October, 1973 is a monster month in rock 'n' roll. I've already featured three albums from this list of twelve shown above recently and decided to mix them all together and make a big ol' playlist this week.
I always seem to surprise myself 50 years down the road, and this past week it was listening to Neil Young's Time Fades Away. This was the album that followed Harvest and it just became part of Young's succession of albums where he seemed not to care as much in making great records. Neil has a lot of personal history within this time period, so much so that this live album is not officially listed in his catalogue, and wasn't pressed as a CD until 2017. In my journey through the past this last week, I found Time Fades Away very satisfying. In a year, I'll give Neil's 1974 On The Beach, another try.
Two other gems, are Fleetwood Mac's Mystery to Me, and Dave Mason's It's Like You Never Left. I think I included every song from both albums here as the Brits just kept making great music.
Enjoy my friends, you've got a full week of listening enjoyment as I was personally having the time of my life with my girlfriend and into my first semester of college in October, 1973.
February 1972 , I get down to the record shop to promptly purchase Neil Young's new album Harvest. It's got a great album graphic but I'll never forget the tactile textural feel of the recycled paper cover. Vinyl albums for me in the 1970's sometimes became a total sensory experience. Now in my opinion Harvest is a really good album, but not as great as his previous album in 1971, After The Gold Rush. Harvest would become the best selling album of 1972.
The success of Harvest scares Neil, he's become too mainstream, too popular and promptly retreats into making non-commercial albums for many years thereafter.
Sometime in 1972, I visit my friend Paul Hobbs as he wants me to listen to Todd Rundgren's new double album, Something/Anything? We both love it! In 2003, the album was ranked number 173 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
The success of Something / Anything? apparently scares Todd too. He's become too mainstream, too popular and promptly retreats into making non-commercial albums for many years thereafter.
What the f***?
Paul, I guess we were just two young and stupid consumer capitalists feeding the corporate record gods. Geez and 1972 was a good music year too... but not as great as 1971...
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1972 is a continuation from the late 60's of all these wonderful bands just falling apart and members making solo albums or forming new splinter bands. This past week, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Hot Tuna, the break-off project of Jefferson Airplane's members Jorma Kaukonen (guitarist/vocals) and Jack Casady (bassist). I also enjoyed Traffic's Dave Mason and Jim Capaldi's solo albums. But that lead me down the path of 'what if' these bands had just stayed together and made better albums together with their mothership bands. I guess it was just 'too soon' at the time with my break-up traumas of The Beatles and CSNY. Hell, I still haven't gotten over that, not to mention the late 60's break-ups of Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, and The Mamas & The Papas.
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Speaking of The Beatles and 1972, let's finish this installment with my recommendation to watch Good Ol' Freda. (Here is the link on Amazon Prime.) This is a 2013 documentary about The Beatles secretary, Freda Kelly hired by Brian Epstein when she was only 17 years old. She was also the The Beatles fan club president and worked for them from 1962-1972. I came upon it the other night and thought it was fantastic.
This week takes us back to June, 1970 and the completion of my freshmen year in high school, and one year closer to freedom. As I started to put the June, 1970 Playlist together I realized this was a weaker month for my personal musical tastes as bands like Grand Funk Railroad, Deep Purple, and Procol Harum just never made it with me, compared to the likes of The Rolling Stones, Cream, and The Who. The later grouping set the Tier I rock benchmark and the former grouping would never rise above a Tier II level in my opinion. However, I did like Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water in 1972.
I was excited to see Bob Dylan's Self Portrait was on the June 1970 in Music Wikipedia release list as I've been listening to him lately. In 1970, I really wasn't into Dylan that much and now wanted to explore why the critics had not been kind to this album. Dylan, never one to please anyone took a sharp Americana folk turn on this one, as everyone probably wanted more of Like A Rolling Stone.
The 24 song selection of the double album is a bit of a FU by Bob to the public and critics, but if you listen carefully, there's some really nice gold to be mined here. Dylan is also greatly panned for his singing on this album, with some carry over 'country crooning' songs from his 1969 Nashville Skyline album. I actually found Bob's singing to be a highlight of the album. Listen to Copper Kettle for example, I just love it!
So this week, I have two playlists: one; a mix of songs I liked from June, 1970 and two; a selection of songs I liked from the Self Portrait album. As for Self Portrait being on YouTube, I was sorely disappointed, I could only find a couple of song's (what's up with that Bob?). So, what I decided to do is make my own 'What If' playlist if Dylan had focused on releasing a single album of Folk cover songs. I have created a duplicate Spotify or Amazon 13 song playlist for you to choose from below. Enjoy, and stay well my friends!
