My Seventies Music

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  • 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

  • XTC – “Statue Of Liberty”, “Radios In Motion”, “Making Plans For Nigel”, “She’s So Square”, “Spinning Top” and “All Along The Watchtower”

    The British New Wave band XTC, with songs like “Statue Of Liberty”, “Radios In Motion”, “Making Plans For Nigel” or their very unique version of the Bob Dylan song “All Along The Watchtower” (most famously covered by Jimi Hendrix), came to my attention towards the end of the Seventies.

    In the late Seventies, while studying at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand, on Fridays and Saturdays we tended to go to a pub called the Majestic – sadly no longer in existence I hear – where we put up with the Leopard beer to listen and dance to a band called Snatch, who played a lot of New Wave stuff like XTC. (You’re likely to hear more about Snatch in later posts…)

    As a result, I bought their 1978 album “White Music”.

    I don’t remember most of the tracks on this album, but one of them was “Statue Of Liberty”, played here live:

    Also from that album, and also live (in 1978), is “Radios In Motion”:

    “Making Plans For Nigel” was a UK hit in 1979:

    Here’s “Making Plans For Nigel” live on the German TV concert Rockpalast in 1982:

    I’m not sure where “She’s So Square” is from, but I quite like it (the video shows the cover of “White Music”, but it’s not on the one I have):

    “Spinning Top” is from the “White Music” album:

    And, as mentioned, “All Along The Watchtower”, first the album version:

    And now “All Along The Watchtower” live in 1978:

    Whew, hope this hasn’t worn you out!

    Paul

  • Space Waltz – “Out On The Street” and “Beautiful Boy”

    In 1974 Alastair Riddell’s band Space Waltz took New Zealand by storm with “Out On The Street”.

    The rest of the world, with the exception of Australia, has probably never heard of it.

    Many considered Alastair to be “New Zealand’s David Bowie”. He certainly cultivated that image.

    Anyway, that year, Space Waltz were the winners or runners up of a television music competition called Studio One New Faces – what you might call an early forerunner of “American/Australian/ etc. Idol” or the UK’s “X Factor”.

    To promote “Out On The Street” they went on tour, and after the exposure of the show and the release of their album, they toured again in 1975.

    At the time I was the editor of a school magazine, and it just happened to be the May holidays, if I recall correctly.

    Space Waltz were playing in Gisborne, and I managed to get an interview with them.

    I did the interview at the sound check, and then we all went to a small restaurant to have dinner before the concert started.

    Unfortunately, although there were no other guests, the restaurant took so long to deliver the meal that we had to leave without eating so the show could start on time!

    Some of the members of Space Waltz went on to greatness in other bands, such as Split Enz and its successor Crowded House (keyboarder Eddie Rayner, called Tony Raynor on the album cover, who also worked with Paul McCartney), or Citizen Band (guitarist Greg Clark, drummer Brent Eccles).

    And when Phil Judd, co-founder of Split Enz, left the band, Alastair was invited to replace him.

    He declined, and Neil Finn, the little brother of the other co-founder Tim Finn, headed for London to join his brother’s band, and the rest is history. Neil wrote a number of hits for Split Enz and later formed super band Crowded House (I interviewed him and his brother in Frankfurt in 1991.).

    But back to our story…

    Actually I don’t know what has since become of Alastair Riddell, though I did find out he later had a band called Modern Contour. And much shorter hair.

    I still have my copy of the album “Space Waltz”. Before I got it, I used to listen to “Out On The Street” over and over again on a compilation LP.

    So here it is, “Out On The Street”, first the clearer album version:

    This is how Space Waltz performed “Out On The Street” on New Zealand television:

    And also from the “Space Waltz” album, “Beautiful Boy” (in black and white and followed by the judges’ comments on Studio One, and the competition they were up against, a family singing what would now be considered a “politically incorrect” traditional piece):

    No doubt in my mind where the talent in that particular talent show lay…

    Paul

    P.S. I’ve meanwhile just read that Eddie Rayner and Alastair Riddell re-made the “Space Waltz” album and released it in 2004.

    P.P.S. Some time later, I came across this video showing a cross-section of the guys “then” and many years later, on The Paul Holmes Show I believe:

  • Carly Simon – “You’re So Vain”, “The Right Thing To Do”, “Nobody Does It Better”, “Jesse”, “Haven’t Got Time For The Pain”, “Anticipation” and “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be”

    I was thinking that “You’re So Vain”, from 1972, was the only song by Carly Simon song I knew.

    I soon found there were a number of others.

    At the time everyone was trying to work out who the song was about. As it turns out, she now says it was the result of various scraps of words noted at different times and then put to the music of another song in the making (see below).

    In any case the song was one of the biggest hits of the Seventies.

    So here it is, “You’re So Vain”

     

    And here is Carly’s explanation of how the song was written, divulged in an episode of “Conversations with Michael Eisner” aired in late June 2008:

    From the same album (“No Secrets”), in 1973 “The Right Thing To Do” became a favourite for many:

    Another Carly Simon song that really stands out for me is the theme song from the James Bond Film “The Spy Who Loved Me”.

    “Nobody Does It Better” went to Number 2 in 1977:

    Three years later, in 1980, Carly Simon had another million-selling US Gold single with “Jesse”, sung here live in New York’s Grand Central Station in the mid Nineties:

    From that same performance in New York, here are three more beautiful Carly Simon songs from the Seventies, “Haven’t Got Time For The Pain”, “Anticipation” and “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” (her first hit):

    Now that was worth waiting for.

    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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