A Subjective Selection Of Great Music From The Seventies…
Arlo Guthrie, the famous son of the famous American folk singer Woody Guthrie, was already a legend himself by the early Seventies when “City Of New Orleans” hit the airwaves. In particular he had made his name with the 18 minute 34 second long “talking blues song” “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, better known simply as “Alice’s […]
The J. Geils Band, which started as an acoustic blues trio in the mid Sixties, went on to have a number of hits in the Seventies, including “Looking For A Love”. To be honest, I don’t really remember much, if anything, of them in those years. At the end of the decade they moved somewhat […]
Was 1978 “The Year Of The Cat”, when – I think – I heard the song of the same name by Al Stewart all the time? Well, the song itself apparently came out in 1977. It was helped on its way to success by none other than Alan Parsons, and was, it seems, part of […]
Tags: Al Stewart, Alan Parsons, Music of the Seventies, On The Border, The Year Of The Cat, Time PassagesBack in about 1976 I heard country singer Emmylou Harris for the first time, I particularly remember her singing “Shop Around”.
I also connect her with Bob Dylan, I think it was duets or backing on his “Hurricane” album.
And I know I had an album by Emmylou Harris – I figure it must be one of the ones that went missing from my collection by the time I took all my records from New Zealand to Germany a decade later.
Here is a live version of “Shop Around” by Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band:
When I heard the name Alan Parsons mentioned today, in my mind I was in a student flat in about 1977 in Waldegrave Street, Palmerston North, New Zealand, listening to “The Raven” from the album “Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”, the first from The Alan Parsons Project.
The Alan Parsons Project was founded by its namesake Alan Parsons, a young engineer at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, and Eric Woolfson, who wrote most of the songs and sang on many of them. Woolfson died at the beginning of December last year (2009).
Alan Parsons first came to prominence engineering the Beatles album “Abbey Road”, and was also particularly well known for his work on Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, as well as many works by The Hollies.
He also played a major role in influencing the sound of Al Stewart’s “The Year Of The Cat” and “Time Passages”, which he also produced.
The Alan Parsons Project was really a fluid group of different musicians around these two main protagonists, and produced studio music in the genre some call progressive rock.
“Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”, released in 1976, was a tribute to horror writer Edgar Allen Poe. Here are two tracks from it:
Tags: (The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether, Abbey Road, Abbey Road Studios, Al Stewart, Alan Parsons, Breakdown, Don't Let It Show, Eric Woolfson, Eye In The Sky, I Robot, I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You, Music of the Seventies, Pink Floyd, Seventies Rock Bands, Some Other Time, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, The Alan Parsons Project, The Beatles, The Dark Side Of The Moon, The Hollies, The Raven, Time, Time Passages, Year Of The Cat
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