22 single in 1977 from the same album, sounds like I’ve heard it before, but not from Boston…
Here’s one of the many live versions of “Foreplay/Long Time”:
“Don’t Look Back”, from the album of the same name, was a year later, in 1978, when it reached No. 4:
The same year, also from that album, “A Man I’ll Never Be” didn’t quite make the Top 30, peaking at 31:
“Feelin’ Satisfied” just got into the Top 50 (No. 46) in 1979:
And just as a contrast, here’s the studio version of “Feelin’ Satisfied”:
Finally, although not in the Seventies, here is Boston’s only Number One single (in 1986, though written in 1980), named after a girl I knew when I was a kid (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it 😉 ). It’s from the No. 1 album “Third Stage”, and is called “Amanda”:
Canadian band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, or BTO, entered my consciousness in 1974 or 1975 with “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”, which had been released in 1974, first on the “Not Fragile” album and then as a single, which went to Number One in America.
I remember it being relatively easy to play – at least the chorus! – on the guitar, I think it was A, E, D.
Randy Bachman was of course a former member of The Guess Who, and had penned their hit “American Woman” shortly before leaving that band.
“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” is particularly known for the pronounced stutter in the chorus, apparently originally written as a joke for Bachman’s brother (some joke, I would have thought…). Here it is live:
From a year earlier, also a hit but not as big, “Takin’ Care Of Business”:
And finally, the first single from “Not Fragile”, which I’ve just realised I know too, “Roll On Down The Highway”:
The George Thorogood And The Destroyers album of the same name came out in 1977, with a track list (largely covers of blues evergreens at that stage) that included “You Got To Lose”, “Madison Blues”, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”, “Ride On Josephine”, “I’ll Change My Style” and “Delaware Slide”.
Now GD and T, as they are sometimes known, or also George Thorogood And The Delaware Destroyers, are not exactly mainstream, so you didn’t hear a lot of them on the radio where I lived.
In fact you didn’t hear them at all, and it wasn’t till I returned to New Zealand from Germany for a few weeks in 1982 that I heard this record for the first time staying with friends in my old university town of Palmerston North, but since then it has been one of my favourites.
I bought a copy and took it back to Germany, where I introduced it to some acquaintances of mine in a blues band.
They probably don’t remember that, but I like to think in doing so I had a slight influence on their music…
Whatever.
The eponymous album, as music critics seem to like to say – meaning the name of the record was the same as the name of the artist, go figure – begins at a cracking pace with “You Got To Lose”:
The inimitable George Thorogood slide guitar sound continues with “Madison Blues”:
This one is nearly ten minutes long, look at the way those fingers and thumb move on the electric guitar on “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” – and note the “duel” between guitar and saxophone at around six minutes into the song:
I just looovvve this one, “Ride On Josephine”:
“Delaware Slide” is pure instrumental:
This next one is actually from later (1982), and was used a lot in films and television – “Back To The Bone”:
Finally, from the first album again, “I’ll Change My Style”
Pat Benetar had her breakthrough right at the end of the Seventies, with a string of singles from her October 1979 album “In The Heat Of The Night”, particularly “I Need a Lover”, “If You Think You Know How to Love Me” and “Heartbreaker”, the latter reaching No. 23 in the U.S.
So she’s “only just” a Seventies artist, but who cares…
Especially with songs like these.
“I Need A Lover”:
“If You Think You Know How to Love Me”:
“Heartbreaker”:
Shortly after that, with her second album “Crimes Of Passion”, came her signature song, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”:
One of the biggest hits of Pat Benetar’s career was “Love Is A Battlefield”. I particularly remember this one (albeit we were now in the Eighties, not the Seventies any more), because a dance band I was working for as a roadie in South Germany had a female singer who sang the song a lot.
Here’s the orignal of “Love Is A Battlefield”:
And not much later came another smash hit, “We Belong”:
Pat Benetar was the first female artist featured on MTV and is one of the top-selling female artists overall.
