During the last days of 1971 and into 1972 everyone was listening to and trying to determine what the lyrics meant in Don McLean’s American Pie. Other than alluding to the deaths of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens on February 3, 1959, a day many have called the ‘Day the Music Died’ [...]
In 1976 dance music, Disco music, was moving toward big popularity. Memphis Disc Jockey Rick Dees came up with a crazy parody on the craze featuring the Disco Duck. Dees has said that the song was completed in a day, but took months until someone would join with him to record it. It was a [...]
It was the summer of 1976 and Elton john recorded this duet with Kiki Dee. This version is him singing it alone in one of his concerts during the same time period. While Elton John had enjoyed quite a few number ones in the US, and this one reach it as well, this song was [...]
With Carole King, the song’s composer backing him on piano. This is James Taylor’s only number 1 on the Billboard charts reaching the top spot on July 31, 1971. The album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, the album where this song first appeared, peaked at the Number 2 spot on the albums charts. [...]
40 years ago, as I was looking forward to Christmas, I was just a pre-teen. Just a few months earlier I had celebrated my 12th birthday. While I did have a portable AM radio and listened to it, I wasn’t a regular listener. Most of my music experience was from Movie Musicals, Saturday Morning Cartoons, [...]
The 1970s began just like the 60s ended, at least at the top of the charts. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head sung by B.J. Thomas, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid spent 4 weeks at Number 1. The first week was the last [...]
Some may think the song is called “Starry Starry Night”, since that line is repeated a few times throughout the song. But the song is titled Vincent. And the Vincent of the song is artist Vincent van Gogh. The song was written by McLean in late 1970 and appeared on the American Pie album. He [...]
Elton John’s holiday song.
The song about infidelity, first by the wife of the singer and then the singer himself towards his secretary Maria. The song reached Number 2 on the Billboard charts towards the end of 1969 and really shouldn’t be classified as a song of the 1970s. But it was a favorite of this author’s and I [...]
Two clips of Edwin Starr singing his 1970 war protest song War. One is from the 70′s. Not sure when the second one is from, but it’s obviously much later than the first. The song was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. It was Edwin Starr’s most successful song as well as the most [...]
Herbie Hancock is one of those musicians who seem to have been around forever. He first came on the scene in 1962 when he recorded his album Watermelon Man then got more attention when he joined Miles Davis and his band. He also composed the music for Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert TV cartoon series. By [...]
By 1976 Johnny Cash had already been performing for 20 years and for many of those years he was at the top of the Charts. it was in 1976 that he did the story song One Piece at a Time. It’s the story of an auto assembly line worker built a car with one stolen [...]
This was originally posted in August of 2008 with a video of a 1973 performance by Terry Jacks. That video has been removed and I can’t find a 70s version of the song only this one from the mid 2000s. Seasons in the Sun, the story of a dying man, bidding farewell to friends and [...]
In 1979 Rupert Holmes recorded perhaps the only song that he wished he never did. Even though he wrote songs before this as well as afterward, it is this song that he is best known. It’s a story song about a man who due to changing feelings towards his mate decides to answer a personal [...]