For the Record: The 70s

After Olivia Newton-John died, her broad reach was evident. Tributes poured in from all corners of the entertainment world. Even at the music festival for the late Taylor Hawkins in September, organi…

If anyone could make following the Billboard Top 40 a friendly competitive sport, it was Casey Kasem. His national radio countdown show, American Top 40, is a vital part of 70s and 80s music history.…

Southern rock from bands such as the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd was not just loved by Americans from the South. Southern rock had broad appeal. For many white southerners, though, this form o…

Mainstream hip hop burst onto the scene with "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang in 1979, but hip hop's roots go deeper than that into 70s music. Hip hop godfathers Gil Scott-Heron and James Bro…

Rock and roll was a man's world in the 1970s. Would that have been any  different if Janis Joplin had not died just as the 70s were beginning?  The world will never know but what is known is that wom…

Suffice to say that America's spirit in 1976 was a bit...mixed. The first half of the 70s carried the weight of war, social discord, and assorted political drama that began in the 60s. Even the very …

"The Rumble in the Jungle" featured heavyweight boxing legends, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, but they were not the only legends who gathered in Zaire in the fall of 1974. The music festival known…

Jazz is America’s music. It is America’s sole original form of art, yet it had declined in popularity by the 1970s to the point that some musicians resisted even being associated with it. Still, jazz…

Tom Wolfe said the 70s was witness to the Third Great Awakening, as many Americans turned to religion on their quest for self-enlightenment or simply to find a way to make sense out of the social and…

There is no single sound that defines the 70s but there is no doubt that Philly Soul, or the Sound of Philadelphia, is an essential element. The O'Jays, The Spinners, Three Degrees, Harold Melvin and…

Who knew that Barry Manilow wanted "Could it Be Magic" to be a "musical orgasm?" That song was part of the wide menu of 70s pop, which has been often derided by critics, yet found an audience with mi…

The relationship between music and sports in the 70s was multidimensional. There were songs about individual athletes, there were songs that enhanced the game for the fans, and there were songs that …

Gram Parsons called country rock Cosmic American Music; it was a little of this and a little of that, combined into a musical stew that today we call Americana. In the 70s, though, the marriage of ro…

Songwriters of the 70s took on Richard Nixon the best way they knew how: with their music. Blaming music for drug use, the Kent State shootings, Watergate, and getting a pardon for "any crimes he may…

Did music help push the sexual revolution in the 1970s or was the music reflecting the changes in how society viewed sexuality? Music has always been used to sell sex but the message was delivered mo…