My Seventies Music

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  • Linda Ronstadt – “When Will I Be Loved”, “You’re No Good”, “Blue Bayou”, “It Doesn’t Matter Any More” and “First Cut Is The Deepest”

    Linda Ronstadt single cover "Blue Bayou"
    Linda Ronstadt was a name you heard a lot in the Seventies, her biggest hits included “When Will I Be Loved”, “You’re No Good” and “Blue Bayou”.

    By coincidence, these are just about the only ones of her many songs I can recall…

    I found a couple more that I recognise though, but I can’t say now whether it’s just the songs themselves that are familiar or Linda Ronstadt’s versions of them!

    Songs like “It Doesn’t Matter Any More” and the Cat Stevens number “First Cut Is The Deepest”, best known in the Rod Stewart version.

    Whatever Linda Ronstadt sings, with her powerful voice she certainly makes it her own.

    Here are some of those songs –

    “When Will I Be Loved”, live in 1977:

    From the same concert in Atlanta, Georgia, the quieter track “It Doesn’t Matter Any More”, featuring Linda Ronstadt accompanying herself on acoustic guitar:

    “You’re No Good”, on the Midnight Special (with an introduction by Jose Feliciano):

    This is probably the Linda Ronstadt track I like the best, once again from that 1977 concert in Atlanta, “Blue Bayou”:

    And finally, “First Cut Is The Deepest”:

    “I’m going back in time…”

    Paul

  • Journey – “Wheel In The Sky”, “Lights”, “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’”, “Any Way You Want It”, “Who’s Crying Now” and “Don’t Stop Believin’”

    Cover of 1978 Journey album "Infinity", featuring "Wheel In The Sky"
    San Fancisco band Journey were very successful from the late Seventies on into the Eighties, with songs like “Wheel in the Sky”, “Lights”, “Lovin,’ Touchin,’ Squeezin’”, “Any Way You Want It”, “Who’s Crying Now” and “Don’t Stop Believin’”.

    I remember that in the part of southern Germany where I lived in the early 1980s (Franconia, North Bavaria) you used to hear a lot of the 1978 release “Wheel In The Sky”, both on American Forces Network AFN (there were a lot of GIs stationed in the area back then) as well as on German stations and just generally at parties, dances and concerts.

    This is what “Wheel in the Sky” sounded like live when it first came out:

    Here’s “Lights”, live in Chicago in 1978:

    And “Lovin,’ Touchin,’ Squeezin’” live on the Midnight Special in 1979 (nice and bluesy!):

    The next few songs are actually from the early years of the following decade, but the sound is still pretty much as it was in the Seventies. As you can see, all of these performances are live.

    “Any Way You Want It”:

    “Who’s Crying Now”:

    “Don’t Stop Believing”:

    Journey continue to tour live and record today.

    The Journey continues, so to speak…

    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

  • Dragon – “April Sun In Cuba”, “Are You Old Enough?” and “Rain”

    New Zealand band Dragon, who relocated to Sydney, Australia in 1975 had a national hit in 1977 with “April Sun In Cuba”, which reached No. 2 in Australia.

    I don’t actually remember any of their other songs, but “Are You Old Enough?” reached No. 1 a year later.

    This is “April Sun In Cuba”:

    And here is “Are You Old Enough?”:

    After splitting and reuniting, with various personnel changes, Dragon reached No. 2 in Australia with “Rain”, played live here in Sydney in 1983:

    Obviously went down well in Australia.

    Paul

  • The Cars – “Just What I Needed”, “My Best Friends Girl”, “Good Times Roll”, “Touch And Go”, “Since You’re Gone”, “Shake It Up” and “Drive”

    "The Cars" album cover
    Looking for a present for my sister in the late Seventies, I bought her the 1978 The Cars album, aptly titled “The Cars”, so I could also listen to tracks like “Just What I Needed”, “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Good Times Roll”, which I had heard covered live by resident band Snatch at the Majestic Hotel in New Zealand’s university town of Palmerston North.

    “Touch And Go” from the 1980 album “Panorama” is another track from The Cars I like, as is “Shake It Up” from the album of the same name, which apparently came out in 1981, though I seem to remember hearing the track before that. (As it was written years earlier by Ric Ocasek, I guess that’s possible.)

    A later song by The Cars that has always been a favourite of mine – though I’m not even sure I knew it was from them – is their 1984 hit “Drive”, which was featured at the Live Aid concert in 1985.

    This song from 1978 was at Live Aid too…. “Just What I Needed”:

    The huge crowd at Live Aid certainly enjoyed it, but I kind of prefer the earlier version, this reminds me of the atmosphere at the pub where I used to dance to this song in the late Seventies:

    “My Best Friends Girl”:

    “Good Times Roll”:

    Can’t say I remember “All Mixed Up”, also from the first album, but I like the sound:

    I definitely have memories of “Touch And Go”, from the “Panorama” album:

    “Since You’re Gone”, from the “Shake It Up” album, has the feel of an Irish singalong (makes me think of The Pogues!):

    And of course, the title track from that album, “Shake It Up” itself:

    “Drive”, from the 1984 album “Heartbeat City”:

    The sadness in this song is made more poignant still knowing that the singer, The Cars bass player Benjamin Orr, died just a decade and a half later of pancreatic cancer. He was still performing live six days before his death.

    Because “Drive” is such a beautiful song, here it is again live:

    Take care.

    Paul

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