“Know” by Nick Drake from Pink Moon [1971]

The best book I read over my winter break was Joe Boyd’s White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s. Boyd started out as an ambitious young music fan with an adventurous streak that took him around the American South, to Newport, and to Europe. As his career peaked near the end of the Sixties, Boyd produced Pink Floyd’s debut single, albums for the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention, and Vasthi Bunyan’s most noteworthy album Just Another Diamond Day. 

Of all the great musicians he worked with, none were as intriguing or multi-talented as Nick Drake. Drake could play complex guitar licks and sing in pitch without ever missing a pluck. But his severely introverted personality, his utter inability to interact with almost anyone, kept him from supporting his early albums with live tours. When it came time to record his third album Pink Moon, Drake somehow found the courage to challenge his supporting group at Island Records, including Boyd, to let him record his songs without the backing arrangements that had supported his playing on Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter. No strings, no pianos, no percussion. Just Nick and his guitar. The song “Know” is exemplary. 

See Boyd’s great book for a much more personal account of the recording sessions and of Nick’s lonely final days.

“I’m a Truck” by Red Simpson from I’m a Truck [1971]

Country music produced some great songs about trucking and about driving in general. But is this when country started to become a self-parody? I just feel like Red took the song far too seriously for its lyrics.

“We Don’t Care” by Manfred Hübler & Siegfried Schwab from Vampyros Lesbos Sexadelic Dance Party (Soundtrack to Vampyros Lesbos) [1970]

David Axelrod met Barbarella in the score of Vampyros Lesbos, a sexy European exploitation film about female vampires. Soft gore with soft core, said one critic of the 1971 cult classic. The soundtrack by Manfred Hübler and Siegfried Schwab (recording under the name Vampires’ Sound Incorporation) itself became a cult classic, enough to earn the CD reissue I found. Have a listen above. Watch the (NSFW) film trailer here (worse quality but with English subtitles here). Read more and find a few links here (also the source of the paraphrase above).

“Black Is Chant / Black Is” by The Last Poets [1971]

An Exploration of Music and Poetry, Day 18: Black Is

The late ’60s saw the a major change in the way African-Americans pursued rights, equality, respect, and social change. Although the seeds had been sewn before 1968, Martin Luther King’s assassination catalyzed the transition from the peace-driven Civil Rights era into the more expressive—and in some cases more violent—Black Power era. Drawing on Malcolm X’s ideas of black nationalism and separatism, Black Power paralleled the rise of the phrase “Black is beautiful.” The movement offered an alternative to mainstream media and advertising, which were perceived to imply that whites were more beautiful.

Formed in Harlem in 1968, The Last Poets rhymed about black nationalism, violence, music, and revolution. Their self-titled debut album struck a chord with American Blacks, hitting #3 on the Billboard’s Black Album chart in 1970. “Black Is,” from the group’s 1971 second album, hits on every major theme I want to point out. For all intents and purposes, it is rap music, even if calling it such is anachronistic. The rhymes hit on revolution, racial relations, skin color, “black is beautiful,” and especially music. Listen to the way John Coltrane’s music gets wrapped into racial violence:

Black is digging John Coltrane,
John Coltrane as he blows, no not as he blows, but as he tells you of his life, which is the people’s life, which is all our lives, Blow Trane Blow! 
Listen black people, listen to Trane as he blows away your life, just like white people blow away your life everyday.

This is high art on so many levels.

“A Front Row Seat to See Ole Johnny Sing” by Shel Silverstein [1971]

An Exploration of Music and Poetry, Day 17: Dual Talents

Shel Silverstein had far too many talents. From cartoons to poetry to music, he succeeded at them all. This song doesn’t mix music and poetry (unless its basic country lyrical structure counts for you), but it celebrates his ties to country music, Johnny Cash in particular.

“I Won’t Mention It Again” by Ray Price [1971]

Country music met traditional pop in Nashville in about 1957. They formed a lasting relationship that, though it has evolved, is still strong. By the time former honky-tonker Ray Price cut “I Won’t Mention It Again” in 1971, the music was “country” only in the past of its performer. Still, the song topped the country chart for three weeks in May. Notably, “I Won’t Mention It Again” also held a Top 5 spot on the Adult Contemporary chart, the BIllboard publication that came to exemplify the soft rock sound during the ’70s. Ray Price and other Nashville pop stars formed one of main feeder groups to the popular “lite” music of that decade, often crossing over to the pop and AC charts.

“Pickin’ Wild Mountain Berries (live)” by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn [1971]

Loving Arms: The Golden Age of Country Duets

The golden age of country duets overlapped the golden age of the television variety show. Country stars hosted their fair share.  Just among the artists we’ve looked at so far, both Porter Wagoner and Johnny Cash hosted eponymous variety shows, Wagoner for two decades. However, no show better signifies the country variety show than Hee Haw. Though it only aired on a major network (CBS) for two-and-a-half seasons, Hee Haw lasted in syndication into the 1990s. Its most lasting legacy is the treasure trove of live music performances tracing the growth and commercialization of country music in the 1970s and ’80s. 

Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn were arguably the greatest duet team of the 1970s. Their first hit together came in 1971 with the release of “After the Fire Is Gone.” To keep this playlist a little more upbeat (we don’t need seven ballads) and to show the importance of the variety show market, I chose Twitty and Lynn’s live performance on Hee Haw of an album track from their first record together, 1971’s We Only Make Believe. It’s simply a fun song and Twitty proves he has a little bit of soul in him.

To see the rapport between the two (or just to see the horrible hair and fashion styles people chose in the early ’70s), watch the original performance here.

“Double Barrel” by Dave and Ansell Collins [1971]

Dave and Ansell Collins were both session musicians for Lee “Scratch” Perry. The pair capitalized on their rare chance at their own single. For two weeks in the spring of 1971, between a glam hit by T. Rex and a pure pop hit by Tony Orlando and Dawn, this reggae song topped the British charts. It had been some four years since Desmond Dekker broke through with “Israelites,” but reggae hits were still few and far between. Bob Marley would change that within a few years. 

“My Old Man” by Joni Mitchell [1971]

Random Music History Song of the Day

Yesterday we looked at a tongue-in-cheek Cole Porter song about the nature of most men: “they’re all the same / a romp in the clover / and then when it’s over / so long and ‘what is your name?’” Some 40 years later, Joni Mitchell approached the nature of men, women and love in a more honest and more meaningful way. In each case, for completely different reasons, marriage was out of the question.

By 1971 many young Americans were questioning marriage altogether, a view that hardly existed in the 1930s. Most were not ready to fully embrace the idea of hippie communes as the future cultural norm, but they saw nothing wrong with pre-marital cohabitation - “shacking up,” to use the coarse phrase stated proudly by young couples of the day but employed bemoaningly by their parents. In “My Old Man” Joni Mitchell made “shacking up” eloquent. She expressed real human emotions, the same deep feelings married couples feel in fact. The only difference was that she and her old man “don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall” to maintain their relationship. The rest of Blue, the 1971 album on which the song first appeared, was equally moving.

Joni Mithcell’s Blue helped give singer-songwriters a good name, as opposed to, say, James Taylor. I mean, everybody loves the dude with the guitar at the campfire, but if you want to make a legitimate artistic statement (and let’s be honest, most singer-songwriters thought their cliched introspection counted as such), that guy probably won’t cut it.

“Melting Pot” by Booker T. & the MGs [1971]

Random Music History Song of the Day

The same classic lineup of Booker T. & the MGs had been cooking up monster soul and funk grooves for over a decade by the time they released their final album together in 1971. They just hadn’t released any of the longer jams those grooves came from, instead releasing two- and three-minute cuts as singles. Following the lead of fellow Southern Soul funkster James Brown, Booker T. & the MGs led off Melting Pot with the title track, a single eight-plus minute jam of slinky Steve Cropper guitar (do I hear a strong influence on early Red Hot Chili Peppers?) and groovy Booker T. Jones keyboard leads over a funky but melodic rhythm played by Donald “Duck” Dunn and Al Jackson, Jr.

It’s all just one glorious melting pot of Memphis Soul Stew, if you will. Unfortunately, because of disagreements over the direction of Stax records, even as this album was being recorded the famed Memphis house band was disintegrating. The break-up became official after the album’s release. The full quartet never recorded together again, in large part due to the mysterious and dramatic murder of drummer Al Jackson, Jr. in 1975.