Was 1978 “The Year Of The Cat”, when – I think – I heard the song of the same name by Al Stewart all the time?
Well, the song itself apparently came out in 1977.
It was helped on its way to success by none other than Alan Parsons, and was, it seems, part of the inspiration for him to establish The Alan Parsons Project. He then went on to produce the album “Time Passages”.
Anyway, without further ado, here’s “The Year Of The Cat” from Al Stewart:
Presumably from the same album, and also a hit shortly after or thereabouts, was “On The Border”:
And, as mentioned, a later album was “Time Passages”, which must have been successful because I certainly remember it well:
I don’t remember much else about him though, and I’m not even sure if I knew what he looked like!
Just now on seeing the videos I thought he looked very young.
I guess that could have something to do with time passages…. or at least time passing…
When I heard the name Alan Parsons mentioned today, in my mind I was in a student flat in about 1977 in Waldegrave Street, Palmerston North, New Zealand, listening to “The Raven” from the album “Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”, the first from The Alan Parsons Project.
The Alan Parsons Project was founded by its namesake Alan Parsons, a young engineer at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, and Eric Woolfson, who wrote most of the songs and sang on many of them. Woolfson died at the beginning of December last year (2009).
Alan Parsons first came to prominence engineering the Beatles album “Abbey Road”, and was also particularly well known for his work on Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, as well as many works by The Hollies.
He also played a major role in influencing the sound of Al Stewart’s “The Year Of The Cat” and “Time Passages”, which he also produced.
The Alan Parsons Project was really a fluid group of different musicians around these two main protagonists, and produced studio music in the genre some call progressive rock.
“Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”, released in 1976, was a tribute to horror writer Edgar Allen Poe. Here are two tracks from it:
“The Raven” (lead vocals by Leonard Whiting, Alan Parsons lead vocal through a “vocoder”):
“(The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether” (vocals John Miles and Jack Harris):
The following year “I Robot” was released. There are a number of tunes from this record I still remember well.
Firstly, of course, the title track, “I Robot”:
“Breakdown” (vocals Allan Clarke):
“I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You” (vocals Lenny Zakatek):
“Some Other Time” (vocals Peter Straker and Jaki Whitren):
“Don’t Let It Show” (vocals Dave Townsend)
Although in the early years there was little live material, later you can find more, and especially recently, although The Alan Parsons Project itself ceased to exist back in 1987 already.
Here is a live version of “Don’t Let It Show”:
In 1980 the musicians released the album “The Turn Of A Friendly Card”.
It featured the song “Time”, with lead vocals by Eric Woolfson:
Finally, from the 1982 album of the same name, “Eye In The Sky”, also sung by Eric Woolfson:
I could listen to Carlos Santana playing “Samba Pa Ti” for hours, and yet for years I didn’t even know what the song was called – I just knew that I loved it!
Actually I could listen to anyone playing it, as long as they played it well.
My main Seventies memory associated with this song, off the 1970 Santana album “Abraxas”, is the Awapuni Tavern in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
We used to go to all kinds of student functions there, but also just to hear whoever was playing. It was quite a way out of town, so you had to make an effort to go there.
Usually it was worth it…
So here it is, “Samba Pa Ti” by Santana, the original:
Here’s a live version of “Samba Pa Ti” in 1988, in Zagreb, Croatia:
And “Samba Pa Ti” live in Carlos Santana’s home country of Mexico:
I particularl enjoy the way the song starts off really slowly and then builds to a crescendo.
Driving down country roads in New Zealand in my late teens, often the melody of the John Denver song, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” would come to mind, and I’d find myself singing it as I drove along.
I say late teens because I sold my car to go on my first trip to Europe just before I turned twenty. In fact, I had my 20th birthday on the plane back home a couple of months later.
Because of the time differences and the international dateline, I actually only had about an hour of birthday, at Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii.
Anyway… I used to find the song particularly appropriate when I was driving home from university along State Highway 50, actually a series of practically empty back roads that run the length of Central Hawkes Bay parallel to the main road, State Highway 2.
It follows a range of mountains and crosses numerous rivers…
As you are perhaps aware, John Denver lost his life in a plane crash, flying solo, in 1997. Long before then, this had become one of his signature songs.
Here is a live version of “Take Me Home, Country Roads”:
And this is one of the many videos of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” with scenery from West Virginia (at least I think it is, that’s what the sign at the beginning says – another one turned out to be pictures of Canada!)
Now you may or may not be familiar with another version of the song. It has “West Jamaica” instead of “West Virginia”, and a few other localisations from the Carribbean island:
Toots And The Maytals sing their own West Jamaican “Take me Home, Country Roads” in this video:
Back to John Denver, I found this video of his Number One hit “Sunshine On My Shoulders”, with a selection of shots from various specials – I just love the Muppets scenes, especially with Miss Piggy:
Speaking of the Muppets, take a look at this Muppet version of “Grandma’s Feather Bed:
There are a number of other songs linked with the name of John Denver, such as the hit he wrote for Peter, Paul and Mary, “Leaving On A Jet Plane” (I hadn’t realised he wrote it), “Annie’s Song” (penned in ten minutes on a skilift for his first wife), “Calypso” (about the research ship of marine scientist Jacques Cousteau) and “Thank God I’m A Country Boy.
But it is probably safe to say that if John Denver has another signature song, it is “Rocky Mountain High”:
“Rocky Mountain High” is meanwhile one of the two official state songs of Colorado. If being in or seeing awesome high mountains gets you high, you’ll probably enjoy this song too.
When I think of “Rocket Man” from Elton John I think of 1975.
Probably because it reminds me of a guy at (boarding) school I roomed with for part of that year, whose nickname was connected with a slightly adapted version…
The man himself, i.e. Elton John AKA Reginald Dwight, first came to my attention in 1973 with “Crocodile Rock”, and the following year I took in his “Yellow Brick Road” double album quite extensively, I even have the sheet music of the album.
I finally saw Elton John live some time in the Eighties or Nineties in the Festhalle in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where I was living at the time.
(Just in case you were wondering, this particular Frankfurt, the one everybody knows, is on the banks of the river Main, pronounced “mine”, and this differentiates it from the city of Frankfurt an der Oder near the German-Polish border in what was previously East Germany; there is even a tiny village in northern Bavaria/Franconia most Germans don’t even know, called Frankfurt an der Hecke…).
Anyway, here is a live version of “Rocket Man” at Wembley, London/England, from 1977: