Three Seventies songs from Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot stick in my mind – “If You Could Read My Mind”, “Sundown” and “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”.
“If You Could Read My Mind”, written after his divorce, reached No. 1 in Canada and the 5th spot in the USA. Here is the original:
And here is “If You Could Read My Mind” sung live in Chicago in 1979:
“Sundown”, sung here live in 1974, went to Number 1 on both the Canadian and U.S. singles charts in that year:
Finally, “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”, written after an incident on the Great Lakes on November 10, 1975, reached the top spot in Canada and peaked at No. 2 in America in 1976. This video commemorates every single one of the 29 crew members lost on the ship:
Here Gordon Lightfoot sings the ballad live in 1979:
There is something timeless about the music of Gordon Lightfoot.
In 1978 Gerry Rafferty wrote or at least released his hit song “Baker Street”, on his album “City To City” and as a single.
Some time later, can’t remember if it was at the end of that year or on another visit to the UK a few years later when I was living in Germany, I cruised down Baker Street on a National Express bus entering London from the north.
And about five and a half years ago, shortly after moving to South West Scotland with my family, on a visit to London we walked along Baker Street just before the shops shut looking for an artists supply shop to get something for my daughter.
I remember that by that time my feet hurt and I did not enjoy the experience.
In fact, on both occasions I was wondering what was so special about Baker Street to motivate Gerry Rafferty to write a song about it.
I have in the back of my mind that it had something to do with Sherlock Holmes, but now I have just read that the song relates to the author’s days as a busker on the London Underground.
Well, actually, watching the video below, turns out I was right about a Sherlock Holmes connection after all – can’t say I remember seeing the Sherlock Holmes Museum though, maybe it wasn’t there yet.
This video of “Baker Street” is an HD stereo version that shows shots of the street, the museum and the Baker Street tube station:
“Baker Street” is particularly famous for its saxophone solo, and apparently this had an influence on the use of the saxophone in other music at the time, and even on the sale of saxophones! (Reminds me of the “Saxophone Song” on Kate Bush’s “The Kick Inside” album.)
Here’s another one from the same album, “Right Down The Line”:
Gerry Rafferty earlier teamed up with Joe Egan to form Stealers Wheel, producing the well known track (well, to me at least…) “Stuck In The Middle With You”. I’ll save that for another time.
Meanwhile I might watch the “Baker Street” video again and see if I can spot any more clues…
Paul
P.S. Meanwhile Gerry Rafferty died in the first half of 2011. R.I.P. Gerry…
I first came across the East German band Puhdys back in either 1978 or 1979 on a trip to Germany (before I lived there) and bought their album “Pudhys 5”, with tracks like “Ikarus II”, “Mephisto” and “Wilde Jahre” (Wild Years).
Pudhys, who were heavily influenced by artists like Deep Purple and Uriah Heep, were the first “Ostrock” or East German rock band allowed to visit West Germany.
As you can imagine, there is not a lot of video footage from back then, so I have mainly only been able to find film of them playing in more recent times – it appears they are still going strong.
This is “Ikarus”, live in 2006, I’m not sure if it’s the same song as “Ikarus II” on the album I have, it’s a bit hard to tell (this is just music without lyrics):
Here is a live version of “Ikarus II” from 1993 (takes a while to get going and the video quality is not that great):
This version of “Mephisto”, also on “Puhdys 5”, is the studio version:
Actually I did turn up a couple of videos from the Seventies after all, but I found them a bit boring so I’ll leave it at that and play the record again some time to find the ones I do like.
Paul
P.S. On coming back to this page some time later and playing the first Ikarus video, I have now actually found a live version of “Ikarus” from 1979 (audio only sorry) that brings across the feeling of hard rock behind the Iron Curtain when this music first came out:
“Cry Baby” was one of Janis Joplin’s iconic numbers, full of the energy and passion that characterised all her music.
Janis Joplin only just made it into the Seventies – she died 40 years ago in 1970, on October 4th, aged 27.
But her music kept her name alive through the Seventies and beyond nonetheless.
Here’s a live video from that year, “Cry Baby”, filmed in 1970 in Toronto:
My first encounter with Janis Joplin was in 1971, as a young teenager, when I heard one of the last two songs she had recorded, less than a year earlier: “Mercedes Benz” on the posthumously published album “Pearl”.
I was staying at someone’s place in Wellington, New Zealand, waiting for a lift the few hundred miles to my home – the younger brother of a friend of my parents.
Many years later I was to meet up with him again in Frankfurt, Germany, where I also lived at the time, but almost all I remember of his flat in Wellington was “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me, a Mercedes Benz, my friends all drive Porsches, I must make, amends”, and that album cover…
Janis Joplin's posthumously published album ""Pearl"
By coincidence, as I was locating this video, I discovered it was Janis Joplin’s birthday just a day or two ago (depending on where you live): January 19th.
So here’s a belated “Happy Birthday” Janis. I see you got your Porsche in the end…
