Sounds of the Seventies was a 40-volume series issued by Time-Life during the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s. Over time, 3-CD sets were offered and I found one at a local thrift store for $2. The first disc is subtitled: 70s Gold. Most of the songs on this disc made it into the Billboard Top 10.
The second disc in this set is subtitled: Classic 70s. I’m not sure I would consider Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around And Fell In Love” a classic, but this disc includes some very well known songs.
The third and final CD is subtitled: Super 70s. It’s a grab-bag of songs with no theme I can discern. If you can figure out the logic of the song choices, please enlighten us. How many of these 36 songs do you remember? Any favorites? GRADE: B- (for all three discs)
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | The Allman Brothers Band– | Ramblin’ Man | 4:49 |
| 2 | Bachman-Turner Overdrive– | Takin’ Care Of Business | 4:54 |
| 3 | Stealers Wheel– | Stuck In The Middle With You | 3:26 |
| 4 | Todd Rundgren– | Hello It’s Me | 3:40 |
| 5 | Elvin Bishop– | Fooled Around And Fell In Love | 2:59 |
| 6 | Gregg Allman– | Midnight Rider | 4:27 |
| 7 | 10cc– | I’m Not In Love | 6:00 |
| 8 | Peter Frampton– | I’m In You | 4:12 |
| 9 | Donna Summer– | Bad Girls | 3:54 |
| 10 | Marvin Gaye– | What’s Going On | 3:54 |
| 11 | Rod Stewart– | Maggie May | 5:16 |
| 12 | The Moody Blues– | Night In White Satin | 5:38 |
TRACK LIST:
AA
| 1 | Redbone– | Come And Get Your Love |
| 2 | The O’Jays– | Back Stabbers |
| 3 | Bill Withers– | Ain’t No Sunshine |
| 4 | Sly & The Family Stone– | Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) |
| 5 | Santana– | Evil Ways |
| 6 | Earth, Wind & Fire– | Shining Star |
| 7 | The Hollies– | He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother |
| 8 | Electric Light Orchestra– | Don’t Bring Me Down |
| 9 | Kansas (2)– | Dust In The Wind |
| 10 | Boston– | Don’t Look Back |
| 11 | Lynyrd Skynyrd– | Sweet Home Alabama |
| 12 | Mott The Hoople– | All The Young Dudes |
TRACK LIST:
AA
| 1 | Raspberries– | Go All The Way | 3:22 |
| 2 | Sugarloaf– | Green-Eyed Lady | 3:41 |
| 3 | Andy Kim– | Rock Me Gently | 3:30 |
| 4 | Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose– | Too Late To Turn Back Now | 3:24 |
| 5 | Al Green– | Let’s Stay Together | 3:41 |
| 6 | Ike & Tina Turner– | Proud Mary | 3:22 |
| 7 | Jim Croce– | Bad Bad Leroy Brown | 3:01 |
| 8 | Three Dog Night– | Joy To The World | 3:18 |
| 9 | Daryl Hall & John Oates– | Rich Girl | 2:23 |
| 10 | Little River Band– | Lonesome Loser | 3:55 |
| 11 | The Knack (3)– | My Sharona | 4:01 |
| 12 | Blondie– | Heart Of Glass | 3:24 |
I know all theses. The first cd is probably the best. The biggest problem I have with these cd’s is a lot of the songs were overplayed and even if I like them I’ve heard them way too many times . The only ones I really dislike are Boston, Redbone, Little River Bone, Raspberries, Jim Croce, Sugarloaf, Kansas. I have always thought Proud Mary was too frantic. I prefer CCR’s version.
Steve, I figured you would be familiar with all these songs! I agree with you: many of these songs were over-played.
Jeez—talk about a mish-mash! Some great stuff—“Heart of Glass”, “Come and Get Your Love”, “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Let’s Stay Togethet”; some dreck—“Lonesome Loser”, “Go All the Way”; and some that a tangentially seventies, but feel earlier or later—wasn’t “Nights in White Satin” from the late-sixties and “My Sharona” the very cusp of the 1980s? Anyway, I know all the songs here, but all the ones I love I have in other collections. These CDs aren’t awful, but if you’re putting together a “representative sampling” of the 1970s and don’t feature the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, some Beatles solo stuff (especially Wings), CCR, The Bee Gees, Steely Dan, Jackson 5, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and/or Carole King, there’s not much “representation” here.
And Elton John too. I’m sure everyone else can think of artists that exemplify the 1970s for them—and I bet no one picks 10cc.
I like 10cc, though not to the point they “exemplify the 1970s” for me. I do really like I’m Not in Love, which is on this set. And from the 80s, Cry by Godley & Creme.
There’s a lot of good music on these discs, and, as people are noting, a lot missing. But as George said at the start, this was taken from a 40-cd set, which still misses some acts (like Wings, Joni Mitchell, others) but includes lots of Elton John and a surprising amount of pre-Buckingham/Nicks Fleetwood Mac — including the nine-minute Oh Well as a single track, which is only available now split into part 1 and part 2, which don’t fit together. They snuck in a little bit of progressive rock (my personal 70s) with short pieces by Yes, ELP, Genesis and King Crimson, not really representative but at least acknowledged.
The track lists for most of these are on Wikipedia.
Jeff, I agree with your assessment of these three SOUNDS OF THE SEVENTIES CDs. I have about a dozen of the 40 discs in the TIME-LIFE series. I pick them up whenever I can. But this was the first time I’ve run across a 3-CD box set in this series. I wonder if there are more…
Deb, you sure captured the essence of these CDs: mish-mash! And, you’re also right about the lack of Big Name artists on these discs.
I’d have to disagree…the lack of Very famous artists who’ve continued to have an enthusiastic fanbase, probably. These are not obscure people to those who were able or forced to hear ’70s radio in the US.
Yup, “Nights in White Satin” was first whined in the latter ’60s, but reached its largest US audience in the early ’70s, at very least on radio.
My picks to click are Marvin, Al, Bill, O’Jays. Deb is right, “Nights in White Satin” debuted on DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED in 1967, but it placed belatedly in the Top 10 as a single in 1972. One of my college friends played DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED incessantly in his arm room.
Fred, I endure daily WORDPRESS auto-correct, too! Frustrating! “Nights in White Satin” was also featured in plenty of movies and TV shows over the years. Here’s a brief list:
This is the title song of the now obscure 1987 TV movie, “Nights in White Satin.”
This song is featured in Wolfgang Petersen’s 1991 film, Shattered.
This song is featured in the 1992 film, Split Second.
This song is featured in Robert De Niro’s 1993 film, A Bronx Tale.
This song is featured in Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film, Casino.
This song is played briefly in the King of the Hill episode “The Trouble with Gribbles,” originally airing in 2001.
This song is featured in Rob Zombie’s 2009 film, Halloween II, a sequel to his 2007 remake of the 1978 film Halloween.
This song is featured in Bertrand Bonello’s 2011 film, House of Tolerance.
This song is played over the opening credits of Tim Burton’s 2012 film, Dark Shadows.
This song is featured in the 2006 comedy/parody film American Dreamz.
This song is featured in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a novel by Stephen Chbosky as it appears on a music playlist by the novel’s protagonist, Charlie.
This song is featured in The Boat That Rocked.
This song is featured in the Heath Kirchart segment in the 2001 Transworld Skateboarding video Sight Unseen.
It is also featured in the Wiseguy episode “No One Gets Out of Here Alive,” in the climactic scene between Vinnie Terranova and Sonny Steelgrave. This was removed in the DVD release. Since the characters are in opposition, wearing expensive white shirts, and there’s a homoerotic undercurrent to their relationship, the song’s use can be taken as a pun, i.e., Knights in White Satin.
The song is featured in the TV movie The 70s.
This song is featured in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo when Deuce gets high on space cake.
This song is featured in the Fringe episode “In Absentia,” appearing in the background as Walter Bishop addresses his future self on a video tape.
This song is featured in the Freaks and Geeks episode “Girlfriends and Boyfriends.”
One of my favorite Moody Blues cameos is when they appeared on the Simpsons in the “Homer & Ned go to Vegas and both end up marrying Vegas show girls” episode. There’s a huge casino marquee that reads in big letters:
Tonight: White Nights Play the Songs of the Moody Blues
In smaller letters underneath that:
Opening Act: The Moody Blues
(Lol)
About what one might expect…
Ah! I should’ve guessed this would be addressed. Condolences, Fred. “Lonely man cries for love and has none!” as a piece of “poetry” sticks in the memory. (My longest-term friend’s first college boyfriend loved this record to death, and she would play it at opportunity as well.)
I love the Moody Blues (Justin Hayward was one of my many secret husbands, back in the day); their music always evokes enormous nostalgia of a good sort for me. However, some of the poetry, either before or after their songs (“Nights in White Satin” wasn’t the only one of their songs to feature the spoken word), tended to be a bit on the pretentious side. There’s one that begins, “I think, therefore I am…I think.” However, being but a callow youth at the time, I found that poetry to be engaging if not quite profound.
Deb, I have a MOODY BLUES post coming up soon!
Media crushes–I’m not above them! Though mine tended to be on writers, musicians and actors…am listening to Susanna Hoffs being interviewed by Andy Richter as I type this (happily, I’ve also not ever taken a media crush too seriously).
DORM room. Pesky auto-correct.
I’m partial to JOY TO THE WORLD. Kitty was heavily prengant with our first and, whenever that song came on, the baby would start kicking to the music. Had it been a boy we might well have named him Jeremiah.
Well, at least you didn’t go with Bullfrog!
Jerry, and I hope there’s more Joy in the World moving ahead. I know you’ll be joyful in a couple of days–check your mailbox.
I’m with Deb. And let’s not forget ABBA if we’re talking ’70s. We DROVE from London to Rome and back in July and August of 1976, and pretty much all we heard on the car radio was “Mamma Mia,” “Fernando,” Dancing Queen,” plus Silver Convention’s “Get Up and Boogie.” As a matter of fact, we stayed three days at a hotel next door to a dance club in Rimini, and every night the hotel walls shook with the bass line of “Get Up and Boogie.”
Otherwise, I know all the songs (with a couple of maybes). I like some – the AL Green, ELO and Earth, Wind & Fire (though neither is my favorite of their songs), Santana and Marvin Gaye, to name a few.
That reminds me: whatever happened to the Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose?
Jeff, Bill Crider was a huge ABBA fan! His favorite ABBA song was “Take a Chance on Me.”
As a single (koff) favorite, let’s go with “Ain’t No Sunshine”. Taking “Dust in the Wind” rather than “Carry On, Wayward Son” is simply bad decision-making, if Kansas needs to be here.
Todd, “Ain’t No Sunshine” has Bill Withers saying, “I know, I know,” 27 times!
And one of the best repetitions of the same lyrical phrase ever.
These collections often skimp on the big names which is usually due to rights. The Rolling Stones, Springsteen, Petty , Talking Heads, all broke out big in the 70’s, but are rarely in any of these compilations.
Well, the Stones broke out in the 60’s but still had big hits in the 70’s.
Psycho Killer is on one of the large group of discs, which was a pleasant surprise.
And 10cc was a fine band by me, as well, if not my favorite jazz-influenced rock band.
Todd, 10cc had a nice string of hits.
There are a surprising number of songs here I like! I saw the Moody Blues in a Murray the K Christmas show in 1965 when Go Now was their only hit! After they sang that one they did a Rolling Stones musical impression!
Bob, was the Moody Blues impression of The Rolling Stones any good?
The Denny Laine Moody Blues was a Much better band. I like their work vastly more than anything from DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED on out.
Yes! What’s interesting is they didn’t have any other records on the charts since Go Now so they had to cannibalize the Stones to flesh out their appearance! They only did 2 or 3 songs, total!
the GO NOW album had a Bunch of covers, indeed, but a few pleasant originals…no consistently superb, but fun enough.
thttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV9W0YJV3Tc&list=OLAK5uy_lJHSBEuo89nbrcY3Hh08mHG_tqc24t3gw&index=3
I also enjoyed these songs, they were played on European radio as well. So driving to my next project or the next holiday I heard them all – and of course others which are not featured here.
As we’ve said and heard often the 70s like the 60s started as a good time for pop music – but it got lame over the years … And don’t even think about the 80s!
Wolf, Seventies music seems to be the most popular with the commentators on this blog.
I think it might simply be the set of music that most of us were exposed to the most, in common. I certainly tended to like ’60s music in various fields and later music as much as anything in the ’70s…but there has never been an era when good music didn’t abound…even if not much of it got much radio play, in the century of commercial radio and its heirs.
Todd, I suspect the popularity of Seventies music–at least among the commentators on this blog–might be caused by the listening habits back in the 1970s. People bought albums and tapes and listen to songs on the radio. Everything changed in 1981 when MTV went on the air. It changed in the 1990s when streaming music showed up.