Recently, I thought about 1969 and 1970 and the music that coloured those twenty four months. Here on this very blog I shared with you three of my favourite singles from each of those special years.
Back then I was always delighted to visit Kingston-upon-Hull's two best record shops - Sydney Scarborough under The City Hall and Stardisc Records on Silver Street. Of course then there were no CD's or cassette versions of albums so you leafed through the record stacks checking out album covers. Album covers were becoming more imaginative by 1969 - they were more than just sleeves to hold the discs. In fact one might argue that they complemented the music within.
Before making this blogpost, I checked out lists of albums published in those two iconic years and picked out three of my favourite albums from each year. I owned them all and played them to death till I knew just about every lyric from beginning to end. Perhaps I should have devoted an equal amount of dedication to my school work but much of that bored me to tears when I was fifteen and sixteen. Music was different for it really meant something to me - much more than politics or world affairs or tedious Science lessons.
These are the six albums I have chosen:-
1969...
"Liege & Lief" - Fairport Convention:-
"Nashville Skyline" - Bob Dylan:-
"Songs from a Room" - Leonard Cohen:-
1970...
"Tumbleweed Connection" - Elton John:-
"After The Goldrush" - Neil Young:-
"Sweet Baby James" - James Taylor:-
If a record producer stopped me in the street and asked me to pick just one song from each album to make a compilation disc, these are the songs I would pick:-
"Farewell, Farewell" - Fairport Convention
"Girl from The North Country" - Bob Dylan
"Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" - Leonard Cohen
"Burn Down The Mission" - Elton John
"Don't Let It Bring You Down" - Neil Young
"Fire and Rain" - James Taylor
And here's just one of those songs to listen to before you go, from one of Canada's greatest sons:-
I love "Fire and Rain."
ReplyDeleteWhat about Earth and Wind?
DeleteVinyl is said to be making a comeback these days YP. I buy secondhand CDs from carboot sales for when we are in the car I listen mainly to You Tube. Bands have to tour again because they can't rely on record sales these days. I like the Neil Young track.
ReplyDeleteCD's do seem to be on the way out, don't they?
DeleteI am not familiar with any of those - sorry! One of my many favourite albums from the 1970s was Supertramp Breakfast in America. The album cover made me smile too.
ReplyDeleteI guess that's because you are too young JayCee. "Breakfast in America" came out in 1979. Very good album in my humble opinion.
DeleteAh- now our tastes are converging. Although not quite. But Dylan, Cohen, Young, and Taylor were and are favorites.
ReplyDeleteLet's see how our tastes compare when I move on to 1971 some time soon. Amazing to think that this was all over fifty years ago.
DeleteI cannot disagree with your choices. All are fantastic in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYou are a gentleman with excellent taste in music!
DeleteYeh! Neil Young. You also had Leonard Cohen in there too!
ReplyDeleteI also like the little known Canadian singer-songwriter Red Kline. Jeez that guy can really rock!
DeleteI've never heard of any of those albums. I listened to the video, it isn't my kind of music. Even back then, I liked my music more boppy.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should have given you "Agadoo" by Black Lace (1984).
DeleteI love that!
DeleteLiving in a multi-age gap house as I do, all that 'old' music is played quite happily by everyone. I play George Ezra's - Green, Green Grass at the moment. We never grow up.
ReplyDeleteYou can't fool me! "Green Green Grass" is by Tom Jones!
DeleteDon't talk to me about that Welsh gigolo there is definitely a song by Ezra -
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQeW62X8rEA
Like JayCee, I am not familiar with the albums you show here. My parents actually did not possess many albums; my Dad had a big stack of singles from the late 1950s through the 1960s, but his album-sized records were mostly classical music.
ReplyDeleteTo this day, there are few albums I enjoy listening to from start to finish. Mostly, listening to an album involves a lot of skipping of songs I don't care much about.
Album covers were important when I was old enough to buy my own records. I loved it when there was an extra sheet inside with the lyrics.
Back then it would have been almost sacrilegious to jump tracks when listening to an album. One enjoyed the total experience just as the artists intended.
DeleteI have owned a few of those, and many more rereleased on CD. Mid 1970's is more my period.
ReplyDeleteI'm fond of all the artists you featured, (with the exception of Leige and Leif- no clue?) Neil Young was my imaginary boyfriend at the end of the seventies. I ditched him when I headed off to university and sought the real thing. My favourite Neil Young song today is probably Harvest Moon.
ReplyDeleteCertainly some legendary albums and songs. kd lang (don't get me started about the lowercase name) sings an amazing version of Young's "After the Gold Rush" on her much later album "Hymns of the 49th Parallel."
ReplyDeleteActually, kd also sings an amazing version of a couple of Leonard Cohen songs on the same album!
ReplyDeleteJames Taylor was so popular when I was in college. We would have his album playing on the dorm floor and we would all sing along. He could make us weep and there were lots of sad stories about him and his lyrics that I can't remember now.
ReplyDeleteI only heard Neil Young on the CSNY albums which we played a lot also - we would try to sing the harmonies as we sang along. Lovely!
Leonard Cohen's 'Songs from a Room' was one of my first LPs. And 'New Morning' by Bob Dylan (1970) was another. I didn't have a lot of albums back then so those that I did have got played very frequently. I actually still do prefer to listen to whole albums, in order - even if I like some songs better than others.
ReplyDeleteRecord shops
ReplyDeleteLike white dog poo
And cigarette smoking on planes
Are rare
I like your choices, especially the Bob Dylan and Fairport Convention albums. Vinyl had those large covers and art work and often lyrics included.
ReplyDelete