My Seventies Music

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  • Nils Lofgren – “No Mercy” And “Keith Don’t Go”

    Nils Lofgren album "Night After Night" (1978)

    I don’t know a lot from Nils Lofgren, just two songs really, “No Mercy” and “Keith Don’t Go”.

    Nils Lofgren, who has had a long solo career, also worked with Neil Young in the Seventies, as well as playing in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for 25 years.

    But I didn’t know that until just now…

    Actually I first got to know his 1979 track “No Mercy” (from the album “Nils”) a year or so later through a band I used to write some songs with in Bamberg, Germany, who played it.

    I still remember hearing it the first time crammed into a tiny cellar with just enough room for the band, their equipment and a couple of other people, i.e. right up close!

    Here it is, “No Mercy”, recorded in 1979 (with lyric subtitles in German, how fitting):

    And here is a live version of “No Mercy” twelve years later on German television in 1991:

    The other Nils Lofgren track I am familiar with actually came out a year earlier in 1978.

    It’s from his fourth album “Night After Night”, and is called “Keith Don’t Go” (Keith being Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones):

    Nils Lofgren also plays this one on the acoustic guitar, so here is “Keith Don’t Go” unplugged:

    Which do YOU think sounds better, electric or acoustic?

    Paul

  • Hello Sailor – “Gutter Black” And “Blue Lady”

    1977 album "Hello Sailor" by New Zealand band Hello Sailor

    The 1977 album “Hello Sailor” by New Zealand band Hello Sailor from Auckland was the first record made in New Zealand to be certified gold, producing two top 20 and one top 30 singles in that country: “Gutter Black”, “Blue Lady” and “Lyin’ In The Sand”.

    To be honest, at the time I found Hello Sailor a bit arrogant.

    As it turned out, they bit off more than they could chew by trying to conquer the US market before attempting to break into Australia, but didn’t tackle it seriously (too much partying).

    When they got back, other bands had taken over their patch so to speak. When they did go to Australia that didn’t work out either, and there were other problems with, let’s say, substance abuse. Not long after the band broke up.

    To give them credit though, those with the problems cleaned up their act and went on to other successes, and are meanwhile playing together again.

    Anyway, I couldn’t find “Lyin’ In The Sand”, so here are the other two tracks mentioned. Listening to them again, I recognised both songs, neither of which I have heard for over 30 years.

    This is a live version of “Gutter Black”:

    Meanwhile, “Gutter Black” was used as the title music for a popular New Zealand TV series, Outrageous Fortune. I came across a trailer for it, not what I’d want my kids watching, I must say.

    And here’s “Blue Lady”, also sung live:

    That’s it for today.

    Paul

  • Roxy Music – “Virginia Plain”, “If There Is Something”, “Psalm”, “Pyjamarama”, “Love Is The Drug”, “Both Ends Burning”, “Still Falls The Rain”, “Dance Away”, “Over You”, “Oh Yeah”, “Same Old Scene”, “Jealous Guy”, “More Than This” And “Avalon”

    The somewhat controversial Roxy Music album "Country Life" (1974)

    With Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music I’m never sure where to start, there’s so much, and I keep discovering more.

    I mainly know some of their songs from the late Seventies and early Eighties, but I’ve also taken some of their work from the early Seventies here.

    In the early years Brian Eno was in the band, but he left after the second album, “For Your Pleasure”. From then on, Phil Manazanera and Andy Mackay began co-writing, but Bryan Ferry continued to write most of the material.

    The first single, which went to No. 4 in the UK in 1972, was “Virginia Plain”:

    Also in 1972, album track “If There Is Something”:

    Some of the guitar on this makes me think of the Beatles “Abbey Road” album. I like it. In fact, the more I listen to it, the more I like it!

    From the 1973 album “Stranded”, here is “Psalm”, quite a bit different from some of the later stuff:

    Also from 1973, Roxy Music’s second single “Pyjamarama”:

    A major single in 1975 that peaked at No. 2 in the UK was “Love Is The Drug”:

    Here is a somewhat later live version of “Love Is The Drug”:

    Also from 1975, “Both Ends Burning”:

    “Still Falls The Rain” was a track on the 1979 album “Manifesto”:

    “Dance Away” (UK No. 2 in 1979, also from “Manifesto”) just makes me melt away….

    I also quite like “Over You” (No. 5 in the UK, from the next album, “Flesh + Blood”):

    And this has got to be my favourite Roxy Music song ever…. “Oh Yeah” from 1980. I love it! I still remember hearing it on a stormy night in a pub in Broadford on the Isle of Skye off the west coast of Scotland. And in a small bar in Nuremberg below the castle, while waiting for a concert (might have been Led Zeppelin, not sure). “Oh Yeah”:

    “Same Old Scene” was the third single from the “Flesh + Blood” album:

    Shortly after John Lennon was shot, Roxy Music sang a tribute version of one of my favourite Lennon songs, “Jealous Guy”, taking it to No. 1 in the UK and Australia:

    They followed it with “More Than This” (No. 6)…

    … and “Avalon”:

    I’d better stop now…

    Paul

  • Klaus Doldinger And Passport – “Uranus”, “Schirokko”, “Mandragora”, “Ataraxia” And The Theme From The Movie “Das Boot”

    And now for something completely different – Klaus Doldinger and Passport, a German jazz formation that has been compared with the US band Weather Report.

    I won’t claim to know the individual tracks, I only heard Doldinger’s music for the first time in 1983, and liked it.

    Here are some tracks I have found from the Seventies (the band was formed in 1971) and the very early Eighties.

    “Uranus” (1971):

    “Schirokko” (1973):

    “Mandragora” (1973):

    “Ataraxia”, at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1980:

    For some reason that one reminds me a little of Deep Purple (as does the name of Montreux…. “We all came down to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline…).

    Klaus Doldinger produced the theme music of the 1981 movie “Das Boot”:

    More of “Das Boot” with pictures from the film:

    Hope you liked todays “change of tune”.

    Paul

  • Gary Numan – “Cars”

    Gary Numan single "Cars" (1979)

    At the very end of the Seventies, late 1979, I remember Englishman Gary Numan singing “Cars”, from his album “The Pleasure Principle”.

    In fact, whenever I hear it or think of Gary Numan or “Cars”, it reminds me of being in not a car but a Transit van, at 4 o’clock in the morning.

    We had just finished clearing up after a dance during the student orientation I was running at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.

    Together with the people helping, we had stopped off at a service station, the only place still open, to get something to eat, and I vividly remember “Cars” playing on the radio as we got out of the van.

    That was actually at the start of 1980, so obviously the song still got airplay in New Zealand for a while (it was apparently released in August 1979).

    Here’s Gary Numan in the promotional video of “Cars”:

    I don’t really remember anything else by Gary Numan, but this one has stuck in my mind.

    Paul

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