- Format: MP3
1974-1975
For the generation that came of age during the 1960s, the decade that followed proved to be more a time for individual reflection than collective action. The young people who had been on the front lines of numerous social and political movements, from civil rights to feminism, now found themselves facing the more personal responsibilities of adulthood--and, not surprisingly, much of the music carried from the '60s into the '70s voiced those concerns. One example was Harry Chapin's Cat's in the Cradle, a tale of a father and son whose lives are so busy that they are unable to find time to truly connect with each other. The story was inspired by events in Chapin's own life; he'd been on tour when one of his children was born, and after he told his wife how bad he felt about missing the birth, she suggested he work out his feelings his usual way--through a song. That he did, to the tune of a No. 1 hit in 1974.
While countless couples reportedly used John Denver's Annie's Song as a wedding theme in the mid-'70s, few probably knew that the performer composed the chart topper during a brief but painful separation from his wife in 1974. Earlier that year, Denver had registered another No. 1 with the highly introspective Sunshine on My Shoulders, a song that was later the theme for a TV movie (and subsequent series) about a man who raises his wife's child from a previous marriage after her death from cancer.
Yet another No. 1 song from 1974 with a PG (parental guidance, that is) slant was I Can Help, in which, amidst a litany of supportive offers, Billy Swan proposes that, "If your child needs a daddy, I can help." This infectious tune was the lone top-40 hit for the veteran musician, whose résumé included a mid-'60s stint as a janitor at the Nashville studios of Columbia Records, a job also held by a friend of his who became known as a pretty fair songwriter himself: Kris Kristofferson. Part of I Can Help's appeal was no doubt Swan's vocal resemblance to ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, which reveals another musical style of the early 1970s: songs that evoked the '60s. Certainly no group embodied the spirit of the '60s more than the Fab Four, and it was their longtime producer, George Martin, who was at the controls when the country-rock trio America recorded Sister Golden Hair, a 1975 No. 1 whose slide-guitar solo bore a striking resemblance to many a George Harrison lead.
Nostalgia was also at work when Anne Murray, the Canadian songstress who'd soared to fame in 1970 with the wintry ballad Snowbird, dipped into the Lennon-McCartney songbook and came up with a top-10 hit in the form of a breezy remake of the Rubber Soul-era You Won't See Me. Also worth noting: Linda Ronstadt's muscular cover of '60s soul vocalist Betty Everett's You're No Good was produced by Peter Asher, who was half of the British Invasion hit duo Peter and Gordon--and was also, as Beatles buffs know, the brother of onetime McCartney fiancee Jane Asher. Sheffield, England's Joe Cocker was certainly a Beatles buff. The first record ever released by the steel wool-lunged vocalist was a 1964 cover of I'll Cry Instead, and over the years he gave a highly distinctive spin to such Beatles tunes as With a Little Help from My Friends and She Came in Through the Bathroom Window. Cocker's heart-touching 1975 hit, You Are So Beautiful, had its own unique Beatles connection--it was co-authored by keyboardist Billy Preston, who played on the Beatles' Get Back.
Elton John's formidable stream of '70s hits was sprinkled with Beatles dust as well. In 1974, he contributed background vocals to John Lennon's Whatever Gets You thru the Night, and in 1975, his version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds rose to the top of the charts. His own songs weren't doing too badly, either, as evidenced by the No. 2 hit Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, which featured lush harmonies from another fabled '60s group, the Beach Boys.
Speaking of groups and harmonies, the Hollies were regarded as perhaps the finest pure vocalists of all the '60s British bands. While their career was never quite the same after founding member Graham Nash left in 1968 to form a singing group with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, lead singer Allan Clarke and crew soldiered on, periodically scoring hits such as 1974's lilting The Air That I Breathe. Legendary British guitarist Eric Clapton had once been a member of the Hollies' contemporaries the Yardbirds--and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and Cream, and Blind Faith, and Delaney and Bonnie and Friends and Derek and the Dominos--before he finally emerged as a true solo artist in 1974 with his first-ever No. 1 hit. Surprisingly, it was with neither a blues nor a rock tune but a cover of reggae giant Bob Marley's I Shot the Sheriff. No doubt it also came as a big surprise for old fans of the psychedelic Jefferson Airplane, from San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury days, when the reconfigured outfit--now calling itself Jefferson Starship--docked in the top five in 1975 with the decidedly adult ballad Miracles. Penned and sung by their original lead vocalist, Marty Balin, it was the group's first hit single since the trippy White Rabbit back in 1967.
Nineteen sixty-seven was also the year a diminutive 16-year-old named Janis Ian burst onto the music scene with a controversial protest song about a doomed interracial love affair, Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking), that seemed to be about her. By the close of the '60s, she had all but disappeared from the public eye, but, like the rest of her generation, she was simply going through the ups and downs of growing up. When she resurfaced in the mid-'70s with At Seventeen, a stunning and deeply personal song, she struck a resonant chord with those same listeners she had epitomized years earlier.
Perhaps no other artist in this set of singers and songwriters has a story that spans two very different decades as strikingly as Carole King's does. As a behind-the-scenes tunesmith in the '60s, King and then husband Gerry Goffin co-authored a daunting list of classic youth-oriented hits, including Will You Love Me Tomorrow?, Up on the Roof and The Loco-Motion. As the '70s dawned, though, King was divorced and trying to find a niche for herself as a performer in her own right. That she did, with her 1971 album Tapestry, which catapulted King to megastardom. By 1974's smooth hit Jazzman, her influence was evident in the work of such diverse female singer-songwriters as Carly Simon (heard here on 1974's Haven't Got Time for the Pain), Melissa Manchester (featured on 1975's sultry Midnight Blue), and Phoebe Snow (of that same year's Poetry Man fame). And that's the kind of role model any generation could be proud of--in the '60s, '70s or whenever.