- Format: MP3
1976-1977
By the end of the '60s, band breakups were as much part of music headlines as gold records and world tours. In fact, throughout the '70s Me Decade, striking out on a solo career remained the trend, and it wasn't just former Beatles leading the way.
Neil Young (ex-Buffalo Springfield) and Paul Simon (ex-Simon and Garfunkel) took a decidedly personal approach, pursuing themes and obsessions with a freedom unavailable within the confines of a group. For others, going solo offered a chance to reinvent themselves and leave the past behind. As singer and guitarist for the Raspberries, Eric Carmen crafted catchy Beatlesque gems that belied his roots as a classically trained musician. Once he was on his own, he eschewed his teen-idol trappings for a more mature persona that found expression on All by Myself, a sprawling ode to melancholy that lifted its melody from Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor. Carmen had initially auditioned the song on piano in his Cleveland apartment for Arista producer Clive Davis, who signed him on the spot. All by Myself reached No. 2 and became the biggest hit of Carmen's career. Peter Frampton was a former teen star who found his greatest success in the spotlight as a solo performer. After leaving Humble Pie, he toiled in relative obscurity for several years until Frampton Comes Alive!, recorded in concert at San Francisco's Winterland, made him a household name. For his follow-up, I'm in You, he returned to the studio. The title song sold two million copies and proved that Frampton had staying power, at least until the Sgt. Pepper movie debacle a year later.
A founding member of Traffic, Dave Mason's gift for melodic pop was often at odds with the English group's arty, jazzy sensibilities. Mason recorded his acclaimed solo debut, Alone Together, in 1970 before settling in California, hitting his greatest commercial success in 1977 with the mellow West Coast stylings of We Just Disagree from Let It Flow. The dissolution of supergroup Cream only served to heighten Eric Clapton's legendary status, especially as leader of Derek and the Dominos, but it took a while longer for the guitar hero to break free from his heroin addiction. After a period of reclusion, his comeback album, 461 Ocean Boulevard, featured Mason as guest guitarist and heralded a more subdued Clapton. Hello Old Friend, from 1976's No Reason to Cry, epitomized the laid-back approach that won him legions of new fans and steady radio play throughout the decade. John Sebastian had a rougher road to regain his former glory. After he left the Lovin' Spoonful, he had only one chart entry in nearly seven years. Then he composed the warmhearted theme to the TV series Welcome Back, Kotter; it originally clocked in at the standard 60 seconds, but the public soon demanded a full-fledged version. With a second verse, Welcome Back went to No. 1 and revived Sebastian's career.
New Jersey-bred Gary Wright got his start as a singer and keyboardist for British hard-rock band Spooky Tooth. By the mid-'70s, he was experimenting with an all-synthesizer approach for his moody, atmospheric material. The Dream Weaver album yielded two memorable hits, Love Is Alive and Dream Weaver, which Wright later re-recorded for the Wayne's World sound track. Elvin Bishop followed bandmate Mike Bloomfield out of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band into solo territory. Bishop specialized in a good-time Southern boogie, and after enlisting vocalist Mickey Thomas, later of the Jefferson Starship, he scored his first and only top-40 chart entry, Fooled Around and Fell in Love, which reached No. 3. In the late '60s, Linda Ronstadt fronted Los Angeles country-rock group the Stone Poneys, whose sole hit, Different Drum, was actually Ronstadt backed by session musicians. Her solo career took off after she teamed up with producer Peter Asher, who exploited her full-throated vocal talents with shimmering arrangements of '50s and '60s rock and pop classics. Ronstadt's remakes of Roy Orbison's Blue Bayou and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' Tracks of My Tears were among a string of covers that cracked the top 10 during her six-year reign on the charts.
Formed in Los Angeles in 1969, Bread was mostly the project of producer and songwriter David Gates, who penned and sang all of the group's soothing soft-rock hits. By '73, he and the band went separate ways, only to reunite briefly in 1976 and hit with Lost without Your Love. Written by Gates, it was vintage Bread, full of wistful yearning, and marked the band's final appearance in the top 10 (while Gates would later earn another hit with the title song from the Neil Simon film The Goodbye Girl). Co-founder of the obscure band Bryndle, Andrew Gold did session work for Linda Ronstadt before scoring with the self-penned lament Lonely Boy, a top-10 in 1977. Stephen Bishop was another California singer-songwriter from the James Taylor school of crooning. His first hit, Save It for a Rainy Day, featured Eric Clapton on guitar. His next, On and On, a whimsical ditty about failed romance in the tropics, hovered near the top 10 for several weeks in 1977.
If the '70s often seemed the decade of solo acts, there was still plenty of room on the charts for duos. Even so, many forged a sound that deftly melded the two voices into a seamless whole. Seals and Crofts were exemplars of this subgenre. Hailing from Texas, the pair of multi-instrumentalists helped define West Coast soft rock in songs like Summer Breeze and Diamond Girl. Carolyn Willis, former singer of L.A. soul trio the Honey Cone, lent her vocal talents on Get Closer, Seals and Crofts' last top-10 hit. Jim Seals' younger brother Dan had his own popular duo, England Dan and John Ford Coley. Their long road to stardom began in an obscure Texas band called Southwest F.O.B., and Seals' goal was to follow in the tradition of his heroes, the Everly Brothers. The duo became a mainstay of '70s radio with yearning valentines like ,b>I'd Really Love to See You Tonight, their first single, which went gold; Seals later became a popular country singer.
The best-selling duo of the '70s, and second only to the Everlys on the all-time list, remains Daryl Hall and John Oates. They met in the soul music mecca of Philadelphia, where as college students they began to meld R&B, doo-wop and rock influences into their own sophisticated, super-charged brand of "blue-eyed" soul. The duo's third album, Daryl Hall and John Oates, yielded their first hit, Sara Smile, a ballad composed for Hall's girlfriend. It was followed by a remarkable 15 top-10 records, including six No. 1 hits, many co-written by Hall and Oates. The duet format also worked well for the decade's most successful singer, Elton John. Though he's not listed on the credits, John's vocal backing helped propel Neil Sedaka's Bad Blood to the top of the hit parade in 1975. The next year, he teamed up with fellow Brit and labelmate Kiki Dee for a song written by John and Bernie Taupin under assumed names. The playful and exuberant ,b>Don't Go Breaking My Heart, John's premiere release on his Rocket label, reached No. 1 in the U.S. and England, Elton's first chart topper in his native country.