40 Year Itch: The Who Summer of 74 Fest

"Charlton was very disappointing , because when we went out the first thing I felt in the air was violence . It was like a feeling of something not quite right . I dunno what it was but I felt very uneasy for some time . The only way I could get myself together was by shutting out the audience and working with the group "
-Pete Townshend

On May 18, 1974 The Who played before a sold out crowd of 50,000 fans at Charlton Athletic F.C. Despite the bill, the opening acts were Humble Pie, a bleached blond Lou Reed, Bad Company ( whose debut album would come out in a few weeks), Lindisfarne, Maggie Bell  and Montrose. 

There was an ugly period in the 70's when people threw glass bottles at shows. (50 people had been hurt at a Jackson 5 concert at RFK Stadium the week before) There are reports of bottles and cans being thrown at this concert but no performers were hit. Just unlucky members of the audience. 

For more memories of Charlton '74 click this link

40 Year Itch : Dazed and Dopey

[Purchase]

Thunderbox. That's British slang for a toilet. And that's pretty much where things lie for Humble Pie after such a promising start to the decade. There are a few choice covers here but Steve Marriot on the boys have really dumbed things down Witness the lyrics to the title cut.

Some say you from Dallas there
And you're hooked on pork and beans
 But I think it might be you're from Louisiana
Roundabout New Orleans

Rolling Stone's Gordon Fletcher summed up his review this way:

Thunderbox is a stupid album; it and the group's ineptness indicate that both may be fading into oblivion --so died the dinosaur too stupid and too heavy to survive.

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[Purchase]

Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi reunite for the double live, doubly loud Twin Peaks, recorded in Japan. How loud? Three and a half minutes into  the aptly titled  "Guitar Solo", you can hear an overloaded Marshall amp explode. But fans bought the album to revisit the classics: "Mississippi Queen" and an astonishing 32-minute version of"Nantucket Sleighride"

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[Purchase]

Ted Nugent's second to last album with the Amboy Dukes is full of the kind of jam kicking Motor City rock and roll they were doing before just about anybody else as well as "Below the Belt",  a 7-minute somewhat quiet instrumental ...featuring a flute. 

[Purchase]

Michael Des Barre's glam rock band Silverhead didn't shy away from hard rockers full of sexual innuendo. ( "More Than Your Mouth Can Hold") Members of the band went on to play with Blondie and Robert Plant.

40 Year Itch: Can't Get Enough of the Boogie Blues

[Purchase]

Humble Pie's follow-up to its big 1972 Top Ten hit Smokin' is Eat It, a jam packed double LP with the kind of bluesy boogie that record buyers were apparently craving in the early 70's. Eat It's sides are broken up into four distinctive acts. Side 1 is original rock n roll, relying heavily on The Blackberries, the female back up singers. Side 2 is all R and B covers. The short, mostly acoustic Side 3 is the most listenable 40 years later ( and includes "Say No More") Side 4 is more live tracks that pale in comparison to Humble Pie's Performance: Rockin' The Fillmore  album. You can hear Marriot's enormous talent and the tortured soul that was consumed by drugs and alcohol before dying in a house fire at the age of 44.

 

[Purchase]

Still Alive And Well marks a comeback for the talented blues guitarist Johnny Winter who lost his momentum in the years preceding to a heroin addiction. The album catches fire from the start with the blues cover "Rock Me Baby". There are two Rolling Stones covers, "Let It Bleed" and "Silver Train" which had yet to appear on the Stones '73 album Goats Head Soup. Even classic rock stations don't play this kind of music anymore but Still Alive and Well made a whole bunch of "Best of"  lists at the end of 1973.

 


{Out of Print}

Blues loving California rockers Canned Heat had survived the death of Alan Wilson ( who sang the band's two most famous songs "Going Up The Country" and "On The Road Again") and recorded The New Age, their seventh album. Lester Bangs got fired from Rolling Stone for his sarcastic review of the album:

Most of...the songs are just  some kind of nondescript clinkletybonk tibia-rattling in pursuit of yeehah countryisms so let 'em  dry rot in the grooves.Buy this album if you've gotta lotta money or don't care much what you blow your wad on, but don't pass up any of the really cosmic stuff like the Stooges for it or the shadow of Blind Lemon Jefferson will come and blow his nose on your brow every night.

 

[Purchase]

Made up of three former Savoy Browners and Rod Price, a graduate of Black Cat Bone, Foghat returns with a second album of blues-tinged boogie rock known by fans as Rock And Roll because of the cover art. ( Get it?) They spent most of '73 touring with Johnny Winter. The CD doesn't sound as though it has been remastered.

March 1972 : When The Blues Meet The Boogie

All of these albums were released in March of 1972


[Buy Smokin']

With co-founder Peter Frampton off seeking solo glory, Clem Clemson comes aboard to play some smokin' guitar on this Top Ten hit. Humble Pie is Steve Marriott's band now. He produces the album and actually collapses from nervous exhaustion during recording. The album's best known for "30 Days In The Hole" but "You're So Good To Me" is one of 1001Songs fave songs of the 70's. You can almost see The Robinson brothers of Black Crowes fame sitting together furiously taking notes.

[Buy Roadwork]

The live double disc follow-up to White Trash, Roadwork - which hit number 23 on the album charts- plays like a rock soul blues and gospel revue. Like his blues guitar playing brother Johnny, Edgar is a Texas albino with enormous talent as a keyboardist, saxophone player and vocalist. About halfway into the show Johnny comes onstage to play on Rick Derringer's "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" . Later in the year, Winter will release They Only Come Out At Night featuring his #1 monster hit "Frankenstein" and the #14  "Free Ride".

[Buy D and B Together]

Atlantic Records exec Jerry Wexler wasn't thrilled with Country Life, the last Delaney and Bonnie album the duo recorded, so he added a few cuts ( some, like "Comin Home" and "Groupie" dating back to 1969) and changed the running order. It's a sign of  Delaney and Bonnie's popularity among musicians that they were able to get Eric Clapton, Tina Turner and Billy Preston, among others, to play on the album. The couple divorced in 1973.

[Not Available]

Featuring both his Derek and the Dominos band mates and Delaney Bramnlett, Bobby Whitlock's self-titled debut album is full of similar whiskey drenched southern blues rock . George Harrison and Klaus Voorman also play on this, the opening track. Criminal that this is out of print.

[Buy Recall The Beginning A Journey From Eden]

The last album Steve Miller would release before hitting his commercial stride with 1973's The Joker, Recall has a brilliant second side featuring one of Miller's best songs ever -- "Journey From Eden".