Last week I took a stroll down Memory Lane and played a set of songs from the Sixties: I had missed them out when I covered the decade back in 2020 and 2021. From the response I think I can safely say that this was a good plan so, devoid of any additional creative thought, I’m going with some more from the following decade, which I also covered in several sets back then. Welcome again to the Seventies!
These five tunes have nothing in common apart from the decade in which they were released, though to me that shows some maturing in my musical tastes as I moved from my teens into my twenties – the fact that I was mostly buying albums by then probably had much to do with that. Having said that, though, all of today’s songs were released as singles, but I didn’t buy any of them – I had most of the albums instead!
I like to start with something rousing. Will this do?
Highway To Hell was AC/DC’s seventh album, released in July 1979, the last to feature Bon Scott before his untimely death. It reached #8 in the UK and #17 in the US, but is one of those whose sales belie the chart placings: 8m copies in the US, 900,000 in Canada, 500,000 in Germany and 300,000 in the UK, making it their second biggest seller behind its follow up, Back In Black. Platinum Discs all over the place – nine of them in Canada and eight in the US, plus loads more elsewhere! This track was released as a single on the same day as the album, but its chart placings weren’t especially amazing: #24 in their native Australia, #47 in the US, and it didn’t even chart at all in the UK until 2012, reaching a peak of #4 in 2013. How can something this loud be called a ‘sleeper’ hit!
My next selection is a little more restrained, but is another that I’ve always liked:
Rod Argent put together the band that bore his name in 1969, after the break up of his previous outfit, The Zombies, who ironically were enjoying massive success (#3) in the US at the time with their song Time Of The Season. Hold Your Head Up was his new band’s biggest hit, reaching #5 in the UK, the US and Canada in 1972, though it had actually been released in October 1971. It was included on their third album, All Together Now, which was released in April 1972 and peaked at #13 in the UK, at the same time that the single was taking off after its slow start. The album version was over six minutes long, but it was pared down to just over half of that for the single release, which is what the band are playing in this performance. It is, I think, very much a song of its time, but I’ve always liked it and the positive message it conveys.
I bought the album for which this next one was the title track and played it to bits, which made me unusual here as she didn’t have any success until her next album. Our loss, really:
That live performance is from 1987, but Carly Simon originally released Anticipation as both an album and a single in November 1971. The album peaked at #12 in Australia, #30 in the US and #36 in Canada but didn’t make the UK charts. The same was true of the single: #13 in the US, #9 in Canada, though only #64 in Australia. And again, nothing in the UK – she had to await her next album, No Secrets, for that. The background to the song is that Carly wrote it in fifteen minutes while she was waiting for Cat Stevens, who was late picking her up for a date – a rather good response, I think!
Today’s penultimate tune is another long time favourite, from a band I have loved since they started, and takes us back to the early Seventies. This isn’t one of their biggest hits, but I’ve always liked it. There are a couple of videos on YouTube of live performances, but they are shortened from the original release, so I’m playing the full version in audio-only, with a rather nice video that someone has made for it:
The Byrds included Chestnut Mare on their album (Untitled), which was released in September 1970, and peaked at #40 in the US and #19 in the UK. It was a hybrid double album, comprising a studio record and a second which was an amalgam of two live concert performances in New York. The live album is a bit of a greatest hits show, and includes an epic version of Eight Miles High, which at over 16 minutes filled a whole side on its own. Chestnut Mare is the opening track on the studio album, and was the one single taken from it: it was released in October 1970 in the US, only reaching #121 there, but the January 1971 UK release did much better, getting to #19. I bought the album at the time and loved it – I still do.
I’m closing today with one from the mid Seventies. As last Saturday saw the tenth anniversary of his passing I couldn’t really leave him out, could I:
David Bowie released Rebel Rebel as a single in February 1974, ahead of its inclusion on his eighth album, Diamond Dogs, in May of that year. The single quickly became a glam anthem – the last he released in that style – and was seen by some as the female equivalent of Bowie’s earlier hit for Mott the Hoople, All the Young Dudes. It reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart and #64 in the US. The album became his third successive UK #1 (he later had six more), and peaked at #5 in the US. I saw him in concert in early 1973, in his Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane days, and it still ranks as one of the best gigs I’ve ever attended. Though this track wasn’t yet in the making it is another that I’ve always liked and, of course, I got the album – it’s amazing how your priorities can affect the way you spend your student grant, isn’t it, though to be fair I did work during the holidays to make some more cash for life’s essentials!
That’s the lot for today, and I hope you like these memories as much as you seem to have done last week. I still have several more from the Seventies on my list so, depending on the response to these, I may go with them again next week. We’ll see. I’ll be back again in a couple of days, so until then stay safe and warm 😊
