My Seventies Music

Category: Seventies Male Soloists

  • Rupert Holmes – “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”

    “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes (from his “Partners in Crime” album) was the very last Hot 100 No. 1 of the Seventies, hitting Number One in late December of 1979.

    After dropping to No. 2 in the first week of January, 1980, it went back to No. 1 the next week.

    This apparently made Rupert Holmes the only artist to have the Number One spot with the same song in different decades.

    My memory of the Piña Colada song is the band in the Viking Bar at the Fitzherbert Motor Inn in Palmerston North, New Zealand, playing it when I was working next door in the quieter Armada Bar.

    Which I guess was fitting since it features a cocktail drink…

    I picked it today because I just heard it on a video of “Bewitched” (Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell) that my daughter picked up on the weekend at a car boot sale at her school to raise funds for a trip to France she is going on tomorrow.

    So here it is, “Escape (The Piña Colada Song) from 1979:

    And here’s a little background on the Piña Colada itself

    Cheers!

    Paul

  • Gary Wright – “Dream Weaver”

    Every time I open a certain web editing program I think of the Gary Wright song “Dream Weaver” that came out in 1975.

    And when I think of that song, I think of my room in the student hostel in my first year of university, because that was where I heard it a lot, in 1976.

    Can’t say I can remember anything else by Gary Wright, just this one, so here it is, “Dream Weaver”:

    Sweet dreams.

    Paul

  • Bill Withers – “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone”, “Lean On Me” and “Just The Two Of Us”

    The song “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” suddenly popped into my mind while I was doing the weather report for a newsletter I edit (all the places are sunny this week, after a few mixed weeks) so I looked it up, and found Bill Withers sang it in 1971.

    The name didn’t really mean much to me, but then I found he wrote a few other songs that have since become classics and been covered many times.

    Here is “Ain’t No Sunshine When You’re Gone”:

    You may have heard numerous versions of “Lean On Me” by various artists, here’s the original, sung live on a BBC show from 1973:

    And you’ll definitely have heard this one somewhere, “Just The Two Of Us”:

    Quiet, gentle songs, but music that you remember.

    Paul

  • Robert Palmer – “Sneakin Sally Through The Alley”, “Every Kinda People”, “Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)”, “Johnny and Mary”, “Some Guys Have All the Luck”, “You Are In My System”, “Addicted to Love” and “Simply Irresistible”

    Robert Palmer, who joined his first band in England in 1964, released his first solo album “Sneakin Sally Through The Alley” in 1974 – strongly influenced by the funk of Little Feat. It was recorded in New Orleans, Louisiana.

    Here’s the title track, “Sneakin Sally Through The Alley”:

    And “Sneakin Sally Through The Alley” live in Europe nearly a decade later:

    In 1978 Robert Palmer had a Top 20 hit with “Every Kinda People” from his Billboard Top 50 album “Double Fun”:

    This is “Every Kinda People” live:

    Recorded in 1978, “Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)” appeared on Robert Palmer’s 1979 album “Secrets” and reached number 14 on the Top 40 charts that year:

    Then in 1980, on his album “Clues”, came one of my favourites, “Johnny and Mary”:

    It was around this time that I saw Robert Palmer live in Germany, in Erlangen near Nuremberg

    In 1982 he released “Some Guys Have All the Luck”, sung here live in 1983 in Dortmund:

    The 1983 track “You Are In My System” was one of Robert Palmer’s numerous cover songs:

    The 1986 number one single “Addicted to Love” (recorded in 1985) was all Robert Palmer again. Here it is live in Tokyo in 1986:

    For this song Robert Palmer was awarded a Grammy in 1987. He received another in 1989 for the pure Palmer piece “Simply Irresistible”, performed here on the David Letterman Show:

    Unfortunately Robert Palmer died in September 2003 at just 54, otherwise I am sure we would have enjoyed many more hits from him.

    Nevertheless, in a career spanning almost 40 years, with major hits in the late Seventies and early Eighties, he has left an envious musical legacy embracing a whole range of different musical styles.

    Something for everyone, for “Every Kinda People”…

    Something for you too?

    Paul

  • Arlo Guthrie – “City Of New Orleans”, “Alice’s Restaurant” and “Coming Into Los Angeles”

    Arlo Guthrie, the famous son of the famous American folk singer Woody Guthrie, was already a legend himself by the early Seventies when “City Of New Orleans” hit the airwaves.

    In particular he had made his name with the 18 minute 34 second long “talking blues song” “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, better known simply as “Alice’s Restaurant”, the title of the 1967 album and the 1969 film.

    Last year he said in an interview that this satirical protest against the Vietnam war draft is more an “anti-stupidity” song than an anti-war song.

    Whatever, although from the Sixties, I recall this song from the Seventies, when it was still being played a lot in New Zealand. In fact, to this day, many people in the US listen to “Alice’s Restaurant” every year on Thanksgiving Day!

    The “City Of New Orleans”, though, was just as present in my consciousness and the radio playlists, and I can still sing along at least with the chorus! Here’s a live version shortly after it came out, with a still young Arlo Guthrie:

    And here, many years later, is a grey but long haired Arlo Guthrie singing “City Of New Orleans” at the Boston Pops; musically you can hardly tell the difference:

    Also many years later, Arlo Guthrie still sings a slightly updated version of “Alice’s Restaurant”. Here’s a great performance from 2005, in the same church. The video shows Arlo singing live, with scenes from the film interspersed throughout:

    Again with the Boston Pops, celebrating 40 years of the Woodstock festival, “Coming Into Los Angeles”:

    And, as a contrast, the original Woodstock performance of “Coming Into Los Angeles” by the young Arlo Guthrie, where he played before over a million young people, many of whom were indulging in the substance he was singing about, as the film very clearly shows:

    Remember, you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant…

    Paul

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