YOUR GROOVY HOST:
Billy Ingram
The greatest entertainers of the seventies -
especially those you never heard of!
Cher
Stars
Hard to believe a Cher album could actually be excellent? Well, this one was. 'Stars' was Cher's first album release since splitting with Sonny Bono. As long as her former singing partner had control over her recordings, Cher was relegated to gimmicky songs like "Half Breed" and "Train of Thought". All superior recordings, for what they were, but hardly serious listening material.
After a failed attempt recording with a crazed Phil Spector (a single was released that bombed) music mogul David Geffen signed Cher to a 3 album deal in hopes of bringing her to the same, more adult, audience that was attracted to Linda Ronstadt and Janis Ian.
Read More About Cher's Obscure '70s Album: Stars
WALTER MURPHY:
The Phantom of the Opera
I loved pop music as a teenager, the early 1970s was the end of the Tin Pan Alley era of of pop, where bubble gum tunes and beautiful melodies sat side by side with disco and soul on the top 40 charts. At the time I thought there was so much to hate about seventies' music but looking back I have a greater appreciation for the diversity.
In the mid-1970s it became very popular to take an old song and give it a Disco arrangement. Strangers in the Night and just about every other standard from decades past was twisting polyestered bodies on the world's dance floors. It got to be absurd listening to the latest dance remake of the week but Disco was the one music that cut across every world-wide cultural divide at the time. You could hear the same dance music in New York, Monte Carlo, London, Egypt or Paris.
Read More About the Obscure '70s Album:
The Phantom of the Opera
Mary Kay Place
Tonite! At the Capri Lounge,
Loretta Haggers
Mary Kay Place became a television icon on the weeknight syndicated soap opera satire Mary Hartman Mary Hartman (Jan. 1976-May 1977).
As the aspiring country western singer Loretta Haggers she walked away with the show with her exquisitely daffy performance coupled with outrageous storylines like Loretta babbling on about, "the Jews what killed our Christ" on a 'live' Dinah! afternoon TV talk show.
Read More About the Obscure '70s Album:
'Tonite! At the Capri Lounge, Loretta Haggers'
Gary Numan
Telekon
Gary Numan's Telekon (which came out in 1980) is one of my favorite so called New Wave albums.
It's Numan's disc after the three albums that launched his career, Tubeway Army, Replicas and The Pleasure Principle the latter of which sported the worldwide hit 'Cars' which made it to number one on the US and UK charts.
Those earlier releases are superior to Telekon in most ways, at least that's the conventional wisdom and I agree. There's nothing here to match 'Down in the Park' or 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' from his first three LPs, that's for sure, but several cuts come close like 'Please Push No More,' and 'Remember I was Vapor.'
Read More About Gary Numan's Telekon
Dave Mason & Cass Elliot
Dave Mason and Cass Elliot
A fine album of folk-sy songs from two seminal artists of the 1970s, both artists at their peak separately and together. Though both artists wrote and produced the album, Cass Elliot only sang lead on two tracks, providing some very pleasing harmony vocals on the others.
"Dave Mason and Cass Elliot" was released in 1971, just after Mason left Blue Thumb over a contract dispute. The songs are simply produced, allowing Mason's stellar guitar work to shine. Also heard were session players Russ Kunkel, Bryan Garofalo and Paul Harris.
Read More About Dave Mason and Cass Elliot
THE GREATEST ENTERTAINERS Bobby Darin may have been the greatest Vegas entertainer of all time and was becoming more and more successful on television with his own variety series on NBC. He was in the midst of a Vegas comeback in the 1970s as well when he tragically died during an operation. gre
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One of the funniest shows of the decade was Fernwood 2Nite, a talk show spoof starring Martin Mull and Fred Willard. One regular guest was Bill Kirchenbauer as Tony Rolletti, the quintessential lousy lounge singer from the mythical town of Fernwood.
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The Three Degrees were a power pop trio that provided background vocals for some of the best known disco songs. They also had a career as a recording act with hits of their own like 'TSOP' and 'When Will I See You Again'. Here's 1974's 'Dirty Old Man'.
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Stand up comic LaWanda Page was one of the funniest women of the seventies, she achieved fame as Aunt Ester on the hit NBC sitcom Sanford & Son. She had a series of absolutely filthy record albums and an extremely blue nightclub act. Here's a sample from her LP Pipe Layin' Dan but beware - there are lots of dirty words!
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Singer / songwriter Janis Ian was a quintessential seventies artist, loved and respected by fans and professionals alike. She had several chart toppers - 1975's 'At Seventeen' and 'Society's Child' from the '60s come to mind. She won a Grammy for 'At Seventeen', this is one of her lesser known tunes 'From Me To You.'
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The music you hear from the 1970s on the radio tends to be the same old tired hit songs they've been playing for decades.
Rarely will an oldies station stray outside of the top ten songs of the decade. That's because there were so darn many - it was the era of the 'one hit wonder.'
Obscure 70s Looks At:
Walter Murphy's Phantom of the Opera
Mary Kay Place's Tonight at the Capri Lounge
Barbra Streisand's 1970s Albums
Sonny & Cher's Unreleased 1977 Album
Melissa Manchester's Bright Eyes
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Melissa Manchester was a seminal artist of the seventies, her albums were and are evocative of that long ago era.
She started out as a background singer, working with Bette Midler and Barry Manilow just as they were becoming successful. Melissa's debut album on Arista in 1973, 'Home to Myself', is at times dark and haunting, bare, and raw emotionally. It's a melancholy LP for the most part with many songs co-written with Carol Bayer Sager.
The entire production feels very personal. Track two 'Easy' is a prime example.
Read more about Melissa Manchester
Barbra Streisand's 1970s Albums
Even my friend Michael Ely, a dyed in the wool Streisand fanatic, hates her 1970s output on vinyl. But I enjoyed these four albums very much back in the day. Butterfly (1974), Lazy Afternoon (1975), Streisand Superman (1977), and Songbird (1978) were uneven and occasionally confounding (like her cover of David Bowie's 'Life on Mars' from Butterfly) but the Diva's voice was never finer. And when the voice and material clicked, there was magic coming from the grooves.
Obscure 70s looks at LPs and singles that may not have made the top of the charts but were amazing (or unusual) none the less.
Obscure 70s Looks At:
Walter Murphy's Phantom of the Opera
Mary Kay Place's Tonight at the Capri Lounge
Barbra Streisand's 1970s Albums
Sonny & Cher's Unreleased 1977 Album
Melissa Manchester's Bright Eyes