My Seventies Music

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  • Jackson Browne – “The Load Out”/”Stay”, “Running On Empty”, “Take It Easy” and “Tender Is The Night”

    In the late Seventies Jackson Browne wrote a song about being a rock musician on tour called “The Load Out”, which morphed into “Stay”, and featured David Lindley on slide guitar/lap steel guitar (and a falsetto voice on the chorus).

    I don’t really remember “The Load Out” part too much, but “Stay” (Oh won’t you stay Just a little bit longer Oh, Please please stay Just a little bit more…) has stuck in my mind all these years.

    In 1978 Jackson Browne and David Lindley, together with supporting artists, played “The Load Out” and “Stay” live in England at the BBC Television Centre in the Shepherds Bush Theatre in London:

    Another track by Jackson Browne I really like, but either didn’t know or had forgotten it was by him, is “Running On Empty”:

    For some reason I connected that song with Bruce Springsteen, and now I see why: the two are friends and have often sung the song together, as here:

    Jackson Browne co-wrote “Take It Easy” with Eagles member and neighbour Glenn Frey, which was a hit for that group. Here is his version:

    Like so many others, when the Seventies ended, Jackson Browne went on to produce more great music, such as “Tender Is The Night” in 1983, here in a live version from 1986 on German television’s Rockpalast (looks a bit like a long haired Tom Cruise 🙂 ):

    Night night, sleep tight…

    Paul

  • Michael Martin Murphey – “Wildfire”

    Michael Martin Murphey is another one of those names that would have meant nothing to me if you had asked me about him – until just now when I came across the 1975 hit “Wildfire”. Then I knew who he was.

    I used to love that song.

    “Wildfire” is about a horse, as the video here underlines, actually about a ghost horse and the ghost of a woman who rode it:

    And here is “Wildfire” live, with an explanation from Michael Martin Murphey of how the song came about:

    We once had a horse called “Wildflower”, so there is an added affinity there. 🙂

    If you like horses, western music or just beautiful melodious songs with a story, you’ll probably like this one.

    I’ve just learned a little more about Michael Martin Murphey, including that he wrote songs for The Monkees (for his friend Michael Nesmith), Kenny Rogers, Bobby Gentry and John Denver, and that he has become a champion of the nature of the American West.

    If you’d like to learn more too, you can do that here: Michael Martin Murphey.

    Time to saddle up…

    Paul

  • 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

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