40 Year Itch : Goodbye 1974!

Goodbye 1974! Join the James Last Orchestra as they play another delicious melody! This time we get Mud's "Tiger Feet", Golden Earring's "Radar Love" and "Jesus Loves You". 

See you in 2015!

40 Year Itch : The Best of the 1974 Loss Leaders

   From 1969 through 1980,  Warner Brothers Records would ship off compilation albums to consumers willing to pay $2 for double albums. This year our friend who captains Willard's Wormholes posted the entire set. Here are just a few of our favorite tunes sampled on the 1974 loss leaders.

Side 1
Good Rats Back To My Music (2:45)
 James Taylor Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Music Now (3:19)
 Jimmy Cliff Music Maker (2:59)
 Richard Betts Rain (3:48)
 Jesse Winchester Wake Me (2:18)
 Elvin Bishop Travelin’ Shoes (7:11)
 Side 2
Doug Sahm Tex Mex Trip Groover’s Paradise (3:21)
 Little Feat Spanish Moon (3:01)
 Maria Muldaur Do I Care (3:02)
 Adam Faith I Believe In Love (3:32)
 Ry Cooder Tattler (4:11)
 Lorraine Ellison Walk Around Heaven (3:49)
 Side 3
 Wendy Waldman My Love Is All I Know (3:30)
 Frankie Miller Brickyard Blues (3:34)
 America Tin Man (3:23)
 Arlo Guthrie Me And My Moose (1:59)
 Randy Newman Rollin’ (2:51)
 Van Dyke Parks Come To The Sunshine (edit) (2:30)
 Jesse Colin Young Light Shine (5:19)
 Side 4
 Browning Bryant This Is My Day (4:00)
 Ashton and Lord We’re Gonna Make It (3:47)
 Bonnie Raitt What Is Success (3:23)
 The Peter Peter Ivers Band Alpha Centauri (3:10)
 John Hartford Boogie (1:36)
 The Meters Jungle Man (3:18)
 Wet Willie Keep On Smilin’ (3:55)

Side 1
Leo Sayer Long Tall Glasses (3:04)
 Jethro Tull Bungle In The Jungle (3:31)
 Kenny Rankin In The Name Of Love (3:21)
 Fleetwood Mac Silver Heels (3:22)
 Percy Sledge I’ll Be Your Everything (3:19)
 Graham Central Station Feel The Need (3:54)
 Side 2
 Trapeze Turn It On (5:06)
 Foghat Rock and Roll Outlaw (3:43)
 Montrose I Got The Fire (3:05)
 Todd Rundgren’s Utopia Freedom Fighters (3:57)
 Bachman-Turner-Bachman Goodbye, Soul Shy (3:39)
 Deep Purple Stormbringer (4:09)
Side 3
The Marshall Tucker Band This Ol’ Cowboy (6:37)
 John Sebastian Wild About My Lovin’ (2:59)
 Debbie Dawn Hands (3:07)
Maria Muldaur It Ain’t The Meat, It’s The Motion (2:59)
 Jan and Dean Laurel and Hardy (2:42)
 Mike McGear Norton (2:37)
 Side 4
The Doobie Brothers Black Water (4:10)
 Ron Wood I Can Feel The Fire (4:44)
 Tower Of Power Only So Much Oil In The Ground (2:58)
 Gregg Allman Double Cross (4:33)
 Van Morrison Comfort You (4:27)

Side 1
Graham Central Station We’ve Been Waiting (0:57)
 Graham Central Station Can You Handle It? (5:07)
Montrose Good Rockin’ Tonight (2:55)
The Doobie Brothers Pursuit On 53rd St. (2:30)
Ted Nugent And The Amboy Dukes Sweet Revenge (3:59)
The Talbot Brothers Trail Of Tears (3:48)
Foghat That’ll Be The Day (2:36)
Side 2
Van Morrison Ain’t Nothin’ You Can Do (3:41)
Chunky, Novi and Ernie Atlantic Liner (3:36)
Deep Purple “A” 200 (4:05)
Frank Zappa Cosmik Debris (4:21)
Todd Rundgren Heavy Metal Kids (4:13)
Bob Seger UMC (Upper Middle Class) (3:13)
Side 3
Kiss Strutter (3:08)
Steeleye Span Thomas The Rhymer (3:07)
The Marshall Tucker Band Another Cruel Love (3:53)
Osibisa Take Your Trouble – Go (3:59)
Gregg Allman Please Call Home (2:41)
Neil Young with Graham Nash War Song (3:38)
Denver, Boise And Johnson The ’68 Nixon (This Year’s Model) (1:31)
Side 4
Alan Price In Times Like These (2:35)
Seals and  Crofts Dance By The Light Of The Moon (4:39)
Terry Melcher Dr. Horowitz (2:45)
Leo Sayer The Show Must Go On (3:23)
The Beach Boys Vegetables (2:05)
Robin Trower About To Begin (3:43)
Dooley Wilson As Time Goes By (3:08)

Side 1
Richard Betts Highway Call (4:27)
 Wet Willie Lucy Was In Trouble (3:41)
 Elvin Bishop Let It Flow (3:54)
 Johnny Darrell Orange Blossom Special (3:14)
 Percy Sledge Walkin’ In The Sun (3:25)
 Maxayn Moonfunk (4:40)
 Side 2
The Marshall Tucker Band Blue Ridge Mountain Sky (3:37)
 Boyer and Talton (Cowboy) Houston (3:03)
 Johnny Jenkins Voodoo In You (4:52)
 The Allman Brothers Band Come And Go Blues (4:55)
 Bobby Thompson Foxfire (2:13)
 Captain Beyond Sufficiently Breathless (5:12)
 Side 3
Gregg Allman Dreams (7:55)
 Larry Henley I’ll Come Running Back To You (3:14)
 Grinderswitch Catch A Train (4:46)
 James Montgomery Band I’m Funky But I’m Clean (4:12)
 White Witch Black Widow Lover (4:49)
 Side 4
Hydra Glitter Queen (4:08)
 Duke Williams And The Extremes God Bless All The Girls In The World (2:54)
 Kenny O’Dell I Take It On Home (2:49)
 Kitty Wells I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (2:22)
 Arthur Conley Stop Knocking (2:54)
 Chris Christman Apron Strings (3:37)
 Duane Allman Happily Married Man (2:41)

40 Year Itch : A Nederglam Nugget

  One Man Glam band Frank Klunhaar recorded this Polydor 45 ---indebted heavily to Roxy Music--in a studio at The Hague . You'll enjoy the  classic chorus: " I am your  Pantherman/ I am your Pantherman/ I'll show you my paws/ " I am your Pantherman/ I am your Pantherman/ I'll Show you my claws/I'm gonna bite you". Klunhaar's accent is just thick enough to suggest he was going to show off his balls, not paws. A forgotten classic!

40 Year Itch: Christmas Time is Here Again!

  To celebrate Christmas, here's a gift of ten of my favorite songs from 1974.

                           Happy Holidays!

                                     (zipped folder) download

40 Year Itch: A Ragged Kid in Overalls

[Purchase]

   From the 1974 self-titled album that featured "They Ain't Makin' Jews like Jesus Anymore", Kinky Friedman's "Rapid City South Dakota" may be country music's first pro-choice song: 

"There’s a doctor in Chicago/

I know she’ll be alright"/

He told himself as he stared into the night. 

   The more time you spend with Friedman's music, the more certain you'll be he's not a single punchline songwriter. Some of his tunes are incredibly moving as well.He's been called Country Music's answer to Randy Newman. "Rapid City South Dakota"  was eventually covered by Dwight Yoakam.

40 Year Itch : Lady Na Master

[Purchase]

  Nigerian sax player, com poser, singer, Afrobeat pioneer and a political activist so outspoken he was the original "Black President",  Fela Kuti sings of African women in this nearly 14-minute 1974 single. It's more complicated than a mere celebration. Women's roles in Africa were changing. "Lady" can be heard as both a feminist anthem (She go say im get power like man / She go say anything man do, imself fit do which translates into She believes she is as powerful as men / She will tell you that she can do anything men can do ) and as a song troubled by the impact of Western influences.

40 Year Itch : Rethinking the Electric Guitar

[Purchase]

Henry Cow founder Fred Frith's stunning Guitar Solos is an album of eight tracks recorded in four days of improvisation using modified and specially tuned guitars. On the track "No Birds" he's simultaneously  playing two guitars placed neck to neck on a table. 

   The album made the NME Critics Poll of Best albums of 1974. At the 9:45 mark, you can probably hear why Brian Eno wanted to record Before and After Science and Music for Films with Frith.

   The rest of the NME Critics Poll looked like this:

NME Albums 1974
 1. Pretzel Logic - Steely Dan
 2. It's Only Rock 'n' Roll - Rolling Stones
 3. Before The Flood - Bob Dylan
 4. 461 Ocean Boulevard - Eric Clapton
 5. Todd - Todd Rundgren
 6. On The Beach - Neil Young
 7. Rock Bottom - Robert Wyatt
 8. Fulfillingness First Finale - Stevie Wonder
 9. Country Life - Roxy Music
 10. Average White Band - Average White Band
 11. Future Days - Can
 12. Smiler - Rod Stewart
 13. Secret Treaties - Blue Oyster Cult
 14. Maria Muldaur - Maria Muldaur
 15. Another Saturday Night - Various
 16. Sold American - Kinky Friedman
 17. On The Border - Eagles
 18. Court And Spark - Joni Mitchell
 19. Odds And Sods - The Who
 20. Kimono My House - Sparks
 21. Okie - J.J. Cale
 22. Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons
 23. Radio City - Big Star
 24. Mysterious Traveller - Weather Report
== Sheer Heart Attack - Queen
 == Big Fun - Miles Davis
 27. Rock 'n' Roll Animal - Lou Reed
 28. Deal Gone Down - Michael Chapman
== I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight - Richard And Linda Thompson
== It's Too Late To Stop Now - Van Morrison
31. Teasin' - Cornel Dupree
 == Close Up The Honky Tonks - Flying Burrito Brothers
 33. Feats Don't Fail Me Now - Little Feat
== Veedon Fleece - Van Morrison 
35. Paradise And Lunch - Ry Cooder
== Dreamer - Bobby Bland
 37. In Concert - Beach Boys
== Fear - John Cale
== For Everyman - Jackson Browne
== His California Album - Bobby Bland
 41. Limited Edition - Can
42. The Psychomodo - Cockney Rebel
== Good For You Too - Toni Brown
 == Live - Marvin Gaye
 45. Live From Deep In The Heart Of Texas - Commander Cody
 46. All American Boy - Rick Derringer
== Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash - Mike Nesmith
== Streetwalkers - Chapman-Whitney
 == Keep On Smilin' - Wet Willie
 == Planet Waves - Bob Dylan
 51. Anthology - Marvin Gaye
 52. Soon Over Babaluma - Can
== Spyglass - Greenslade
54. Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley - Robert Palmer
 55. Propaganda - Sparks
 56. The Shipbuilder - Bob Pegg & Nick Strutt
== Learn To Love It - Jesse Winchester
 == Guitar Solos - Fred Frith
 59. Angel's Egg - Gong
== Good Old Boys - Randy Newman

40 Year Itch : Swapping Disappointing Incidents

I didn't want my year long devotion to 1974 to end without mentioning the great Brian Eno single "Seven Deadly Finns" which cracked the UK Top 40 despite yodeling vocals and name checking US cybernetics originator Norman "Information is information, not matter or energy" Wiener.

"Do you know what 'burning shame' is by the way? It's a pornographic term for a deviation involving candles ... Very popular in Japanese pornography. They're always using lit candles because Japanese pornography is very sadistic..."
 (-- Brian Eno, interviewed by Chrissie Hynde, NME, 1974)

40 Year Itch : Sure 'Nuff is a Pity

A minor hit for Bobby Bland in 1974 , "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" made a comeback through the Kanye West produced Jay Z single "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)" which was used in the 2007 film American Gangsters. How about that suit though? If I played for the Cleveland Browns, I'd be wearing this every day.

40 Year Itch: Disappointment Haunted all my Dreams

   Pink Floyd's Nick Mason produced Robert Wyatt's artsy take on the Monkees classic which hit number 29 in the UK charts in late 1974. Future Police Andy Summers plays guitar and Fred Frith plays violin. Producers at Top of the Pops didn't want Wyatt to perform in a wheelchair. It didn't seem family friendly or in keeping with the glib goings on but Wyatt eventually won out.

40 Year Itch : The Dream is Over

    On December 19, 1974 George Harrison and Paul McCartney met in a Plaza Hotel suite in New York City to sign documents formally ending The Beatles. Ringo had already signed the papers in England. Watch below as Harrison chants "krishna krishna krishna" as he gives his signature. 

             


 So, let's see. Who's missing? John of course. Lennon told May Pang "the stars were not right" to attend the meeting. That pissed George off so much he cancelled Lennon's appearance on stage that night. Julian went to the concert though, and even got to go backstage where George sent him home with a message : "All's forgiven, George loves you and he wants you to come to his party tonight."

  After the concert John, Paul and George met at the Hippopotamus Club and "hugged it out".

On December 29, Lennon finally filled out his paperwork, seated inside the Polynesian Village Hotel at Disney World where he had taken Julian.

40 Year Itch : The 5 Biggest UK Xmas Hits of 1974

   

  Mud topped off their sensational year by winning the Christmas sweepstakes with "Lonely This Christmas", the #1 song in the UK for four straight weeks. If it sounds like singer Les Gray is parodying Elvis Presley, he is. 

  "I was doing an Elvis on that but it was really a send up of all those smoochy songs. It works because it can also be taken seriously. I remember playing it at the the Liverpool Empire and some of the fans were crying and there were laughing." 

  

  The Wombles also finished their spectacular year with a top 5 holiday song. In the US, there was no race for the top of the charts. Perry Como had the highest charting holiday song with "Christmas Dream" which peaked at #92.

Here's how the UK Xmas songs fared on Christmas week 1974:

#5 The Wombles "Wombling Merry Christmas"

#13 The Goodies "Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me"

#18 Gilbert O'Sullivan "Christmas Song"

#23 Showaddywaddy "Hey Mr. Christmas"

   Honorable Mention : Sparks "Thanks God It's Not Christmas"

40 Year Itch: Light in the Darkness of Insanity,

[Purchase]

     By 1974, Brinsley Schwarz could do it all. Not that anybody but the critics noticed. 

When the Dave Edmunds produced New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz failed to sell, the band broke up. This must have come as very sad news to a fan who showed up at so many gigs he was considered a "part time roadie". His name was Declan MacManus . Under his better known name, Elvis Costello, he would record both Brinsley Schwarz songs featured here.

Nick Lowe and Ian Gomm went solo while Schwarz and Bob Andrews formed the Rumour to back up an angry young man named Graham Parker.

40 Year Itch : John Lennon on the Today Show

     On December 16, 1974 John Lennon appeared on The Today Show, where he talked about his efforts to avoid getting deported by the US Immigration Department who claimed his 1968 drug arrest in the UK was grounds for deportation. Lennon also talked about the Red and the Blue albums, working with various Beatles ( even hinting that he'd appear on stage with George Harrison that Friday--he didn't). Lennon also suggested the major hold up to a Beatles reunion was the difficulty in getting the various members into the US at the same time. Such a reunion, Lennon said, was "quite possible" but "it would have to be interesting to us musically. Otherwise there would be no point."

    In the interview, Lennon explains the story behind his 1968 drug bust. His attorney, Leon Wildes,is also present . Lennon says he wants to live in America because he wants to live in his day's Rome. The deportation order was overturned in 1975. He received his permanent green card in 1976.

40 Year Itch : The Flying Aces

[Purchase]

    These Scots, whose band name comes from the last name of the founding members ( P (Paton) L (Lyall) and T (Tosh), play perfect pop in the Badfinger style. When session guitarist Ian Bairnson joined the band, they gelled. "Magic" was the  #5 US hit, released as Pilot toured the UK with Sparks in late 1974. The first single, "Just a Smile", is an even bigger ear worm in my opinion. Maybe I'm a sucker for hand capping.

   Alan Parsons produced the album. Bassist David Paton and guitarist Ian Bairnson would join the producer for The Alan Parsons Project. Drummer Stuart Tosh would eventually join 10cc.

[Purchase]

  "How Long", the blue-eyed soul single written and sung by future Mike and the Mechanics and Squeeze vocalist Paul Carrack, was the big hit for Ace. This is no love song. It's Carrack wondering how long Aces bass player,  Terry Comer, had been secretly playing with other bands. You might guess the rest of the album sounds like something Boz Scaggs or Hall and Oates might have released...and you'd be wrong. Most of Five-a-Side is rootsy pub rock.

40 Year Itch : A Dark Horse in the White House

  On December 13, 1974 George Harrison and members of his band, including Billy Preston, Tom Scott and Ravi Shankar visited President Gerald Ford at the White House. Invited by Ford's son Jack, the musicians apparently had a swell time with "the accidental president". Both were beaming despited muddling through difficult times and bad press. Some clips of the visit appear below.

George and Olivia that day

40 Year Itch : Moja Droga Jacie Kocha

This week in 1974, the Polish Prince, Bobby Vinton, was riding his "Melody of Love" ( and its partially Polish lyrics)  on his eventual way to #3 in the charts while two future #1 hits made their chart debuts, the Average White Band's "Pick Up the Pieces" and Linda Ronstadt's "You're No Good".

10.  Barry White : You're the First, the Last My Everything

9.    Al Green Sha-La-La ( Makes Me Happy)

8.    Bachman Turner Overdrive : You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet

7.    Bobby Vinton : My Melody of Love

6.  Helen Reddy : Angie Baby

5. Harry Chapin : Cat's in the Cradle

4. B.T. Express : Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)

3. Three Degrees: When Will I See You Again

2. Billy Swan : I Can Help

1. Carl Douglas : Kung Fu Fighting

Top 5 Notable New Chart Entries

81. Average White Band : Pick Up The Pieces

82. Cat Steven : Ready

86. Linda Ronstadt: You're No Good

89. David Bowie : Changes

99. Sugarloaf : Don't Call Us, We'll Call You.

40 Year Itch : My Old Time Used To Be

[Purchase]

   Chicago by way of Greenwood, Mississippi blues guitarist Fenton Robinson scored five stars in the 1983 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide for Somebody Loan Me a Dime, the title track of which Robinson originally wrote and recorded in 1967. Many people had heard Boz Scaggs's 1969 version with Duane Allman before Alligator Records, then a one man operation run by Bruce Iglauer,  released what has been hailed as a blues classic.

[Purhase]

Another Alligator Records act was Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers whose Natural Boogie earned an A - rating from Robert Christgau in 1974. This is down and dirty, rowdy and rocking blues played at high volume and high intensity. You won't hear any bass in this trio. Taylor was already 59 when this album came out. He'd never see 61, dying in December of 1974. He wrote his epitaph when he said "I'll be dead years from now and people will say 'He couldn't play worth a shit, but damn could he make it sound good!" 

[Purchase]

   On his first album for RSO, Freddie King teamed up with his new label mate and #1 fan Eric Clapton on the duet "Sugar Sweet". That, and the airbrushed cover by artist Peter Palombi, are probably what Burglar is best known for. It's a bit of a surprisingly funky mixed bag, especially for those seeking pure blues. I like the deep track "My Credit Didn't Go Through" but maybe because I've recently tried to re finance my mortgage and I can relate. In 1976 King would die of heart failure. He was only 42 years old.

And just for the hell of it:

40 Year Itch : On a Dark Race Course

[Purchase]

  On December 9, 1974 a hoarse-sounding George Harrison released his fifth studio album, Dark Horse. It's an album that plays like a series of journal entries in one of Harrison's most tumultuous years. He called 1974 "a bad domestic year". And that's an understatement.

 He indulged in naughty adventures with alcohol, and drugs which led to affairs with the wives of some of his friends ( Maureen Starr and Ronnie Wood's wife Krissy). These are referenced in the songs "Simply Shady" and "So Sad". ( He feels so alone /With no love of his own/ So sad, so bad, so sad, so bad).

Harrison and Peter Sellers walking around Friar Park

  His wife Pattie described the year in this way: "That whole period was insane. Friar Park was a madhouse. Our lives were fuelled by alcohol and cocaine, and so it was with everyone who came into our sphere ... George used cocaine excessively and I think it changed him." Boyd would leave Harrison for his best friend Eric Clapton. 

      In his cover of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" Harrison makes a not so subtle reference: "There goes our lady, with a-you-know-who / I hope she's happy, old Clapper too". Both Patti and Clapper sing back-up. Ouch!

   There were some good reviews for the album but it is the Rolling Stone critic Jim Miller's review that left its mark:

 Yet it is only in the wake of his disastrous tour and Dark Horse, his disastrous album, that George Harrison finally stands naked. For his new record, Harrison hired a band of merely competent studio pros, saddled himself with a passel of preachy lyrics and then cut the album hoarse, his voice whining offensively, turning each idiot phrase into a prickly barb. Harrison's modest skills suddenly dwindle, overshadowed by the misplaced pride that permitted him to release such a shoddy piece of work.

40 Year Itch : A Chameleon on Cavett

“David Bowie is a superstar in a category that has never actually been defined, because as soon as a critic tries to say what he is, he changes, like a chameleon.” 
      Dick Cavett, December 5, 1974



   On December 5, 1974 David Bowie, sniffing so many times you'd think he'd had some kind of substance stuck in his nostrils, sang and talked on The Dick Cavett show. He performed three songs: "1984" ( from Diamond Dogs),  "Young Americans" ( from his forthcoming Philly soul album by the same name) and a medley of "Foot Stompin'" and "I Wish I could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate".
 


  Among the back-up singers, an unknown Luther Vandross.



   It's a fascinating thing to watch because Bowie is so strange. Sniffing, fidgeting with his cane and his jacket, laughing awkwardly. Cavett, though looking at ease, felt like he was drowning during the interview. Eventually he asks Bowie if he want sot be understood.
    Bowie's response:
  "There's absolutely nothing to understand."