40 Year Itch : Those We Missed from March 1973

[Purchase]"The Kiss" may the most beautiful song released in 1973. It's from singer/songwriter Judee Sill's second album Heart Food, one of Sufjan Stevens's picks for a 2006 Spin Magazine article asking musicians about the music that changed their lives:                The more you listen to her songs, the more you realize all the weird stuff going on.               ...

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40 Year Itch : An Album for the Silent Majority

[Purchase]Face the flag son...and thank God it's still there-John WayneIt is March 1973. The last American soldier leaves Vietnam and the Watergate scandal spreads to indict Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell. John Wayne, that most fearless of American cowboys, felt it was time to remind the rest of the country that the United States of America was still the greatest of them all.    He recorded America, Why I Love Her in Nashville...

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40 Year Itch : Does a '5' Really Look Like an 'F'?

[Purchase]I know why they don't look happy. They're posing on the cover of The Jackson 5ive's  least successful album to date. Skywriter ( released March 29, 1973)  is a seriously underrated album that has become best known for having 14 year old Michael sing the soft core ballad "Touch".  True , the lyrics do sound like something off of Marvin Gaye's forthcoming Let's Get It On:Darlin' just relax You melt me like hot candle wax One...

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40 Year Itch : Singing To An Ocean

[Purchase]5 Fun Facts About Houses Of The Holy 1. The children on the cover are siblings Stefan and Samantha Gates. Stefan is now a celebrity chef ("Cooking in the Danger Zone"),  famous for recipes involving insects. The cover --a montage--was shot over ten days near Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.BBC/Swan Song2. The 7 and a half minute "Rain Song" was inspired in part by George Harrison's comment to drummer John Bonham that the group...

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40 Year Itch : Alone in the Cold Gray Dawn

[Purchase]  There's no way to write objectively about Behind Closed Doors. It is one of the soundtracks of my childhood. I know every lyric, every drum fill, every piano trill by heart. Our copy of Behind Closed Doors was an 8 track my stepmother played in the Chevrolet Suburban on the way to the barn in the next town over. She competed in "cutting",  a western sport in which riders and their horses make sharp, breath-taking turns...

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40 Year Itch: Fed Up With Fandango?

[Purchase]Morrissey claims he can only think of one truly great British album and that (Roxy Music's For Your Pleasure)  is it.-The Observer, June 20,2004Roxy Music's second album is thought by many to be their crowning creative achievement--though my pop sensibilities lead me to favor Siren and Country Life. For Your Pleasure is the last to feature Brian Eno whose artsy sonic explorations offered an avant garde  counterpoint to Bryan Ferry's...

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40 Year Itch: Birds of Fire Cracks The Top 20

[Purchase]Mahavishnu Orchestra's fusion-istic  follow-up to the #11 charting Inner Mounting Flame, Birds of Fire cracks the Tops 20 at #19 on March 31st , 1973 on its way to #15. Guitarist and sole composer John McLaughlin said of his road-tested band "We were on a wave, we were experiencing a success that was unforseen, and we were making light-year jumps in terms of playing together, developing new ways of playing."   Birds of Fire...

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40 Year Itch: Crazed Fan Bites Lou Reed's Ass

     [Purchase Transformer] On March 23, 1973 in Buffalo, NY a crazed fan leaps onstage and bites Lou Reed in the ass. Some concert goers say the fan yelled "Leather!" first. The fan is escorted from the theater and Lou Reed continues the show.  The incident inspired Lou to record the ultimate "pain in the ass" album, 1975's four sides of guitar feedback , Metal Machine Music.**yeah I made that part up.TOP 10 ALBUMS IN THE...

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1973's Greatest Day of Record Releases

[Purchase]It was the greatest single record release day in 1973. A Friday. The day three mind-blowing albums hit record store shelves: Lark's Tongues in Aspic, the King Crimson album that reinvents progressive rock and For Your Pleasure, Roxy Music's second album and the last to feature Brian Eno. And in England, weeks after the US release, Dark Side of the Moon from Pink Floyd. All challenge the listener. All offer new, often astonishing rewards...

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40 Year Itch: Can Performs at the Bataclan

 [Purchase] We didn’t like to create music like everybody else. We’re anarchists.    Damo Suzuki On March 22, 1973 the classic Can lineup performs at the Paris club Bataclan, which is still home to concerts, spectacles and soirees. Bassist Holger Czukay and drummer Jaki Leibezeit found a replacement for original vocalist Malcolm Mooney in a Japanese street musician named Damo Suzuki.The footage below begins in the middle...

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40 Year Itch: Tonight We Sleep On Silken Sheets

[Purchase]A real forgotten gem - The Mojo CollectionWith guitarist Robin Trower's recent departure for a solo career, Procol Harum is now under the full artistic control of singer/ keyboardist Gary Brooker and Grand Hotel benefits from his single minded, somewhat excessive vision. In fact the album is one of Procol Harum's high points. Brooker liked to use orchestras and choruses; mandolins ( 22 of them on the title track)...

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40 Year Itch: Can't Get Enough of the Boogie Blues

[Purchase]Humble Pie's follow-up to its big 1972 Top Ten hit Smokin' is Eat It, a jam packed double LP with the kind of bluesy boogie that record buyers were apparently craving in the early 70's. Eat It's sides are broken up into four distinctive acts. Side 1 is original rock n roll, relying heavily on The Blackberries, the female back up singers. Side 2 is all R and B covers. The short, mostly acoustic Side 3 is the most listenable 40 years later...

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40 Year Itch : How The Beaujolais Is Raining

[Purchase]John Cale, the avant-garde musician responsible for some of The Velvet Underground's most abrasive noises ("Black Angel's Death Song", most of "White Light/White Heat") delivers a lush, often mellow masterpiece with Paris 1919. It's an album recorded in Southern California, at Sunwest Studios, by a homesick Welshman with help of members of the feel good boogie band Little Feat.. "All the songs are about this Welsh guy lost in the desert...

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40 Year Itch : An Offer You Can't Refuse

Weeks after The Godfather wins the Best Picture Oscar, Florida soul singer Jimmy Helms hits the UK Top 10 with "Gonna Make You An Offer You Can't Refuse". As part of the band Londonbeat,  he would return to the charts in the 1990's with the hit "I've Been Thinking About You".UK singles chart for the week ending 17 March 1973  1. Cum on feel the noize – Slade2. The twelfth of never – Donny Osmond 3. 20th century boy – T Rex 4....

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40 Year Itch: Loose Like a Golden Goose

[Purchase]While Electric Warrior and The Slider remain the best known of the T.Rex albums, Tanx-released March 18, 1973-- is arguably the best. At least that's what producer Tony Visconti, who worked on all three,  writes:"I enjoyed making Tanx very much; I thought it was the first really cohesive T. Rex album . However despite Marc feeling more confident with this body of work, it proved to be something of a watershed. We were criticised...

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40 Year Itch: When Living Is All Uphill

[OUT OF PRINT]One of the most important female bands in American rock has been buried without a trace. And that is Fanny. They were extraordinary.  They played like motherf*ckers. Revivify Fanny. And I will feel that my work is done. — David Bowie Produced in the wilds of New York by Todd Rundgren ( on the condition he could mix the album without interference), the all-girl rock band Fanny scored their best album with Mothers Pride, released...

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40 Year Itch: Everyone Birdoggin' At My Girl

On March 14, 1973 Stephen Stills married French singer songwriter Veronique Sanson. The marriage lasted ten years and produced musician son Chris Stills. Among the guests at the wedding were members of The Beatles and The Who. They lived around Bolder Colorado. A month later Stephen Stills and his band Manassas released the album Down The Road. Inspired by her husband's way of recording, Veronique recorded one of her most critically acclaimed...

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40 Year Itch: Smoking Cigarettes, Striving For Purity

[Purchase for $6.99]A Hauntingly lovely new album of introspective songs and folk/jazz music which captures the essence of a moment, or a thought or a love    Asylum Records adTom Waits was already doing the rambling beatnik bar stool poet thing when, at the age of 24,  he recorded his debut album, Closing Time, with former Lovin Spoonful Jerry Yester producing. He'd grown up in San Diego as a fan of the Beatniks and Charles Bukowski....

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40 Year Itch : ABBA's Bizarre TV Appearance

[Purchase]By far the most successful group of the 70's, Abba sold more than 370 albums and singles worldwide. It all began with Ring Ring, released in Scandinavia on March 26, 1973. Despite the catchy title cut, the album did not give any indication the foursome would soon achieve world domination. In fact the members of the band were all doing multiple projects at the time and no one thought this Abba thing would even be a permanent deal. Agnetha...

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Kajagoogoo Bassist's All Time Top Ten

 Kajagoogoo topped the UK and German charts in 1983 with "Too Shy" ( and climbed all the way to #5 in the US) and were on their way to more UK chart success when bassist Nick Beggs provided Smash Hits with this easy listening list that gives nods to both Elton John and Christopher Cross (!).  By the way, Beggs is right. In the UK Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey" stalled at #58 even though it topped the Mainstream Rock chart in the US....

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40 Year Itch: Canadian Beatles Peak at #2

The band Quentin Tarantino called "The Canadian Beatles" had one big hit in the US. A two year old recording of "Last Song" peaked at #2 on March 10, 1973. It was held off the top spot by Roberta Flack's rendition of "Killing Me Softly With His Song" which spent 5 weeks in the top spot. New to the Top 20 this week were The Four Tops with "Ain't No Woman ( Like The One I Got)", The Temptations with "Masterpiece", The Moody Blues's "I'm Just A Singer...

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40 Year Itch : 1973's Greatest Day in Rock

God only knows how they managed to pull it off but on March 9th and 10th of 1973, the Dutch city of Voorburg was the place to be. In a single weekend fans could see Slade, The Eagles, The Faces, both Zombies descendants Colin Blunstone and Argent,JJ Cale, Chi Coltrane, Rory Gallagher, Ry Cooder and The Who perform. The arena was set up with two stages on either side, so as one act performed, crews could break down and set up for the next act. Roxy...

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40 Year Itch : McCartney Fined for Growing Cannabis

On March 8th, 1973, Paul McCartney was fined $240 for growing cannabis on his farm in Scotland. "My dad’s a keen gardener, you know, I think it’s rubbed off. We got a load of seeds, you know, kind of in the post, and we didn’t know what they were you know, and we kind of planted them all, and five of them came up like – five of them came up illegal.” ...

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40 Year Itch: Funny How The Circle Turns Around

[Purchase]Only Gene Clark shines in this half hearted reunion album released on March 7, 1973. That's perhaps because the band ( last together in their original line-up in 1966) didn't reunite out of  a strong desire to start up the band again. As Roger McGuinn told Creem Magazine's Cameron Crowe, it all started off kind of half-assed. Nobody really pushed for it very hard, which is partly why it happened. It was sorta “how’d ya like to…,”...

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40 Year Itch: 'Cum On Feel The Noize' Debuts at #1

"Unmistakeably Slade - a rousing, raucous, rocker that follows its predecessors with an instantly recognizable sound" -NME MagazineFor the first time since The Beatles did it with "Get Back" in 1969, Slade debuted a single at #1 in the UK. In its first three weeks, "Cum On Feel The Noize" sold 500,000 copies.As guitarist Dave Hill tells  the now defunct Slade FanClub website , it's a song about the Slade concert experience.  "The song...

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40 Year Itch: Keep On Pushing Mamma

[Purchase]The Captain and Me, released March 2 1973, is commonly considered the creative peak of The Doobie Brothers. It's chock full of their good time strumming, double drumming, California rock'n'roll featuring two monster hits "Long Train Runnin " (US#8) and "China Grove" (US#15) as well as a nice couple of Patrick Simmons tunes including "South City Midnight Lady" ( featuring future Doobie Jeff "Skunk" Baxter on pedal steel guitar. The...

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