40 Year Itch : Those We Missed from May of 1973

Jose Feliciano teams up with Bill Withers on the catchy title cut of his 1973 album Compartments.Classic early 70's sound! Wish I owned this one.[Purchase]Following the legendary Argus and its Tolkien-like imagery, Wishbone Ash recorded a straight ahead, almost generic rock album. What were they thinking?   New York rocker was just a a few months away from releasing his most famous single, "Wild in the Streets", when his promising Atlantic...

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40 Year Itch : Use My Body Like A Car

[Purchase]It's easy to see why so many fans consider Living in the Material World George Harrison's most spiritual album. The album cover is a Kirlian photograph of Harrison's hand holding a Hindu medallion in his palm.And then there are the songs.   There's the future #1 single "Give Me Love ( Give Me Peace on Earth)" which Harrison called "a prayer and a personal statement between him, the Lord and whoever likes it". Just as Harrison...

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40 Year Itch : Left of the Dial, May 1973

Rick Paddor of WTUL-FM in the 1970'sLow on wattage but high ...in more ways than one, college radio stations offered a progressive alternative to what was going on to the right off them on the FM dials. By 1973, many were reporting their playlists to Billboard Magazine. Here's a sample beginning with my old station -- a decade before I ever spun a record there.WTUL FM, TULANE UNIVERSITY1. The Faces Ooh La La2. Fairport Convention Rosie3. Stardrive...

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40 Year Itch : "Frankenstein" Hits #1

[Purchase]What I heard in all of those solos were voices...the sound of people playing music with other people that made me want to play music with other people too.  -Dave Grohl at South By Southwest, 2013Yes, there was a time when not only a hard rock instrumental could top the AM radio charts, but another one could be sitting at #10. Named "Frankenstein" because of the number of cuts and patches needed to trim the master down to 4:47, the...

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40 Year Itch : I Am, You Are,We Are... Crazy

[Purchase]For those of you who thought Syd Barrett or the Flaming Lips were as strange as Rock Music could get, fall upon your knees before Gong. Formedin 1967 in France by Daevid Allen, a former member of Soft Machine, and his wife, Sorbonne Professor Gilly Smyth, Gong celebrated the weird, the spacey, the outer fringes where jazz and psychedelia could intersect with repetitive chanting, improvisation and musical dexterity. Aw, fug it. You really...

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40 Year Itch : The Sweet Tastin' Good Life

\[Purchase]   On  May 26th 1973, the notoriously shy Carole King was met with huge cheers from a huge crowd ( 65,000 strong) when she sat down at her piano on a stage  in Central Park and performed a free concert. At this point Tapestry was the biggest selling rock album in history. 112 weeks since it's release it was still in the Billboard album charts at #131.The songs on the live Disc 2 of the most recently remastered versions...

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40 Year Itch : Tubular Bells Released

[Purchase]"Record companies looked at me as if I was mad. They all said, because there were no vocals, no words, no drums or anything, that it was not marketable." -Mike Oldfield, quoted in The Mojo Collection19 year old Mike Oldfield pushed the limits of 1972 recording technology with his one man album Tubular Bells, released on May 25, 1973. It is jammed with twenty overdubbed instruments Oldfield played himself including the odd flageolet,...

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40 Year Itch: David Bowie 1973 TV Documentary

A ten minute UK doc on the "skinny lad with a pasty complexion" who has, in the past six months,  "transformed himself into an object that is worshipped by millions of girls". The film, narrated by a witty and disdainful narrator,  features a concert performed at The Winter Gardens on May 25, 19...

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40 Year Itch : Don't Be Skinny! Try Wate-On!

A message from our new sponsor? Actually a magazine ad from 1973. But don't worry you skinny chicks, we're adding sugar to Wonder bread and spaghetti sauce in the 70's. We'll get that weight on before you can say diabet...

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40 Year Itch : My Latin Blood; My Soul Captive

[Purchase]On May 23, 1973 Secos And Molhados ( The Dry and The Wet) entered the studio Prova to record their debut album which would become such a sensation in Brazil it would sell 300,000 copies in the first two months...well on its way to to selling more than a million copies.Those who remember my naming the Novos Baianos album Acabou Chorare as the best of 1972 probably won't be surprised how much I like this 13-song effort. You'll hear a uniquely...

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40 Year Itch : Poncho Drink the Wine

[Purchase]Lee Oskar, a founding member of the 70's pop-funk-jam band War, grew up in Denmark where he was given his first harmonica on his sixth birthday.Lee:I remember the first time I breathed on it it would literally play me.It would sound just like a symphonyI got hooked and that's where it all startedAt 17, virtually pennyless, Lee moved to the US where his virtuosity on the harmonica and his easy-going nature eventually led to his friendship...

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5 Wretched Songs That Ruined Classic Albums

1 "Mind Gardens" from Younger Than YesterdayDavid Crosby must have been inspired by The Incredible String Band for this foray into psychedelic folk. Roger McGuinn hated including the song on the poppy Younger Than Yesterday, claiming the tune had no "rhythm, meter, or rhyme." Crosby was fired during the recording of the next album.2. "Mother" from SynchronicityAndy Summers' Mother was a bomb dropped right into the heart of The Police's...

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My Top Ten : Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy

[Purchase]In May of 1980, with the hopes of promoting his UK Top 30 solo album Solo in Soho, Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy presented Smash Hits Magazine with a list of his all time Top 10  songs. As with all lists of this sort, a big shout out is due to the fabulously coiffed Brian at Like Punk Never Happen...

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40 Year Itch; A Breath-Taking Anti War Statement

I am passing on to you , as clearly and powerfully as I can, this gift which was extended to me by the sheer chance  of being somewhere at the right time in history and living through it.--Joan BaezMike Allen, Joan, Barry Romo walking through the rubble of Gialam Intl Airport after it had been bombed by American B52s during their visit to Hanoi.On May 19, 1973 Joan Baez 's amazing anti war statement, Where Are You Now, My Son? entered the Billboard...

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40 Year Itch : Shining, Flying, Purple Wolfhound

[Purchase]Why would you buy a live album from a group that always seemed to be trying to achieve studio perfection?Yessongs sounds ike it was recorded from outside the auditorium...like where the trucks were parked. Yet there is greatness here...but it's certainly not in the sound quality. It's how Alan White managed to learn all the drum parts in an incredibly short amount of time. Here's his story in Alan's own words;Alan White in 1973In his third...

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40 Year Itch : Tricky Dick and The Birth of Sampling

The Watergate scandal inspired "the King of Novelty",  Dickie Goodman,  to record one of his "break-in" records, "Watergrate". With a Mad Magazine sense of humor, Goodman had been blending snippets of hit songs that seem to be answering questions from a reporter since 1959's "Flying Saucer". "Watergrate" hit #42. In 1975 Goodman's "Mr Jaws" would hit #4. You could argue these were among the first records to "sample" other artists.Earlier...

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40 Year Itch : Three Moments of Extraordinary Beauty

[Purchase]As Cilibrinas do Eden, Rita Lee of Os Mutantes and musical partner Linda Turnbull released this hit-and miss album that mixes straight boogie rock with tropicalia. The misses are often awful but when it all comes together, as it does on "Bad Trip", it's brilliant. The album Cilibrinas do Eden was reissued in 2008 in a limited run of 500 copies, some of which are selling now for nearly $100.[Purchase]Before 1973 ended, Candian rockers Bachman...

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40 Year Itch: You Are the Sunshine of My Life Hits #1

Four months after topping the charts with "Superstition" , Stevie Wonder returned to the Number 1 spot with "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", a song he wrote for his first wife Syreeta Wright, a Motown secretary who taught transcendental meditation and brought Stevie some centeredness to his life..if not sunshine. Future #1s "Frankenstein" and "My Love" were also in the Top 10 and another, George Harrison's "Give Me Love", entered the chart at #59....

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40 Year itch : Every Inch Exists in Miles

[Purchase]" In my own evolution as an artist and as a fan , Hawkwind were second only to the Stooges in importance to me"   Jello Biaffra, Dead KennedysThe sonic space rock assassins Hawkwind were riding high on their Top Ten single "Silver Machine" when they set out on their 1972 Space Ritual tour with dancers ( including the voluptuous Stacia), a mime, the extraordinary lighting effects of  Jon Smeeton and resident poet Robert Calvert....

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40 Year Itch : Musikladen Uber Alles

Originally called "Beat Club", the West German TV series Musikladen was one of the best music programs of its day because it kept things simple. There was no overbearing host. Bands were filmed in club settings. And Lip Syncing was not welcome. Here are just some of the performances I believe were televised in May of 1973.As the 70's fell victim to the disco craze, Musikladen hired go go dancers. Supringingly , not all of the boys complained about...

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40 Year Itch : The Curse of the Child Singer

[Purchase]What hath Michael Jackson wrought? 1973 was the year of the singing child. And much of it was pure crap. Here are 5 of the worst performances involving children from 1973.5. Danny Bonaduce "I'll be Your Magician" - the lead off cut from the cynical Partridge who released an entire album despite the fact that he couldn't sing ( or play the bass, tv fans). 4. The Carpenters "Sing"--Sure,  your grandmother found this song "delightful"...

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