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The Music of the Seventies

The Music of the Seventies

Written by Gail Walter

Sometimes you could tell who a person was by sidling over to their rack of albums next to the record player and checking out the titles. My boyfriend lugged his LPs around with him. It was worth it. Nothing could speak more eloquently for you then the musical company you kept.

And music was not languishing in the seventies. It was bursting with a frenetic energy that gave birth to some of the most popular and powerful music of the century. It was this decade that saw the rise of musical legends like the Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel and Led Zeppelin, to name a few.

But lets go back in time and take a peak into the traveling musical library that lived in the dusty old canvas satchel that my boyfriend charmed the girls with. It was an eclectic collection and it was substantial enough to get girls into frenzied competition over who would get to take that satchel home for a few days.

There was Rod Stewart stepping out in You Wear it Well with that distinctive gravelly voice capturing our hearts and imagination and Glam rocker supreme, David Bowie doing his Ziggy Stardust thing. Elton John in his Honky Chateau and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was slipped alongside The Who’s rock opera Tommy, Led Zeppelin I to IV and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

But let’s expand into the full spectrum of seventies sound because it stretched from soul and Motown, through disco right to hard rock. The youth of the seventies enjoyed music in myriad different forms.

Quiet romantic evenings would find Simon and Garfunkel crooning Bridge Over Troubled Water in their crystal clear harmonies or The Temptations smoky rendition of Just My Imagination. Stevie Wonder could accelerate the pace without changing the mood with romantic classics like “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” while that epitome of the Motown Era, Al Green could steam up a room with “Let’s Stay Together”.

This was the era of the singer songwriter with people like Carole King leading the way with ballads like It’s too Late and I feel the Earth Move Under My Feet. Van Morrison’s cosmic style was exemplified in classic albums like Moondance. Paul Simon penned and sang evergreens like The Sound Of Silence and Bridge over Troubled Water while high school students were taught to study the poetic lyrics and puzzle over their meanings.

This was a decade that started out hot and stayed that way. The seventies opened with the likes of the Rolling Stones belting out Brown Sugar alongside John Lennon entreating us to Imagine a world where peace was the norm and ended with Michael Jackson blowing us away with the sizzling Rock With You from his solo debut Off The Wall which sold more than 7 million copies.

And in between there was Abba, Fleetwood Mac and the Bee Gees. All new. All different.

While clubs began playing that seductive extension of soul and funk that we know as disco the radio regaled us with pop that quickly became the soundtrack for our leap from childhood into adulthood.

Almost everyone knew the words to Edison Lighthouse’s Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes. We all knew how to sing along with the chorus of Build Me Up Buttercup by the Foundations. We all knew that we would be let down and messed around but we were prepared to take the trip anyway.

Songs like Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum, Let it Be and My Sweet Lord by the Beatles introduced us to a spiritual element that was vague enough to give us a sense of something bigger than our bellbottomed selves and something real behind the peace signs.

Across whole oceans young people lost their composure over the famous opening lines: “Goodbye my love it’s hard to die”. The one hit wonder Seasons in the Sun had everyone weeping over the sad intersection of love and mortality.

Glam rock introduced us to the astounding fact that cross-dressing could be glamorous and entertaining. Gary Glitter who glittered with a vengeance roused us with “I’m the leader of the gang”. T Rex drove many a party with his “Get it on” while Slade entertained us while our feet danced with “Coz I Love You”.

But the king of Glam rock was David Bowie. Where other Glam Rockers entertained David Bowie took the genre to new heights with his oblique musical intelligence. Changes, says Rolling Stone, “with its undertones of English music-hall camp and lounge singing would ultimately become his anthem”.

The seventies were not just polyester, shag carpets and mood rings. A cursory glance at the rich musical history of the era reveals a time when creativity was alive and well and living so much so that young kids today cut their musical teeth on some of the classic stuff of the seventies.

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Growing Up In The 70s

I'm very lucky to have so many friends that love the 70s and some that have shared their memories with us. It's interesting to see there was little difference between the USA and UK but from reading these stories one thing does come through, technology. It seems to all the people lived through the 70s the technology of today seems to have taken the personal, community spirit out of life. It's taken us years to get this site together so we would love to hear your feedback in the Facebook comment box.

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