Sub-Rosa Subway

In the mid 70s, as FM radio was coming into it's own in Canada, there was a song getting a lot of airplay that many listeners thought was the new disc by the Beatles. Sub-Rosa Subway had a Beatlesque sound to it and the vocals were dead ringers for John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

The song was about Alfred Ely Beach, the man responsible for building the New York city subway system. But the group wasn't England's Beatles. In reality it was Canada's Klaatu, a progressive rock trio formed in Toronto in 1973. The group was named after the extraterrestrial in the film The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Their most famous song was Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, a version if which was covered by the Carpenters in 1977. "Occupants", to some degree, from their first album 3:47 EST and particularly the song Sub-Rosa Subway gave rise to rumours the Beatles had reformed and recorded new music. Alas, it was not to be. Klaatu disbanded around 1982.

White Bird

It's A Beautiful Day formed in 1967 in San Francisco. They achieved moderate success but nowhere near the popularity of some of their "summer of love" contemporaries.

Their leader, David LaFlamme, had been a violin soloist with the Utah Symphony Orchestra

Their best known song, White Bird, comes from their self-titled initial album, released in 1969. And it demonstrates the group's unique approach to music, a catchy fusion of rock, jazz, folk and classical genres. The group split up in 1974.

Absolutely Right

As a music-loving teenager in Ottawa, Canada's capital, I can recall high-school dances and local concerts with Canadian groups making their tours. April Wine, Lighthouse, Chilliwack, The Guess Who and 3s A Crowd were just some of the acts that stormed through our city.

There were local groups too. One popular band was the Staccatos formed in the mid 60s. They always seemed a cut above the rest of the local groups so it came as no surprise when news came they'd struck out for Los Angeles in an effort to make a dent in the American music scene. Three attempts and a name change to The Five Man Electrical Band later and they hit it big with Signs.

In the early 70s they based themselves in L.A. and toured for several years with such acts as The Allman Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, The Jefferson Airplane, fellow Canadians Bachman, Turner, Overdrive and many others.

In 1972 they released the album Coming Of Age which spawned the hit Absolutely Right. Our local boys had made good! But fame was fleeting. By 1975 they'd broken up and returned to Ottawa. But for a moment there...

Lonely Teardrops

He influenced a considerable number of artists - Van Morrison and Michael Jackson among them - and his spirited performances earned him the nickname "Mr. Excitement". Jackie Wilson is often cited as a key artist in the transition of rhythm and blues to soul. He started out in the mid to late 50s as a member of the R&B group the Dominoes, but he's far better known for an almost 20 year solo career that ended abruptly in 1975.

In a tragic circumstance, Wilson suffered a massive heart attack while performing in a Dick Clark show, while singing his 1958 hit Lonely Teardrops. As he reached the line "...my heart is crying..." he fell head-first to the stage. The blow left him comatose for eight and-a-half years and he eventually passed away in 1984 at the age of 49.

Summertime Blues

In 1958, Eddie Cochrane hit the airwaves with a teenage anthem of angst called Summertime Blues. It peaked at #8. Among other things, the song speaks to the then voting age in the United States of 21. While it was subsequently lowered to 18, Cochrane never got to exercise his democratic right. Ironically he was killed in a car crash in Britain at the age of 21 in 1960.

The group Blue Cheer did a credible cover of Summertime Blues in 1968 but for my money the definitive version of the song was by The Who on their 1970 Live At Leeds LP, one of the greatest live albums of all time. Here's a performance from the Monterery Pop Festival.

Do You Feel Like We Do?

At 18, having already spent 3 years as lead singer and guitarist of The Herd, Peter Frampton joined up with Steve Marriott of the Small Faces in 1968 to form Humble Pie. Three years and 5 albums later Frampton embarked on a solo career.

In 1973 he released Frampton's Camel, a moderately successful LP that contained a tune called "Do You Feel Like We Do". A catchy tune, Frampton featured it in his live performances where it received significant crowd reaction, prompting him to include it on 1976's "Frampton Comes Alive". The album became the #1 selling live album of all time where it sat in the record books until it was eclipsed by - in order - live sets by Garth Brooks, Bruce Springsteen and the Eagles.

The track and the album defined his sound for the rest of his career. I recall it being the first time I'd ever heard the "talk box" although Frampton picked up on it in some session work for George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass".

In 1975, Prior to the release of Frampton Comes Alive, he performed the song on Burt Sugerman's Midnight Special, staple weekend viewing for any serious rock fan because of it's excellent and eclectic rock performances... This is a classic performance!

The Boxer

Tom and Jerry, more famously known by their real names Simon and Garfunkel were perhaps the most popular folk/rock group of the 60s. Tom and Jerry formed in 1957 but it was Simon and Garfunkel that achieved success in 1965 with the single Sounds of Silence. An acoustic version appeared on their debut album Wednesday Morning 3A.M. But the title track of their next album Sounds of Silence, added electric guitars and drums. In 1967, their music formed the soundtrack to the film The Graduate further rocketing the duo to fame. I remember my Grade 11 English class studying Simon and Garfunkel lyrics. Listening to those songs in the classroom wasn't like school work at all.

In 1970 they issued Bridge Over Troubled Water, their sixth and last LP. It won them Grammies for best song and best album in 1971. In 2004 Rolling Stone ranked them #40 in the 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time. Simon and Garfunkel have each enjoyed successful solo careers, Simon perhaps more so. And, for lucky fans, they've reunited for several special performances and recordings.

One of my favourite cuts off Bridge Over Troubled Water has to be The Boxer. In a bit of a change-up today, I'm sharing a cover-version performance of our highlighted song. Alison Krauss and Shawn Colvin are a couple of angel-like songbirds who really do this tune justice. And we don't often highlight women here, so I'm righting a past wrong. The performance also features dobro player extraordinaire Jerry Douglas. It all takes place in 2007 when Simon was awarded the first-ever Gershwin Prize For Popular Song.

Ripple

Monday night New York's Empire State Building was apparently lit up in tie-dye colours to honour the Grateful Dead. In my 60s mind all I could think was "Far out, man." The Dead was one of those bands that creeped into America's (and Canada's) consciousness first in the mid to late 60s and on throughout the 70s and 80s. They have a catalogue of far out music. Stories of their group home in Haight-Ashbury, their days on the road and Dead Heads abound.

Jerry Garcia shunned the spotlight as the band's leader and spokesperson but this role fell to him nevertheless. Hey, why not? After all he named the band. The story goes that Garcia, high on some chemical, plunked his finger down (his good one) into either the dictionary or Encyclopedia Britannica and it came to rest on grateful dead. The rest is rock and roll history.

One of my favourite Dead tunes is Ripple. It's a track from one of the iconic Dead albums American Beauty, which showcased the first pairing of Garcia and mandolinist David Grisman. It wouldn't be the last time they made sweet music together either as part of the Dead or in several side projects.

According to Wikipedia, Ripple is widely considered one of the best Grateful Dead songs and one of the most beautiful and poetic songs in popular music. You'll get no argument from me...

I'm Your Captain

In 1972, I shelled out a couple of bucks of my hard earned money on a double album called Mark, Don and Mel - 1969-71. Mark, Don and Mel were, of course, Grand Funk Railroad and the LP captured the power-trio's hits to date in studio and live performances.

The band came together in 1968 in Flint Michigan with Mark Farner on guitars, keyboards and lead vocials; Don Brewer on drums and lead vocals, and; Mel Schacher on bass. Their big break came as the result of a dynamite perfomance at 1969's Atlanta Pop Festival. By 1970 the group was selling more albums than any other American band and while the critics loathed them the fans loved them, making the group a major rock concert attraction.

In 1972 the band added Craig Frost on keyboards. In a case of "what might have been", the group's first choice to add to their sound was Peter Frampton. But Framption had just signed a solo contract with A&M Records.

I'm Your Captain first appeared on Grand Funk's Closer to Home album in 1970. Luckily for me it closed out my double-album purchase in 1972.

Genesis - Part II

While on tour to promote The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in the mid 70s, Peter Gabriel told his band mates he'd be leaving the group at the end of the tour. The band decided to carry on without him.

After auditioning over 400 lead singers to find a replacement, Genesis reached within and promoted drummer and back-up singer Phil Collins to take over lead singer duties. To help out on drumming duties the group engaged Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford for their 1976 tour, hiring former Weather Report and Zappa drummer Chester Thompson in 1977.

The four-man line-up's first album was A Trick of The Tail. Recorded in October and November of 1975 and released in February of 1976, the LP hit #3 in the UK and remained on the charts for 39 weeks - more popular than any Genesis album to date.

Entangled is a moody, melancholy track from Trick Of The Tail written by keyboardist Tony Banks and guitarist Steve Hackett marked by the jangling of several 12 string guitars and Bank's Mellotron. It's apparently Bank's favourite track on the album. Here's a live performance from 1976.

Hackett left Genesis in 1977. And then there were three...and have been ever since.

Sara

One of my favourite Dylan periods has got to be the mid-70s. If the Bootleg Series Volume 5 from 2002 had have been issued on vinyl I surely would have worn out the grooves. Volume 5 of the acclaimed bootleg series documents the fall 1975 tour of Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. The tour has been referred to as a travelling caravan and included such musicians as Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Roger McGuinn, the fabulous Scarlet Rivera, David Bowie's former lead guitarist Mick Ronson, Kinky Friedman and T Bone Burnett.

Before heading out on tour, Dylan had just completed recording his 17th album Desire. Many of the musicians on the album were retained for the Rolling Thunder Revue. Emmylou Harris, who sang on the album, was unfortunately unavailable to tour. While the album wasn't released until January of 1976, much of it's content was played on the tour.

Dylan hired Sam Shepherd to make a movie about the tour, focusing both on and off stage. The resulting Renaldo and Clara, released in 1978, bombed. But the tour was a huge success, at least thefall leg of it. A spring follow-up not so much. Dylan, in the moment as it were, would often paint his face for his performances. Those performances included the Desire LP closer Sara.

Sara has been referred to as Dylan's most public display of his private life. It was written for his then wife in the hopes of saving a faltering marriage. Married in 1965, Bob and Sara Dylan finally divorced in 1977.

Magic Fingers

I never saw the movie, but in 1971 I rushed out and bought the double album 200 Motels by Frank Zappa. Why? Because Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan were key fixtures with the Mothers of Invention. Perhaps you know them better as Phlorescent Leech and Eddie respectively. No? Ha ha, okay. Sit back and prepare yourself for a little rock and roll trivia.

Mark and Howard were founding members of the 60s rock group The Turtles who had some decent hits such as Happy Together and Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe. When The Turtles broke up in 1970 Mark and Howard made the switch from a syrupy-flavoured pop-group to a musical outfit completely at the other end of the rock and roll scale - the Mothers of Invention.

But the duo couldn't refer to themselves as The Turtles or use their real names due to a dispute with their former record company White Whale. Hence the moniker Flo and Eddie. The two made four albums with Zappa before striking out on their own. Their third album was the epic soundtrack 200 Motels.

Imagine this. The movie starred Theodore Bikel, Keith Moon and as Zappa, Ringo Starr. The treatise on touring in the 70s was backed by the Mothers and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and was filmed in 11 days at Pinewood Studios in England on a budget of $600,000.

For a 19 year-old in 1971, I was suitably impressed with such song titles as Mystery Roach, Redneck Eats, Shove It Right In and Half A Dozen Provocative Squats. And after a few spins on my turntable I was in Zappa nirvana. Here's Zappa, the Mothers and Flo and Eddie doing Magic Fingers...with a brief intro from Ringo in character...

All Right Now

For my money Paul Rodgers and Queen just aren't a good fit. No one can replace the flamboyant Freddie Mercury. But there was a time I really dug Paul Rodgers and that was the early 70s when he was lead singer of the British blues outfit Free.

When the band formed in 1968 Rodgers, at 18, was the oldest member in the band. Bass player Andy Fraser was all of 15 and had already spent some time playing with John Mayall's Blues Breakers.

Free released 2 so-so albums but in 1970 their third release Fire and Water took off largely on the strength of the hit single All Right Now.

The group began to fall apart in 1971 due to chemical differences and finally broke up in 1973. Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke went on to form Bad Company.

But here's where it all started...

Don't Touch Me There

In the early 70s a bunch of transplanted musicians from Arizona got together in San Fransisco to form an odd little collective called The Tubes. Their self-titled first album was produced by Al Kooper and contained the absurd anthem White Punks On Dope. The song and the album would set the stage for what was to come.

Lead singer Fee Waybill (an alias) led the group through elaborate live concert performances that cost a pretty penny to produce. But expensive or no, they resulted in the Tubes garnering a reputation as the best live rock act ever.

Throughout their career their producers included the aforementioned Kooper, Todd Rundrgren and, wait for it, David Foster.

It was their second album, Young and Rich in 1976, produced by Ken Scott that yielded my favourite Tubes recording Don't Touch Me There. The song was arranged by Jack Nitzsche. Here's a live performance from 1979.

If you're interested in what The Tubes are up to today visit their website.

Wonderful Tonight

Where does one begin when one tries to highlight Eric Clapton? In the 60s Clapton played with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, The Yardbirds, Cream and Blind Faith. His solo career has carried him through the decades to the present day. I saw him in concert a couple of years ago and the man's still got it, although he was aided by two supporting lead-guitarists, including guitar phenom Derek Trucks.

But I'm a big fan of the Clapton of the 70s - the period of Derek and the Dominos, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, 461 Ocean Boulevard and so on. And my all-time favourite Clapton song from that era has to be Wonderful Tonight.

Any fan of Clapton knows the background to the inspiration for the song. George Harrison's former wife Patti Boyd and Eric Clapton were living together. He was waiting for her to get ready to go to a Buddy Holly tribute organized by Paul McCartney. In the time it took Patti to get ready, Clapton had written the song. Patti wasn't just Clapton's muse. Harrison had written Something and For You Blue for her too.

Wonderful Tonight was off the 1977 album Slowhand. The 70s were hard on Clapton in terms of his dependence on drugs and alcohol. In his memoirs, Clapton talks about how things got so bad he'd perform while lying down on the stage. He's not lying down in this slowed-down, passionate performance. Close to it but...

Cry Me A River

I've always loved this guy. His growling shout and retarded-inspired air guitar mannerisms are his trade mark.

In 1969, Joe Cocker and The Grease Band embarked on an American tour. They released an album called With a Little Help From My Friends and played a little music fesitival called Woodstock. The rest, as they say, is history. Cocker's rendition of that Beatles tune is one of the highlights of not only the festival but of all live rock and roll performances.

Shortly after Woodstock, Cocker released Joe Cocker!, toured further and made many television appearances. At the end of the year, tired and burned out he refused to tour any more and dissolved the Grease Band.

But Cocker had to meet contractual obligations whether he wanted to tour or not and so he quickly assembled another group to head out on the road. The outfit was called Mad Dogs And Englishmen and was comprised of 30 musicians, led by pianist Leon Russell.

The tour, and the group, lasted about 4 or 5 months but it spawned, in my estimation, one of the all time greatest live rock albums and rock concert films Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Here's a performance of Cry Me A River...

Hocus Pocus

Thijs van Leer on keyboard and flute and guitarist Jan Akkerman were at the heart of 70s Dutch rock band Focus founded in 1969. Their second album Moving Waves was released in 1971 and made an international hit of the band largely on the strength of the single Hocus Pocus.

Focus would release 6 more albums in the 70s while going through a series of line-up changes. Akkerman, for example, left in 1976. Five more LPs were released between 1985 and 2006 but none ever enjoyed the success of 1971's Moving Waves. Their 1973 live album At The Rainbow does come a close second.

Here's a live performance of Hocus Pocus from 1973. It's got everything: smart guitar riffs, drum and flute solos and...yodelling! I love it.

We've Got To Get Ourselves Back To The Garden

There are two significant rock milestones occuring this week. Tomorrow, August 14th is David Crosby's 68th birthday. And then August 15th is the 40th anniversary of the music festival to end all music festivals: Woodstock. How do the two connect? Woodstock was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's second-ever live performance and launched the supergroup on an extraordinary career into the 1970s and beyond.

Crosby, a former member of the Byrds, joined up with the Hollies' Graham Nash and former Buffalo Springfield member Stephen Stills to create some of the sweetest harmonies I have ever heard. They were joined by Stills' former Springfield cohort Neil Young on an on-and-off basis. This augmented participation actually began at Woodstock as Young sat out the group's acoustic set and refused to be filmed participating in their electric set. They've come together from time to time over the years. Their most recent outing was in 2006 as all 4 toured to support Young's Living With War CD.

Here's CSNY's performance of Blackbird at Woodstock, minus Y.

Can't Get It Out Of My Head

They may not fall precisely into the category of "classic rock" but "the English guys with the big fiddles" amassed 27 Top 40 singles in Britain and the United States during their 14 years of popularity. The Electric Light Orchestra was the brainchild of former Move member Roy Wood and his pal Jeff Lynne and when they burst upon the scene in 1970 no one had ever seen anything quite like them before - an "electric" rock and roll band with a "light orchestra".

Wood departed the band after ELO's first album, leaving musical wunderkind Lynne as the driving creative force over the remainder of the band's successful career. In later years Lynne would go on to produce other artists apart from ELO such as George Harrison as well as the Travelling Wilburys who, after two amazing albums came to an abrupt end with the death of Roy Orbison.

ELO's fourth album, Eldorado - A Symphony, really put the group on the map and the first single from the album, Can't Get It Out Of My Head, gave the group it's first top 10 hit in the States. Here's a performance from a 70s Australian TV show. Note Jeff's 70s hair...

Low Rider

Rock-funk fusion band War was formed in 1969 and fronted by Eric Burdon, former lead singer of the Animals. They were a fusion of two sorts. Their music encompassed rock, funk, jazz, Latin music, R&B and raggae. And the band line up was multi-ethnic; a fusion of races and cultures.

Burdon and War released several hits in the early 70s including the classic Spill the Wine. But Burdon and the rest of the members parted ways while on a European tour in 1970. Luckily for us War still had some great songs in them including Why Can't We Be Friends and the funky Low Rider released in 1975.