In early January of 1971 songwriter Carole King recorded her 2nd solo album as a singer.  When Tapestry was release a few months later, no one knew nor imagine how popular the album would become.

It was the biggest Album of 1971 remaining at the Number 1 spot for 15 weeks and on the Album Charts for over 6 years.

This is the Album’s title song.

All of the songs on the Album were written or co-written by King including a couple of songs that she had written with her ex-husband Gerry Goffin and  had been huge hits by others in the 1960s.

The Album would win the Grammy for Album of the Year.  It’s Too Late would win Record of the Year and the song You’ve Got a Friend a song on the album and also recorded by her friend James Taylor would be Song of the Year.  Taylor sang backup on her version.

Not sure when this version was recorded.

Note:The following was originally published at 6 Things To Consider. We thank Steve Atkinson for allowing us to republish this.

It was on Friday the 13th, February 1970 that the album that many consider the first Heavy Metal album was released. It was released in the United Kingdom. The debut album of a band from Birmingham England. The band and the album shared the name Black Sabbath.

The album had seven tracks. Five were original songs written by the group and two covers.

Black Sabbath consisted of Tony Iommi on guitar, Ozzy Osbourne sang lead, Terry “Geezer” Butler was the bassman, and Bill Ward at drums.

The album was a commercial success reaching number 8 on the UK Albums Chart, and following its US release in May 1970 reached number 23 on the Billboard 200 staying on the charts for over a year. It was widely panned by critics partly because it was so much different than what had been heard before.

A few months later the band would record their second album. From that recording came two of the most popular and most familiar songs done by the group. The album’s title song, Paranoid and the album’s second single Iron Man.

The term Heavy Metal wasn’t used until a number of years after the album’s released. Once it did become a term for music with a heavy rock beat, it was determined that this album was the first.

This performance from the 1972 Ohio State Fair features the Osmonds doing a song that opened many of their shows in the early 1970s. Motown Special is a medley of songs of Motown.

Not only was it the opening song of their shows it was also the opening song of their self-titled first album released in 1970.

Songs of the medley include; Motown Special, My World Is Empty Without You and I’m Gonna Make You Love Me.

By the time of the 1972 Ohio State Fair performance they had changed the words slightly using Osmond Special instead of Motown Special.

From their 1974 double album Chicago VII. In some ways Chicago VII brings back a feeling of their first three albums where there are a number of instrumentals along with the rock arrangements. The first disk is mostly made of up Jazz favor instrumentals. Mongonucleosis is one of these instrumental pieces and was composed by trombone player, Jimmy Pankow.

The song has a real Latin sound to it. It was also recorded during the period that the group was recording in James William Guercio Caribou Ranch Studio and Brazilian percussionist Laudir de Oliveira was a member of the band.

This version is reportedly from a 1977 concert in Amsterdam.

Joni Mitchell was not at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival, but she composed the song that many consider the anthem of the festival. Her manager felt that it was more important to be at a taping of the Dick Cavett Show and was afraid had she gone to the festival she would not have been able to make it.

While the festival was taking place she sat in her New York hotel room watching reports and began writing the song. She was also in a relationship with Graham Nash, who was there as part of Crosby Stills and Nash, and she heard from him his first hand experiences.

About a month after the festival she performed Woodstock at at the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival. That’s where this comes from.

The song later went on to be hits for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Matthews Southern Comfort

Deep Purple’s Album Machine Head is one of the first albums that is considered as Heavy Metal. The album’s most familiar song is Smoke On The Water, but another popular song from the Album is Highway Star.

Highway Star opens the album as the first song on side 1 and was written, as were all of the songs on the album, by group members Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice.

For many years Deep Purple opened their show with this song, although lately it has been used as an encore. Not bad for a song that never had a single release, although it got plenty of radio play on album rock stations of the 1970s.

The song has just been introduced as the opening of NASCAR on TNT 2009′s race day program. This version was recorded by Buckcherry.

In 1969 Tony Joe White released his song Polk Salad Annie. After nearly a year sitting in limbo, the single was released but not selling, it finally caught on and ended up reaching Number 8 on the charts.

Elvis Presley soon afterward added it as one of the songs for his live performances remaining as one of the songs in his live lineup.

It was recorded several times and released on the albums: “Elvis: That’s The Way It Is” (documentary film, 1970), “On Stage” (1970) and “Elvis: As Recorded At Madison Square Garden” (1972).

I have always considered this one of Elvis’ underrated songs and one his best of the 70s.

And for those who want to compare, here is a version done by Tony Joe.

And another by Tony Joe White singing a duet with Johnny Cash from the Johnny Cash Show.

Greg Lake of Emerson Lake and Palmer released his only solo song during the Christmas season of 1975.

Upon listening to the song, without really listening to the lyrics, this song written Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) and writing partner Peter Sinfield, it sounds like a nice little Christmas song. But it’s really a protest song against the commercialization of Christmas. It still makes my favorite list.

Chicago released their first album in 1969, their 2nd in 1970 and their 3rd in 1971. But unlike most groups each of these albums were 2 record sets, so you could say that in three years they had released six records.

Chicago III is not considered one of their best albums, perhaps because side 4 was nearly entirely instrumental and many of the other songs could be considered protest songs. Although in my opinion Side 4 of Chicago III has some of the best music that they recorded.

Mother does fall into that category as it’s Robert Lamm’s on how Mother Nature ‘has been raped and left to die in disgrace”.