My Seventies Music

Tag: Two Songs

  • 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

  • Little River Band – “Help Is On Its Way”, “Happy Anniversary”, “Reminiscing”, “Lady”, “Lonesome Loser” and “Cool Change”

    Little River Band album "Diamantina Cocktail" (1976/1977) went Gold in the USA

    Probably one of the most successful Australian bands of the Seventies – or since – was the Little River Band, whose string of hits in the USA included “Help Is On Its Way”, “Happy Anniversary”, “Reminiscing”, “Lady”, “Lonesome Loser” and “Cool Change”.

    Can anyone say “harmonies”….

    And one of their most successful albums was “Diamantina Cocktail”, named after an Australian (Queensland) speciality made with Bundaberg Rum, condensed milk and an emu’s egg!

    “Diamantina Cocktail” was released in Australia in 1976 and with a slightly different lineup of songs internationally in 1977.

    The first two songs here, perhaps two of their most memorable hits, are from that album:

    “Help Is On Its Way”:

    “Happy Anniversary”:

    “Reminiscing”, from the Little River Band album “Sleeper Catcher”, went to No. 3 in America in 1978:

    Here’s Glenn Shorrock singing his hit “Reminiscing” 30 years later in 2008:

    “Lady”, from the same album, went to No. 10 in the States in 1978:

    And in 1979 “Lonesome Loser”, from the next album, “First Under The Wire”, peaked at No. 6 there:

    It was followed by “Cool Change”, another track on that album, that also reached No. 10, the Little River Band’s last hit in the Seventies:

    All I can say to this music is…. cool!

    Paul

  • Janis Joplin – “Cry Baby”

    “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 "Pearl" 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…

    Janis Joplin's Porsche 356 convertible
    Janis Joplin's Porsche 356

    Paul

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