40 Year Itch : Le Temps Dure Longtemps

Arles, France 1975 by William Messer

           

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   Recorded at London's Trident Studios with a mix of British and French musicians, Nino Ferrer's "Le Sud"( "The South") is about an imagined place in Italy where Ferrer, a show business refugee, could find peace and sanctuary from his inner demons. When the single sold a million copies, he bought his mansion in the South, a 15th Century fortress in in southwest France where he bred horses. But his demons caught up with him. Days after his mother died, Ferrer walked out into a field with a hunting rifle and shot himself through the heart.

1974's Sexiest Album Covers

America's largest record retailer, Sears,  refused to stock Buffy Saint-Marie's MCA debut Buffy because she exposes a breast on the album cover. Buffy said the photo " is a good-natured protest against gloom, as well  as support for any woman's right to take off her own shirt". In that spirit here are a few more of 1974's sexiest album covers.

So scandalous a cover that future American printings only showed the evergreen trees.

Is that hose supposed to represent something?

 Hard rockin' Slavs.

Mood music from popular -tho cheesy- Italian sax player

Chaka Khan is one of the decade's sexiest frontwomen

Robert Palmer's debut, backed by the Meters

The single, "Le Sud", sold a million copies. 

Jimmy Cliff may have been a breast man in the mid 70's

Cannonball Adderly's horoscope influenced horror

When they weren't  playing with George Harrison and Joni Mitchell, they were laying down a groove for future hip hop stars.

German prog

Hard rocking Brits

One of soul's sexiest singers of the decade

Italian singer's debut featured a memorable gatefold