Thursday, February 26, 2009

A totally whimsical collection of 70s singles

Some odds & ends singles that I downloaded from a file-sharing service back in the olden days. Not meant to be even a representative example of the 1970s, it's just some stuff that I downloaded. Note: I was just a kid when most of these came out, and they don't trigger strong memories like the 80s stuff does.

Arlo Guthrie - City of New Orleans
When I was a kid I thought this was a Johnny Cash song.

Bob Dylan - Early Morning Rain
One of my favorite Dylan songs.

B.W. Stevenson - My Maria
One of those cowpop dipsticks did a version of this a few years ago that totally sucked and I needed to hear the original again to restore my faith in humanity.

Cheap Trick - Surrender
My favorite Cheap Trick song. In fact, it's probably the only Cheap Trick song I can identify. Sometimes I sing the chorus to my kids. It amuses them.

Commodores - Sail On
I love this song. I don't have any of their albums.

Crosby, Stills and Nash - Southern Cross
I have a few of their albums, but not the one with this song on it.

Dave Mason - We Just Disagree
Did I dream it, or did Alice Cooper cover this song once on The Muppet Show?

Dobie Gray - Drift Away
Is there anyone who does not like to sing along with this song? If there is, I...I...don't want to know about it.

Elton John - Your Song
Later I converted the greatest hits cassette with this song to mp3. If I had to pick a favorite song of his, I guess this would be it.

Gary Wright - Dreamweaver
I have a Gary Wright album, but it's not this one.

Gordon Lightfoot - Early Morning Rain
The day I went searching for Dylan's original, I found this version also. I also have the Peter, Paul & Mary version in another folder. Maybe this is really a 60s song. I don't know, it isn't that important to me.

Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
After snagging the two versions of Early Morning Rain, I thought, hey, what about "Edmund Fitzgerald?" I had to play "Sundown" about 12,708 times in high school band, and I hope never to hear it again.

Head East - Never Been Any Reason, Since You've Been Gone
Did they have any other hits besides these two? I really like the way they use the Moog synthesizer.

Holy Modal Rounders - Euphoria
I had read about this group, and I kept trying to find stuff by them so I could hear for myself. This was the only thing I ever came up with. I guess I'll have to buy something, if I can find anything.

Mott the Hoople - All the Way from Memphis, Honaloochie Boogie, Roll Away the Stone
One day I was missing my lost greatest hits cassette and grabbed these three.

Rainbow - Since You've Been Gone
So I would have both versions.

Ricky Nelson - Garden Party
I'm not sure why I downloaded this. I think I had just read something about all the people he mentioned in it, and I wanted to hear it again.

Stealers Wheel - Stuck in the Middle with You
Just another one that I downloaded on a whim.

Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl, Tupelo Honey
I have the Tupelo Honey record. I grabbed these two one day when I wanted to hear them again but didn't have a way of playing any records.

*****

I haven't been in the mood much lately to write about anything but music, retreating back into my greatest source of enjoyment while the world crumbles. With the turntable arriving soon (tomorrow, according to UPS), I'll be heavily involved in going through old records and discovering a lot of stuff that has mysteriously appeared in the collection during my turntable-less interregnum. I had largely stopped buying records, mostly because my biggest sources of used, cheap records have disappeared, but my wife is always picking up the odd record or two at flea markets and yard sales, and when her mother passed away a few years ago she took custody of that record collection. And there is some stuff in there that I would never have imagined my mother-in-law listening to.

I was thinking to myself recently that back when I was buying most of these records, there were so many that I bought just because they looked like they might be good, and I had no idea what they would really sound like. Back then, there was no internet, no Wikipedia, no allmusic.com, etc., and there was really no way to find out any more information about those artists other than whatever happened to be in the liner notes. So I'm looking forward to learning stuff about all those people whose music became part of my life long ago, but who I know nothing else about.

4 comments:

  1. Arlo Guthrie - City of New Orleans
    I always thought it was a Willie Nelson song. For the record, Deryl Dodd does a really good rendition of "Sundown" on his Pearl Snaps cd.

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  2. It was actually written by Steve Goodman. Guthrie was just the first to cover it. Goodman is a great song writer who doesn't get nearly enough credit. For example, he wrote "You Never Even Call Me By My Name."

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  3. Judy Collins did a good job on Early Morning Rain, also.
    I have quite a few old albums that I need to rip; some aren't in the best of shape and I would like to replace with CD's, but there are some of my favorites that were never released in CD form. Most of mine lean towards old rock and old country, before the modern cowpop that is so popular now.

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  4. If you ever get serious about ripping old records, check out Goldwave. It has filters for removing clicks & pops, hisses & hums that have done a terrific job cleaning up some of my old records.

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