SINGERS AND SONGWRITERS: 1973-1975 [2-CD Set]

28 Replies

Some of my favorite music comes from the Seventies. Singers and Songwriters: 1973-1975 (2002) includes the usual Great Hits…and slush. “Desperado” is one of Linda Ronstadt’s best songs. “Send in the Clowns” by Judy Collins is a classic. One Hit Wonder group, Blue Swede, gave us “Hooked on a Feeling” that still gets some airplay on our local Oldies radio station today.

Of course, there are plenty of duds like “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando & Dawn–a song that grates on me every time I hear it because of years of “over playing” by radio and TV. And weak One Hit Wonders like Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods’ “Billy, Don’t Be A Hero” and Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died.”

Another hit and miss compilation. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B-

TRACKLIST:

1-1Stories–Brother Louie3:57
1-2Ozark Mountain Daredevils*–Jackie Blue4:11
1-3Andy Kim–Rock Me Gently3:29
1-4Carole King–Corazon3:58
1-5Jim Croce–Workin’ At The Car Wash Blues2:33
1-6Helen Reddy–Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)3:26
1-7Linda Ronstadt–Desperado3:32
1-8Maureen McGovern–The Morning After2:20
1-9America (2)–Daisy Jane3:09
1-10Gladys Knight & The Pips*–Midnight Train To Georgia4:42
1-11Charlie Rich–The Most Beautiful Girl2:43
1-12Judy Collins–Send In The Clowns4:00
2-1Captain & Tennille*–Love Will Keep Us Together3:24
2-2Glen Campbell–Rhinestone Cowboy3:16
2-3Tony Orlando & Dawn–Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree3:21
2-4Three Dog Night–Shambala3:25
2-5Blue Swede–Hooked On A Feeling2:53
2-6Paper Lace–The Night Chicago Died3:32
2-7Bo Donaldson And The Heywoods*–Billy, Don’t Be A Hero3:40
2-810cc–I’m Not In Love6:07
2-9Jim Croce–Photographs And Memories2:07
2-10Janis Ian–From Me To You3:21
2-11Loggins & Messina*–Thinking Of You2:21
2-12Harry Chapin–Mr. Tanner4:53

28 thoughts on “SINGERS AND SONGWRITERS: 1973-1975 [2-CD Set]”

  1. Cap'n Bob

    I like Send in the Clowns and Midnight Train to Georgia best! This was a sad transition period for music! What followed was either disco, rap, or frenzied L.A. Hair Bands!

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    2. george Post author

      Deb, on April 21, 1973, Tony Orlando and Dawn’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” topped the U.S. pop charts. The yellow ribbon has long been a symbol of support for absent or missing loved ones, but this song turned the tradition into a cultural phenomenon. “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” was a massive international hit, holding the top spot on both the U.S. and U.K. charts for four consecutive weeks and earning upwards of 3 million radio plays in 1973. Since then, the song springs up during crisis situations like the Gulf War and 9-11.

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  2. Deb

    Well, there’s a right old mish-mash for you. Dictated by what rights the company controlled or could get cheap. Croce and Chaplin had much bigger hits than the ones featured here (in fact, I’ve never heard the Chapin song, ditto for the Janis Ian). I do like some of the songs—“Rock Me Gently”, “Corazon”, and “Shambala”—while others would have me running to switch to another station. However, “Yellow Ribbon” holds a sentimental place in my heart because it was one of my Dad’s favorite songs—especially the part where the “whole damn bus is cheering” because “100 yellow ribbons” are tied around the old oak tree. In fact, I’m tearing up thinking about it right now. Objectively, cheap sentimental blather; subjectively, I could never bring myself to turn the radio off if that song were playing.

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    1. Jeff Meyerson

      Deb, Jackie is a huge Harry Chapin fan, so I know the song from his GREATEST STORIES LIVE album. It’s a downer about a dry cleaner in the Midwest who likes to sing, but…

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  3. Jerry House

    Well, they have singers — some of them pretty talented and some of them wrote songs. And they have songs that were written by…people. The title implies that all the songs were written by the people who sang them, but somehow I don’t thing Judy Collins was the stage name for Stephen Sondheim.

    A mix of the enjoyable, the forgotten and far less enjoyable, and the where-in-hell-did-that-come-from.

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    1. george Post author

      Jerry, like Deb, I was unfamiliar with some of these songs on this miss-mash compilation. But, there are enough Good Songs mixed in with the duds for me to keep this CD in my music collection.

      As many showstopping ballads as there have been in the history of Broadway, very few have ever worked their way into the pop music world like “Send In The Clowns.” Although both Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand took a shot at Stephen Sondheim’s sublimely sad tale from the musical A Little Night Music, it was Judy Collins, with her vocals somehow both soothing and devastating all at once, who pushed it into the Top 40 after recording it on her 1975 album Judith.

      It’s not for nothing that Collins is one of the finest interpreters of song in hers or any other generation, and, with “Send In The Clowns,” she had crackerjack material. On the stage, it was a lament by the heroine Desiree about finally realizing that the man who had wanted her for many years was indeed the one for her, only to find that he had moved on with somebody else.

      You don’t need any exposition to understand the song’s emotional content, however, not with Collins’ understated delivery and the French horn and trumpet empathizing with her. Instead of ranting and raving about fate, the narrator simply shrugs at the ironies of the scenario, asking her former flame if he appreciates them too. In each case, she notes how the two have switched positions, somehow passing right by each other without connecting in the process.

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      1. Jeff Meyerson

        Sondheim wrote “Send In the Clowns” for the show and the singer, as he always did, and Glynis Johns wasn’t a great singer, so he wanted short, easy phrases. Her version on the original cast album remains my favorite.

        Incidentally, she just died two years ago at 100.

      2. george Post author

        Jeff, Sinatra and Streisand recorded “Send in the Clowns” but my favorite is still the Judy Collins version. “Send in the Clowns” is my favorite Sondheim song, too.

  5. Todd Mason

    Between Top 40 radio and (particularly) second-tier tv “variety” shows, almost all of these are at least distantly familiar, and terrible renditions of “Send in the Clowns” were all too common…and there’s no lack of other maudlin and/or cutesy schlock here. The 10cc, the Knight & the Pips (lots of bad covers there, too), and a few others were at least pretty good at the time, and a very few are forgotten or missed by me altogether. Hope this is one of those dime CDs from the library, George. My mother was a big Caotain and Tenille fan, and “Loce Will Keep Us Together” was one of their less-bad songs…their initial hit, IIRC.

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  6. Jeff Meyerson

    Corazon by Carole King? Don’t know it. Ditto “Daisy Jane,” ,”From Me To You” (unless it’s a Beatles cover) and “Thinking Of You.”

    I like Blue Swede’s ooga-chucka “Hooked On a Feeling.” Otherwise, just “Desperado,” “Love Will Keep Us Together” and “Midnight Train To Georgia.”

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  7. Fred Blosser

    George, it could be worse. GUITARZAN (1969) and TIMOTHY (1971) miss the 1973 cutoff date. But where are MUSKRAT LOVE and THE NIGHT THE LIGHTS WENT OUT IN GEORGIA, both comfortably within the ’73-’75 time frame.

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      3. Todd Mason

        In the tradition of “Mr. Turnkey” and other desperate sorts of maudlin psychopathy in rock lyrics…
        https://archive.org/details/bookofrocklists0000mars is the Archive.org free-access address for the first BOOK OF ROCK LISTS, which includes lists of such attempts at Relatable Tragedy in popular music lyrics. At least “I Want My Baby Back” was meant to be gallows humor (or at least shared-coffin humor).

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