My Seventies Music

Category: Seventies Jazz Rock

  • Roxy Music – “Virginia Plain”, “If There Is Something”, “Psalm”, “Pyjamarama”, “Love Is The Drug”, “Both Ends Burning”, “Still Falls The Rain”, “Dance Away”, “Over You”, “Oh Yeah”, “Same Old Scene”, “Jealous Guy”, “More Than This” And “Avalon”

    The somewhat controversial Roxy Music album "Country Life" (1974)

    With Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music I’m never sure where to start, there’s so much, and I keep discovering more.

    I mainly know some of their songs from the late Seventies and early Eighties, but I’ve also taken some of their work from the early Seventies here.

    In the early years Brian Eno was in the band, but he left after the second album, “For Your Pleasure”. From then on, Phil Manazanera and Andy Mackay began co-writing, but Bryan Ferry continued to write most of the material.

    The first single, which went to No. 4 in the UK in 1972, was “Virginia Plain”:

    Also in 1972, album track “If There Is Something”:

    Some of the guitar on this makes me think of the Beatles “Abbey Road” album. I like it. In fact, the more I listen to it, the more I like it!

    From the 1973 album “Stranded”, here is “Psalm”, quite a bit different from some of the later stuff:

    Also from 1973, Roxy Music’s second single “Pyjamarama”:

    A major single in 1975 that peaked at No. 2 in the UK was “Love Is The Drug”:

    Here is a somewhat later live version of “Love Is The Drug”:

    Also from 1975, “Both Ends Burning”:

    “Still Falls The Rain” was a track on the 1979 album “Manifesto”:

    “Dance Away” (UK No. 2 in 1979, also from “Manifesto”) just makes me melt away….

    I also quite like “Over You” (No. 5 in the UK, from the next album, “Flesh + Blood”):

    And this has got to be my favourite Roxy Music song ever…. “Oh Yeah” from 1980. I love it! I still remember hearing it on a stormy night in a pub in Broadford on the Isle of Skye off the west coast of Scotland. And in a small bar in Nuremberg below the castle, while waiting for a concert (might have been Led Zeppelin, not sure). “Oh Yeah”:

    “Same Old Scene” was the third single from the “Flesh + Blood” album:

    Shortly after John Lennon was shot, Roxy Music sang a tribute version of one of my favourite Lennon songs, “Jealous Guy”, taking it to No. 1 in the UK and Australia:

    They followed it with “More Than This” (No. 6)…

    … and “Avalon”:

    I’d better stop now…

    Paul

  • Klaus Doldinger And Passport – “Uranus”, “Schirokko”, “Mandragora”, “Ataraxia” And The Theme From The Movie “Das Boot”

    And now for something completely different – Klaus Doldinger and Passport, a German jazz formation that has been compared with the US band Weather Report.

    I won’t claim to know the individual tracks, I only heard Doldinger’s music for the first time in 1983, and liked it.

    Here are some tracks I have found from the Seventies (the band was formed in 1971) and the very early Eighties.

    “Uranus” (1971):

    “Schirokko” (1973):

    “Mandragora” (1973):

    “Ataraxia”, at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1980:

    For some reason that one reminds me a little of Deep Purple (as does the name of Montreux…. “We all came down to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline…).

    Klaus Doldinger produced the theme music of the 1981 movie “Das Boot”:

    More of “Das Boot” with pictures from the film:

    Hope you liked todays “change of tune”.

    Paul

  • Chicago – “If You Leave Me Now”, “Hard To Say I’m Sorry/Get Away” and “Beginnings”

    Cover of 1976 Chicago single "If You Leave Me Now"
    There have been over 100 versions of the Chicago song “If You Leave Me Now”, but the classic was and is the original, which went to Number 1 in the USA (both singles and album charts, the album was Chicago X), Australia and in the UK, among others, in 1976.

    Chicago had many hits right through the Seventies and beyond, but “If You Leave Me Now” is the one that stands out for me:

    The next Chicago track to reach No. 1 (and the first since 1978 to reach the Top 50) was “Hard To Say I’m Sorry”, which is actually from 1982. On the album it segued into “Get Away”, as it does in this live version recorded in Dortmund, Germany:

    And this is what Chicago, then still known as The Chicago Transit Authority, sounded like in the early days, still very jazz oriented with lots of brass, “Beginnings”, released in October 1969:

    Not everyone’s cup of tea, and it didn’t chart, but quite pleasant nonetheless.

    Paul

  • Steely Dan – “Do It Again”, “Reelin’ In The Years”, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” “Pretzel Logic”, “Haitian Divorce” and “Hey Nineteen”

    "Steely Dan/greatest hits" album cover
    In the early Seventies a band from New York (really a duo, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, with additional musicians) called Steely Dan began having a series of hits, such as “Do It Again”, “Reelin’ In The Years” and “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”.

    At the end of the decade, or easing into the next one, “Hey Nineteen” reached No. 10 in the US and 11 in the UK.

    There were of course others as well, but these are the ones I remember.

    I have their compilation album “Steely Dan/greatest hits”, a double album from 1978, which also features “Pretzel Logic” (the title of another album as well) and “Haitian Divorce”. Like their other albums, this too was produced by Gary Katz.

    Here’s “Do It Again”, from the album “Can’t Buy A Thrill”, live on the Midnight Special in 1973:

    And “Reelin’ In The Years”, from the same album, also live on the Midnight Special in 1973 (introduced by comedian Bill Cosby):

    From the “Pretzel Logic” album, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”, No. 4 in 1974:

    “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” performed live over 20 years later in 1996:

    And the title track of “Pretzel Logic”:

    Two years later, in 1976, came “Haitian Divorce”, from the album “The Royal Scam”:

    “Hey Nineteen”, from the 1980 album “Gaucho”, sung live here in 2006

    Now that’s what I call “Reelin’ in the years”…

    Paul

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