(Various Artists 60-70's)
Concept was a highly prolific producer of compilations, and lasted into the CD era. The first release was in 1984 – Breakin’ It Up CC0001, and the final seems to be after CC0200D – Unforgettable Songs, in 1992. The albums were heavily promoted on radio and television.
This compilation features tracks from both the 60's and 70's and in my opinion packed with 20 fantastic rock classics. But are they all Rock Anthems? Well, I'll let you be the judge.
Meatloaf - "Bat Out Of Hell" (1977)
Surging, soaring but melodic "Bat Out Of Hell" single and album (of same name) shook up the punk/new wave music scene of the late 1970's/early 80's, forcefully reminding it of hard rock's presence., but also crossing-over into 'theatrical' pop appreciation. Its perpetrator, Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday in Texas in 1948), adopted a tumultuous theatricality, which should have surprised nobody since he had already starred in the movie "Rocky Horror Picture Show". Like all of Meat Loaf's hits, Bat Out Of Hell was written by pianist Jim Steinman. He said he wrote this to be the ultimate "Motorcycle crash song." The lyrics refer to a rider being thrown off his bike in a wreck and his organs exposed. The Bat Out of Hell album spent 474 weeks on the UK album chart and became one of the top five all time best selling albums.
Elton John - "Crocodile Rock" (1972)
"Crocodile Rock" was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, and recorded in summer 1972 at the Château d'Hérouville studio in France (it was listed as "Strawberry Studios" in the album's credits), where John and his team had previously recorded the Honky Château album. It was released on 27 October 1972 in the UK and 20 November 1972 in the U.S., as a pre-release single from his forthcoming 1973 album 'Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player', and became his first U.S. number-one single, reaching the top spot on 3 February 1973, and stayed there for three weeks. In the U.S., it was certified Gold on 5 February 1973 and Platinum on 13 September 1995 by the RIAA.
The song was inspired by Elton's discovery of leading Australian band Daddy Cool and their hit single "Eagle Rock", which was the most successful Australian single of the early 1970s, remaining at No.1 for a record of 10 weeks.
Elton heard the song and the group on his 1972 Australian tour and was greatly impressed by it. A photo included in the album packaging features John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin, wearing a "Daddy Who?" promotional badge.(see right)
The Spencer Davis Group - "Gimme Some Lovin'" (1966)
The Spencer Davis group was signed by Chris Blackwell, who released their first single, a cover of the John Lee Hooker song "Dimples," in 1964. He had the group record songs written by the Jamaican composer Jackie Edwards, two of which were #1 UK hits in 1965: "Keep on Running" and "Somebody Help Me." When Blackwell set his sights on the American market for the group, he had them record with producer Jimmy Miller and asked them to write an original song that would go over well in the US. "Gimme Some Lovin'" was the result; Miller made the US release more appealing to American taste by adding percussion and a female chorus. The song served its purpose, becoming the first American hit for The Spencer Davis Group.
Gimme Some Lovin' was written by the group's lead singer, Steve Winwood (Spencer Davis was their guitarist - he was chosen as the group's namesake because he was the only one who enjoyed doing interviews). Winwood says they banged it out in the studio in the first or second take. The song was also written on the fly. In Rolling Stone magazine, bassist Muff Winwood said, "Steve had been singing, 'Gimme some lovin',' just yelling anything. It took about an hour to write, then down the pub for lunch."
Dave Edmonds - "I Hear You Knockin" (1970)
Dave Edmunds is one of those artists who is always on the verge of becoming a big name in the pop industry. It started back in 1967, when, as the lead guitarist with the UK band LOVE SCULPTURE, he reached the No 1 spot in the U.K. with Sabre Dance. In 1970 he decided to go solo and his first single, I Hear You Knockin, hit the No. 1 spot in England, selling over 3,000,000 copies. The record made Top 20 in Australia as well.
The song did very well in America, but far better in his native UK (Edmond's Welsh), where it was one of the biggest selling singles of all time to that point. He had several other UK hits, following up with another retro cover: "Baby, I Love You," which made #8 in 1973. He had a number of other hits in his native Britain, among them "Queen of Hearts" and "I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll)."
Canned Heat - "On The Road Again" (1968)
Though the blues originated in the United States, and then were a few credible American blues-rockers (such as The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Captain Beefheart's early groups), the genre was dominated by UK stars like The Roiling Stones, Cream, Fleetwood Mac, and Jeff Beck Group. At the very point where all those acts were at their peak, Canned Heat rushed into the top 40 on September 7 , 1968 with "On the Road Again" adapted from a little known record by Floyd Jones.
Based in Southern California, far from the blues' southern Delta origins, Canned Heat demonstrated with the single that a young American white band could both play the blues credibly and add enough of a psychedelic rock sheen to make it relevant in the late '60's. The modern touches were supplied by a solid rock beat and a pseudo-Eastern tamboura drone, though Al Wilson's eerie high vocal sounded literally out of this world. Canned Heat were dedicated record collectors and folklorists as well as musicians, Wilson had even helped teach legendary Delta bluesman Son House now to play guitar again when House made a comeback on the '60s folk circuit. So it was little surprise they reached all the way back to the '20s for their next hit, "Going Up the Country," which adapted elements from country bluesman Henry Thomas' "Bull Doze Blues".
T. Rex - "Get It On" (1971)
The pioneering glam rock band T. Rex (originally Tyrannosaurus Rex) could do no wrong in their native England. From 1970 to 1973, they had an astonishing ten Top 5 singles, including four #1’s. (Yes, you read that right.) The band was formed in 1967 by guitarist Marc Bolan, who was not quite 20 years-old at the time, and he teamed with producer Tony Visconti to shape the group’s records, a relationship that would continue for eight albums.
In 1971, their British label, Fly, released “Get It On” and it became the band’s second consecutive #1 chart hit on July 24. Their U.S. record label changed the name of the song to “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” to avoid confusion with a song also called “Get It On” which was released that same year by a jazz rock band named Chase.
According to T. Rex drummer Bill Legend, he and Bolan worked out the rhythm one day in Bolan's hotel room, and when the tour got to Los Angeles, the group reconvened with members of the team that worked on their first album: producer Tony Visconti and backup singers Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, who were members of The Turtles and recorded as Flo & Eddie. At Kaylan's home in Laurel Canyon, they spent all night working up the song, and the next day, they recorded it at Wally Heider Studios in LA. When they got to the studio, they had the chorus, the rhythm, and the "you're dirty and sweet" line, but Bolan had to come up with the other lyrics on the spot, indicating he wasn't thinking too hard about them. Everyone agrees that cocaine was involved throughout the process.
Joe Cocker - "With A Little Help From My Friends" (1968)
Joe Cocker's flailing arms, parodied by John Belushi on Saturday Night Live, always gave the impression of a man who was out of control, an impression sometimes heightened by Cocker's lifestyle: it belied a deep, respectful passion for R'n'B, and Ray Charles in particular. After paying hard-earned dues around northern clubs, his rise to fame was swift: a UK Number One single with his cover of 'With A Little Help From My Friends' (the friends included Jimmy Page and Steve Winwood), and notable appearances at Woodstock and the Isle of Wight. The rambling, shambling Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour of the US, organised by Leon Russell in 1970, was a saga of exhaustion (sixty gigs in three months) and self-destruction, and the strain nearly did for him. But Cocker was made of Sheffield steel, re-emerging to duet with Jennifer Warnes on 'Up Where We Belong' and jump-start his career.
The Kinks - "All Of The Day & All Of The Night" (1964)
Given Ray Davies' later dominance, it's worth recalling that it was the Kink's guitarist Dave Davies, his frenetic younger brother, who gave the group's first singles their substantial mettle: he ripped up the speakers in his practice amp and hooked them with a couple of his Vox amps for the raw sound of 'You Really Got Me'. Dave and Ray fought constantly, like all good brotherly bands, but Ray's songwriting skills held sway. By 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion' and 'Waterloo Sunset' the Kinks had segued to the very model of an English band, with their neatly observed cameos of life in Blighty, always serious but blessed with a twinkling, crinkled smile.
From there on it was but a sprightly stroll towards some concept albums, success in America following 'Lola' ('Celluloid Heroes' was the Hollywood parallel of 'Waterloo') and obeisance from Paul Weller, Supergrass and Blur - whose single 'Country House' was an undisguised tribute to the Kinks' 1966 'House In The Country'.
"All Day and All of the Night" was released as a single in 1964, reaching No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 7 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1965. The song was included on the Kinksize Hits EP in the UK and the Kinks' second American album, Kinks-Size (1965). Like their previous hit "You Really Got Me", the song is based on a power chord riff. Both songs are similar in beat and structure, with similar background vocals, progressions, and guitar solos.
Santana - "Black Magic Woman" (1970)Black Magic Woman was a hit for Santana, but few people know that this song was actually a cover of a 1968 Fleetwood Mac song that hit No.37 in the UK. Peter Green, who was a founding member of Fleetwood Mac, wrote the lyrics.
Many also don't know that Santana started out as a blues band, just like Fleetwood Mac. "I used to go to see the original Fleetwood Mac, and they used to kill me, just knock me out," Carlos Santana said in the book The Guitar Greats. "To me, they were the best blues band."
Santana put their own spin on the song, incorporating Latin textures, but they kept the basic sound from the original intact. Santana keyboard player Gregg Rolie sang lead on this. He later joined Journey in 1973.
On January 10th 1971, "Black Magic Woman" peaked at No.4 (for 2 weeks) on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; it had entered the chart on November 8th, 1970 and spent 13 weeks on the Top 100 (and 7 of those 13 weeks were on Top 10).
Toto - "Hold The Line" (1978)
“Hold the Line” was released back in 1978 as the band’s first single EVER and also featured in their debut self-titled album. Not many artists had the opportunity to leave such an outstanding first impression the moment they stepped into the cutthroat world of music industry. However, Toto did it with this song – it immediately reached top positions in the USA, Swedish, South African, Canadian and Australian charts. It’s also RIAA certified as “GOLD”.
The song was written by the keyboardist of the band – David Paich and the lead vocals are performed by the incredibly talented Bobby Kimball.
The song features a single-note piano percussion, which was a quite popular technique at that time. In addition, in my opinion, the song’s biggest asset would be the elegant but vigorous “creamy” guitar riff. The song simply proved that six talented session musicians, who used to back up other famous artists can actually make magic on their own from the first try!
“It started out with the piano riff that is in the intro. I started playing this riff and I just couldn’t stop playing it. I played it for days, and I started singing, “Hold the line, love isn’t always on time.” It was a phrase that just came into my head. . . it was a blessing. (The words) came to me in the night, and then I went to the verse. I wrote it in 2 hours. Sometimes songs come quickly like that, and sometimes I spend 2 years trying to finish a song,” said David Paich about the writing of the song.
Bachman-Turner Overdrive - "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" (1974)
Randy Bachman lifted a riff here and a phrase there, coming up with Bachman Turner Overdrive's rocktastic classic "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", a song that still pays his bills.
Randy recalls: “I’m looking for something, and then You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet comes along by accident. I was rehearsing and producing BTO’s third album. We needed an FM Top 40 hit, something light with a heavy bit in it. At that time, I was inspired by Traffic’s Dave Mason and his song Only You Know And I Know, which had a dang-a-lang rhythm, and the Doobie Brothers’ Listen To The Music. So I copped those jangling rhythms, changed the chords and then added some power chords of my own. I had a work in progress, in two parts: a great rhythm and a heavy riff.”
“Way back when, my brother Garry, one of four Bachman boys, had a speech impediment; he stuttered and stammered. For the ultimate tease I wrote a song like he spoke. Then I called him up and scared him by telling him it would be on the album. “The words just flowed out without thought: ‘I met a Devil woman, and she took my heart away.’ That sounded good. Then for the chorus I copied the way he’d say: ‘You ain’t seen n-n-nothing yet,’ and also the way he stumbled on ‘f-f-forget’, and the way he said ‘b-b-b baby’. I liked it as an idea but I was never going to finish it off.”
Randy would have shelved the song altogether had not Mercury’s artist liaison man, Charley Fach, intervened.
“He loved the album that became Not Fragile, but he couldn’t hear an FM radio single. He said: ‘It’s great, but we need a hit.’ I’d just done a 90-day tour, so I told him: ‘Take it or leave it. But I do have this real bad work track with an awful Van Morrison impression.’ The engineer played it to him, and within 1 second he said: ‘Put that on the album now.’ A few weeks later he phones me up and says the record is huge!
Note: The title is grammatically incorrect. It is a double-negative, although "You Haven't Seen Anything Yet" wouldn't have the same ring to it.
Status Quo - "Rockin' All Over The World" (1977)
Often dismissed as three-chord jokes, Status Quo have had the last laugh. After four decades, they've racked up over 50 UK Top 40 chart entries, even if only guitarist Rick Parfitt and guitarist/lead singer Francis Rossi have been ever-present.
They started as a psychedelic band whose excellent "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" (1967) saw them gain their only Top 40 American hit. Before tong, though, the group began chafing at their paisley shirts.
They used the album Ma Kelly,s Greasy Spoon (1970) to affirm a new direction: no-nonsense boogie. It's a path from which they have never deviated, iheir crowd pandering, be-jeaned stage act summed up by their literally head-down ax-thrashing (which iconic pose they featured on the cover of their 1972 album Piledriver) and by the tone of their sole UK No.1, "Down Down" (1974).
As time wore on though, the odd country or pop touch crept into the proceedings, their mordant song about tax exiledom, Living on An lsland, (1979) a particular surprise.
Though they write plenty of material themselves, Quo's signature song has become their version of John Fogerty's "Rockin' All Over The World", which entered the UK chart on October 8, 1977. It's stirring celebration of rock was deemed by Bob Geldof to be the perfect way to open 1985's Live Aid concert, thus securing the Quo an immortality even more elevated than their record of more UK chart entries than any other British band.
Steppenwolf - "Born To Be Wild" (1968)
In 1968, rock 'n' roll was becoming harder and more urgent, reflecting the uncertainty and danger of the times - and Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild," which entered the Billboard Top 40 on July 20,1968, sealed the band's legacy in the annals of an angry counterculture with its loud guitar riffs, dense drumming, and outlaw lyrics.
Written by Mars Bonfire (aka Dennis Edmonton), the song's second verse references "heavy metal thunder" the first time the phrase "heavy metal" appeared in song. Steppenwolf's use of the term, first used colloquially by Beat poets Herman Hesse and Williams S. Burroughs, coined the name of the emerging genre - one that dominated the U.S. charts throughout the '70s.
As Steppenwolf singer John Kay commented, "our philosophy was to hit'em hard, make your point, and move on." With its aggressive guitar riffs and lyrics that challenged both mainstream and counterculture values and prized individual freedom above all else, "Born To Be Wild," from the album Steppenwolf (1968), paved the way for bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and even now for bands like the atmospherically heavy HIM. lt also provided the perfect sonic complement to the influential Dennis Hopper/Peter Fonda biker flick Easy Rider (1969).
Free - "All Right Now" (1970)
Pure and unadulterated, Free emerged as keepers of the flickering flame jf the British blues in a quartet of beautiful balance. Paul Rodgers's Huskily yearning vocals, clothes courtesy of the small ads in Melody Maker; Paul Kossoff stretching his timeless guitar licks with his Les Paul's sustain; teenage Andy Fraser's mile-wide bass; rock-steady Simon Kirke 4/4'ing the whole together on drums. Their manifesto was nowhere better proclaimed than on their 1970 hit "All Right Now".
Alexis Korner had suggested that they call themselves Free after his own blues trio Free At Last, and seemingly erupting out of nowhere, they found themselves up amongst the headline acts at the Isle of Wight Festival of 1970. Yet they were never able to build completely on that success, not least through trying to keep Paul Kossoff's drug addiction under control. 1973's 'Wishing Well', Free's final single, was a heartfelt plea from Rodgers to Kossoff - he failed to heed the song's message, and was dead within three years.
Uriah Heep - "Gypsy" (1970)]
"Gypsy" is the debut single by British progressive rock/hard rock band Uriah Heep. It is the opening track on their first album, …Very 'Eavy …Very 'Umble, released in 1970. "Gypsy" was written by Mick Box and David Byron. The B-side of the song in most countries was "Bird of Prey", though in others, the B-sides were "Wake Up (Set Your Sights)", "Come Away Melinda" and "Lady in Black". The album version of "Gypsy" lasts more than six and half minutes, while the single version lasts less than three minutes.
To differentiate themselves from other Rock bands at the time, Heep replaced the almost obligatory guitar solo with a wild organ solo in this song. The song was one of the heaviest of its time, quickly became one of Heep's most loved songs and is now considered to be one of the most important early heavy metal compositions.
Procol Harum - "Conquistador" (1967)
Formed early 1967 in Southend, Essex, from the ashes of R&B group the Paramounts, Procol Harum's first single, the ethereal Bach-influenced 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale' gave them a huge international hit. Number 1 in the UK for six weeks, it stands as an immortal cornerstone of the celebrated 1967 Summer of Love. Royer and Harrison were replaced by Robin Trower on guitar and B J Wilson on drums during the recording of their first album, but Procol Harum received greater recognition (and healthier record sales) in the US than at home, where their first album to chart was 1969's 'A Salty Dog'.
"Conquistador" was written by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid, and it originally appeared on the band's 1967 self-titled debut album. It was released as a single off the band's 1972 album 'Procol Harum Live In Concert' with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and it is this version that is their most popular release. Note that the version released on this compilation is the original studio version.
Procol Harum's lyricist Keith Reid told Songfacts that the music for "Conquistador" was written before the lyrics. He added that this was unusual as "99 out of 100" of the Procol Harum songs back then, "were written the words first, and then were set to music."
Joe Walsh - "Rock Mountain Way" (1973)
"Rocky Mountain Way" is a 1973 song by rock guitarist Joe Walsh and his band Barnstorm. The song was originally released on the album The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get. The song features Walsh using a guitar talk box, manufactured by sound engineer Bob Heil, who invented the device used by almost every rock music exponent. The distinct tone "... gives Walsh's blues stomp a futuristic wave, as if a hulking mechanical beast was looming just over those rocky mountains
Joe explained in an article for Rolling Stone Magazine - I had left the James Gang, left Cleveland and gone to Colorado because Bill Szymczyk was there and so were a whole bunch of other people I knew. We had the Smoker album pretty much done [1973's The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get] except we had this one track that was an instrumental. I couldn't think of any words and everybody was patiently waiting for me to come up with something.
One day I was in my backyard in Boulder mowing the lawn and I was thinking, "Boy, I sure hope leaving the James Gang was a good idea!" Because I hadn't really surfaced as a solo act yet. I was almost there, but not quite. And then I looked up … and there were the Rocky Mountains. It was summer but you could still see snow on the back range. It just hit me how beautiful it all was, 5,000 feet up. And that was it – the words came: "Spent the last year Rocky Mountain way/Couldn't get much higher." And the second verse is about my old management – telling us this, telling us that, time to change the batter. I got all of that at once. And I ran inside to write it down before I forgot it.
Only problem was, I forgot to shut off the lawnmower. It kept moving and went into the neighbour's yard and ate her rose bushes. Cleared a little path straight through. So those lyrics wound up costing me, I don't know, maybe 1,500 bucks. But it was well worth it. The neighbour, though, she was pissed. I said to her, "You don't understand! I got the words!" But she just looked at me. [My Life in 15 Songs: Rolling Stone, May 2016]
Cheap Trick - "Dream Police" (1979)
"Dream Police" is a song written by Rick Nielsen and originally released in 1979 by the American rock band Cheap Trick. It is the first track on the group's album of the same name. Nielsen has stated that the song "is an attempt to take a heavy thought - a quick bit of REM snatched right before waking up - and put into a pop format." He also stated that "the song was about Big Brother watching you.
"Dream Police" dates back to 1976. It was one of 22 songs the band had written for their first album, and it didn't make the cut. The song evolved as they played it live and refined it in the studio, and it was released as the title track of their fourth studio album. By this time, their live album At Budokan had been released, breaking them big with the single "I Want You To Want Me." The next single was "Dream Police," and it became one of their most popular songs, reaching #26 in the US on the Billboard Hot 100.
Rod Stewart - "Maggie May" (1971)
In the '60s, The Beatles had topped UK and U.S single and album charts all at the same time but never technically with the same product, it took Rod Stewart to achieve what even the mighty Fabs hadn't. Still the frontman of The Faces but increasingly becoming better known for his solo albums, in 1971 Stewart recorded his LP masterpiece, 'Every Picture Tells A story'. As usual, it was made up of a highly unusual mixture of folk, soul, and rock, an epic version of "I'm Losing You" rubbing shoulders with Stewarts beautiful rustic evocation of frontier life, "Mandolin Wind." It also featured a collaboration between Stewart and classical guitarist Martin Quittenton about the artist's first sexual conquest.
Despite a raunchy theme and a catchy, jangling melody set off by an arresting mandolin solo, all driven home by Stewart's unique emotional rasp, Mercury Records didn't think that the song was hit material, relegating it to a B-side, instead, "Reason To Believe" was chosen as the album's single. But fate in the form of DJ opinion intervened, and the single "Maggie May" was given the radio play she deserved; on October 9, 1971, the song topped the singles charts in the UK. it had made the top spot in the United States on October 2, the same day as the album had topped the U.S. album charts. With the album also lodged at NO. 1 in Britain, it made for an unprecedented double-double whammy.
Boston - "More Than A Feeling" (1976)
At one time, Boston’s debut release was the fastest-selling debut album of all time. Nearly everything about this album is masterfully crafted, from the volume to the layering and everything in-between. The musicianship found in every song is superb. While Tom Scholz plays several instruments, his most notable is the guitar. Although there are many good musicians out there, that’s not where Boston makes it’s case.
Take for instance the opening track “More Than a Feeling.” This debut single entered the Billboard chart on October 16, 1976 on its way to peak at No. 5. Aside from having one of the more recognizable riffs, the way everything comes into place at just the right time is something few were able to do before Boston.
It’s sound is difficult to explain without listening to the album, but I'll give it a try. Imagine a level of sound where the lead guitar is playing and the forefront, where it usually is. With Boston, Scholz found a way to make every instrument, from the drums, to the organ, to the bass; be easily heard at the same time, in just the right places for maximum effect.
There’s something about Boston's debut LP that makes it one of the best LP's of all time, and although they hit it big with their single "More Than A Feeling", this album has much, much more to offer.
A majority of their compilations didn't display release dates on their covers and this compilation is one of them. However, of those that have dates (see Discogs listing) a majority were released during 1987-1989, and so my guess is that this compilation was released sometime during this period
Surging, soaring but melodic "Bat Out Of Hell" single and album (of same name) shook up the punk/new wave music scene of the late 1970's/early 80's, forcefully reminding it of hard rock's presence., but also crossing-over into 'theatrical' pop appreciation. Its perpetrator, Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday in Texas in 1948), adopted a tumultuous theatricality, which should have surprised nobody since he had already starred in the movie "Rocky Horror Picture Show". Like all of Meat Loaf's hits, Bat Out Of Hell was written by pianist Jim Steinman. He said he wrote this to be the ultimate "Motorcycle crash song." The lyrics refer to a rider being thrown off his bike in a wreck and his organs exposed. The Bat Out of Hell album spent 474 weeks on the UK album chart and became one of the top five all time best selling albums.
"Crocodile Rock" was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, and recorded in summer 1972 at the Château d'Hérouville studio in France (it was listed as "Strawberry Studios" in the album's credits), where John and his team had previously recorded the Honky Château album. It was released on 27 October 1972 in the UK and 20 November 1972 in the U.S., as a pre-release single from his forthcoming 1973 album 'Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player', and became his first U.S. number-one single, reaching the top spot on 3 February 1973, and stayed there for three weeks. In the U.S., it was certified Gold on 5 February 1973 and Platinum on 13 September 1995 by the RIAA.
Elton heard the song and the group on his 1972 Australian tour and was greatly impressed by it. A photo included in the album packaging features John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin, wearing a "Daddy Who?" promotional badge.(see right)
The Spencer Davis group was signed by Chris Blackwell, who released their first single, a cover of the John Lee Hooker song "Dimples," in 1964. He had the group record songs written by the Jamaican composer Jackie Edwards, two of which were #1 UK hits in 1965: "Keep on Running" and "Somebody Help Me." When Blackwell set his sights on the American market for the group, he had them record with producer Jimmy Miller and asked them to write an original song that would go over well in the US. "Gimme Some Lovin'" was the result; Miller made the US release more appealing to American taste by adding percussion and a female chorus. The song served its purpose, becoming the first American hit for The Spencer Davis Group.
Gimme Some Lovin' was written by the group's lead singer, Steve Winwood (Spencer Davis was their guitarist - he was chosen as the group's namesake because he was the only one who enjoyed doing interviews). Winwood says they banged it out in the studio in the first or second take. The song was also written on the fly. In Rolling Stone magazine, bassist Muff Winwood said, "Steve had been singing, 'Gimme some lovin',' just yelling anything. It took about an hour to write, then down the pub for lunch."
Dave Edmunds is one of those artists who is always on the verge of becoming a big name in the pop industry. It started back in 1967, when, as the lead guitarist with the UK band LOVE SCULPTURE, he reached the No 1 spot in the U.K. with Sabre Dance. In 1970 he decided to go solo and his first single, I Hear You Knockin, hit the No. 1 spot in England, selling over 3,000,000 copies. The record made Top 20 in Australia as well.
The song did very well in America, but far better in his native UK (Edmond's Welsh), where it was one of the biggest selling singles of all time to that point. He had several other UK hits, following up with another retro cover: "Baby, I Love You," which made #8 in 1973. He had a number of other hits in his native Britain, among them "Queen of Hearts" and "I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll)."
Though the blues originated in the United States, and then were a few credible American blues-rockers (such as The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Captain Beefheart's early groups), the genre was dominated by UK stars like The Roiling Stones, Cream, Fleetwood Mac, and Jeff Beck Group. At the very point where all those acts were at their peak, Canned Heat rushed into the top 40 on September 7 , 1968 with "On the Road Again" adapted from a little known record by Floyd Jones.
Based in Southern California, far from the blues' southern Delta origins, Canned Heat demonstrated with the single that a young American white band could both play the blues credibly and add enough of a psychedelic rock sheen to make it relevant in the late '60's. The modern touches were supplied by a solid rock beat and a pseudo-Eastern tamboura drone, though Al Wilson's eerie high vocal sounded literally out of this world. Canned Heat were dedicated record collectors and folklorists as well as musicians, Wilson had even helped teach legendary Delta bluesman Son House now to play guitar again when House made a comeback on the '60s folk circuit. So it was little surprise they reached all the way back to the '20s for their next hit, "Going Up the Country," which adapted elements from country bluesman Henry Thomas' "Bull Doze Blues".
The pioneering glam rock band T. Rex (originally Tyrannosaurus Rex) could do no wrong in their native England. From 1970 to 1973, they had an astonishing ten Top 5 singles, including four #1’s. (Yes, you read that right.) The band was formed in 1967 by guitarist Marc Bolan, who was not quite 20 years-old at the time, and he teamed with producer Tony Visconti to shape the group’s records, a relationship that would continue for eight albums.
In 1971, their British label, Fly, released “Get It On” and it became the band’s second consecutive #1 chart hit on July 24. Their U.S. record label changed the name of the song to “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” to avoid confusion with a song also called “Get It On” which was released that same year by a jazz rock band named Chase.
According to T. Rex drummer Bill Legend, he and Bolan worked out the rhythm one day in Bolan's hotel room, and when the tour got to Los Angeles, the group reconvened with members of the team that worked on their first album: producer Tony Visconti and backup singers Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, who were members of The Turtles and recorded as Flo & Eddie. At Kaylan's home in Laurel Canyon, they spent all night working up the song, and the next day, they recorded it at Wally Heider Studios in LA. When they got to the studio, they had the chorus, the rhythm, and the "you're dirty and sweet" line, but Bolan had to come up with the other lyrics on the spot, indicating he wasn't thinking too hard about them. Everyone agrees that cocaine was involved throughout the process.
Joe Cocker's flailing arms, parodied by John Belushi on Saturday Night Live, always gave the impression of a man who was out of control, an impression sometimes heightened by Cocker's lifestyle: it belied a deep, respectful passion for R'n'B, and Ray Charles in particular. After paying hard-earned dues around northern clubs, his rise to fame was swift: a UK Number One single with his cover of 'With A Little Help From My Friends' (the friends included Jimmy Page and Steve Winwood), and notable appearances at Woodstock and the Isle of Wight. The rambling, shambling Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour of the US, organised by Leon Russell in 1970, was a saga of exhaustion (sixty gigs in three months) and self-destruction, and the strain nearly did for him. But Cocker was made of Sheffield steel, re-emerging to duet with Jennifer Warnes on 'Up Where We Belong' and jump-start his career.
Given Ray Davies' later dominance, it's worth recalling that it was the Kink's guitarist Dave Davies, his frenetic younger brother, who gave the group's first singles their substantial mettle: he ripped up the speakers in his practice amp and hooked them with a couple of his Vox amps for the raw sound of 'You Really Got Me'. Dave and Ray fought constantly, like all good brotherly bands, but Ray's songwriting skills held sway. By 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion' and 'Waterloo Sunset' the Kinks had segued to the very model of an English band, with their neatly observed cameos of life in Blighty, always serious but blessed with a twinkling, crinkled smile.
From there on it was but a sprightly stroll towards some concept albums, success in America following 'Lola' ('Celluloid Heroes' was the Hollywood parallel of 'Waterloo') and obeisance from Paul Weller, Supergrass and Blur - whose single 'Country House' was an undisguised tribute to the Kinks' 1966 'House In The Country'.
"All Day and All of the Night" was released as a single in 1964, reaching No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 7 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1965. The song was included on the Kinksize Hits EP in the UK and the Kinks' second American album, Kinks-Size (1965). Like their previous hit "You Really Got Me", the song is based on a power chord riff. Both songs are similar in beat and structure, with similar background vocals, progressions, and guitar solos.
Many also don't know that Santana started out as a blues band, just like Fleetwood Mac. "I used to go to see the original Fleetwood Mac, and they used to kill me, just knock me out," Carlos Santana said in the book The Guitar Greats. "To me, they were the best blues band."
Santana put their own spin on the song, incorporating Latin textures, but they kept the basic sound from the original intact. Santana keyboard player Gregg Rolie sang lead on this. He later joined Journey in 1973.
On January 10th 1971, "Black Magic Woman" peaked at No.4 (for 2 weeks) on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; it had entered the chart on November 8th, 1970 and spent 13 weeks on the Top 100 (and 7 of those 13 weeks were on Top 10).
“Hold the Line” was released back in 1978 as the band’s first single EVER and also featured in their debut self-titled album. Not many artists had the opportunity to leave such an outstanding first impression the moment they stepped into the cutthroat world of music industry. However, Toto did it with this song – it immediately reached top positions in the USA, Swedish, South African, Canadian and Australian charts. It’s also RIAA certified as “GOLD”.
The song was written by the keyboardist of the band – David Paich and the lead vocals are performed by the incredibly talented Bobby Kimball.
The song features a single-note piano percussion, which was a quite popular technique at that time. In addition, in my opinion, the song’s biggest asset would be the elegant but vigorous “creamy” guitar riff. The song simply proved that six talented session musicians, who used to back up other famous artists can actually make magic on their own from the first try!
“It started out with the piano riff that is in the intro. I started playing this riff and I just couldn’t stop playing it. I played it for days, and I started singing, “Hold the line, love isn’t always on time.” It was a phrase that just came into my head. . . it was a blessing. (The words) came to me in the night, and then I went to the verse. I wrote it in 2 hours. Sometimes songs come quickly like that, and sometimes I spend 2 years trying to finish a song,” said David Paich about the writing of the song.
Randy Bachman lifted a riff here and a phrase there, coming up with Bachman Turner Overdrive's rocktastic classic "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", a song that still pays his bills.
Randy recalls: “I’m looking for something, and then You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet comes along by accident. I was rehearsing and producing BTO’s third album. We needed an FM Top 40 hit, something light with a heavy bit in it. At that time, I was inspired by Traffic’s Dave Mason and his song Only You Know And I Know, which had a dang-a-lang rhythm, and the Doobie Brothers’ Listen To The Music. So I copped those jangling rhythms, changed the chords and then added some power chords of my own. I had a work in progress, in two parts: a great rhythm and a heavy riff.”
“Way back when, my brother Garry, one of four Bachman boys, had a speech impediment; he stuttered and stammered. For the ultimate tease I wrote a song like he spoke. Then I called him up and scared him by telling him it would be on the album. “The words just flowed out without thought: ‘I met a Devil woman, and she took my heart away.’ That sounded good. Then for the chorus I copied the way he’d say: ‘You ain’t seen n-n-nothing yet,’ and also the way he stumbled on ‘f-f-forget’, and the way he said ‘b-b-b baby’. I liked it as an idea but I was never going to finish it off.”
Randy would have shelved the song altogether had not Mercury’s artist liaison man, Charley Fach, intervened.
“He loved the album that became Not Fragile, but he couldn’t hear an FM radio single. He said: ‘It’s great, but we need a hit.’ I’d just done a 90-day tour, so I told him: ‘Take it or leave it. But I do have this real bad work track with an awful Van Morrison impression.’ The engineer played it to him, and within 1 second he said: ‘Put that on the album now.’ A few weeks later he phones me up and says the record is huge!
Note: The title is grammatically incorrect. It is a double-negative, although "You Haven't Seen Anything Yet" wouldn't have the same ring to it.
Often dismissed as three-chord jokes, Status Quo have had the last laugh. After four decades, they've racked up over 50 UK Top 40 chart entries, even if only guitarist Rick Parfitt and guitarist/lead singer Francis Rossi have been ever-present.
They started as a psychedelic band whose excellent "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" (1967) saw them gain their only Top 40 American hit. Before tong, though, the group began chafing at their paisley shirts.
They used the album Ma Kelly,s Greasy Spoon (1970) to affirm a new direction: no-nonsense boogie. It's a path from which they have never deviated, iheir crowd pandering, be-jeaned stage act summed up by their literally head-down ax-thrashing (which iconic pose they featured on the cover of their 1972 album Piledriver) and by the tone of their sole UK No.1, "Down Down" (1974).
As time wore on though, the odd country or pop touch crept into the proceedings, their mordant song about tax exiledom, Living on An lsland, (1979) a particular surprise.
Though they write plenty of material themselves, Quo's signature song has become their version of John Fogerty's "Rockin' All Over The World", which entered the UK chart on October 8, 1977. It's stirring celebration of rock was deemed by Bob Geldof to be the perfect way to open 1985's Live Aid concert, thus securing the Quo an immortality even more elevated than their record of more UK chart entries than any other British band.
In 1968, rock 'n' roll was becoming harder and more urgent, reflecting the uncertainty and danger of the times - and Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild," which entered the Billboard Top 40 on July 20,1968, sealed the band's legacy in the annals of an angry counterculture with its loud guitar riffs, dense drumming, and outlaw lyrics.
Written by Mars Bonfire (aka Dennis Edmonton), the song's second verse references "heavy metal thunder" the first time the phrase "heavy metal" appeared in song. Steppenwolf's use of the term, first used colloquially by Beat poets Herman Hesse and Williams S. Burroughs, coined the name of the emerging genre - one that dominated the U.S. charts throughout the '70s.
As Steppenwolf singer John Kay commented, "our philosophy was to hit'em hard, make your point, and move on." With its aggressive guitar riffs and lyrics that challenged both mainstream and counterculture values and prized individual freedom above all else, "Born To Be Wild," from the album Steppenwolf (1968), paved the way for bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and even now for bands like the atmospherically heavy HIM. lt also provided the perfect sonic complement to the influential Dennis Hopper/Peter Fonda biker flick Easy Rider (1969).
Pure and unadulterated, Free emerged as keepers of the flickering flame jf the British blues in a quartet of beautiful balance. Paul Rodgers's Huskily yearning vocals, clothes courtesy of the small ads in Melody Maker; Paul Kossoff stretching his timeless guitar licks with his Les Paul's sustain; teenage Andy Fraser's mile-wide bass; rock-steady Simon Kirke 4/4'ing the whole together on drums. Their manifesto was nowhere better proclaimed than on their 1970 hit "All Right Now".
Alexis Korner had suggested that they call themselves Free after his own blues trio Free At Last, and seemingly erupting out of nowhere, they found themselves up amongst the headline acts at the Isle of Wight Festival of 1970. Yet they were never able to build completely on that success, not least through trying to keep Paul Kossoff's drug addiction under control. 1973's 'Wishing Well', Free's final single, was a heartfelt plea from Rodgers to Kossoff - he failed to heed the song's message, and was dead within three years.
"Gypsy" is the debut single by British progressive rock/hard rock band Uriah Heep. It is the opening track on their first album, …Very 'Eavy …Very 'Umble, released in 1970. "Gypsy" was written by Mick Box and David Byron. The B-side of the song in most countries was "Bird of Prey", though in others, the B-sides were "Wake Up (Set Your Sights)", "Come Away Melinda" and "Lady in Black". The album version of "Gypsy" lasts more than six and half minutes, while the single version lasts less than three minutes.
To differentiate themselves from other Rock bands at the time, Heep replaced the almost obligatory guitar solo with a wild organ solo in this song. The song was one of the heaviest of its time, quickly became one of Heep's most loved songs and is now considered to be one of the most important early heavy metal compositions.
Formed early 1967 in Southend, Essex, from the ashes of R&B group the Paramounts, Procol Harum's first single, the ethereal Bach-influenced 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale' gave them a huge international hit. Number 1 in the UK for six weeks, it stands as an immortal cornerstone of the celebrated 1967 Summer of Love. Royer and Harrison were replaced by Robin Trower on guitar and B J Wilson on drums during the recording of their first album, but Procol Harum received greater recognition (and healthier record sales) in the US than at home, where their first album to chart was 1969's 'A Salty Dog'.
"Conquistador" was written by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid, and it originally appeared on the band's 1967 self-titled debut album. It was released as a single off the band's 1972 album 'Procol Harum Live In Concert' with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and it is this version that is their most popular release. Note that the version released on this compilation is the original studio version.
Procol Harum's lyricist Keith Reid told Songfacts that the music for "Conquistador" was written before the lyrics. He added that this was unusual as "99 out of 100" of the Procol Harum songs back then, "were written the words first, and then were set to music."
"Rocky Mountain Way" is a 1973 song by rock guitarist Joe Walsh and his band Barnstorm. The song was originally released on the album The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get. The song features Walsh using a guitar talk box, manufactured by sound engineer Bob Heil, who invented the device used by almost every rock music exponent. The distinct tone "... gives Walsh's blues stomp a futuristic wave, as if a hulking mechanical beast was looming just over those rocky mountains
Joe explained in an article for Rolling Stone Magazine - I had left the James Gang, left Cleveland and gone to Colorado because Bill Szymczyk was there and so were a whole bunch of other people I knew. We had the Smoker album pretty much done [1973's The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get] except we had this one track that was an instrumental. I couldn't think of any words and everybody was patiently waiting for me to come up with something.
One day I was in my backyard in Boulder mowing the lawn and I was thinking, "Boy, I sure hope leaving the James Gang was a good idea!" Because I hadn't really surfaced as a solo act yet. I was almost there, but not quite. And then I looked up … and there were the Rocky Mountains. It was summer but you could still see snow on the back range. It just hit me how beautiful it all was, 5,000 feet up. And that was it – the words came: "Spent the last year Rocky Mountain way/Couldn't get much higher." And the second verse is about my old management – telling us this, telling us that, time to change the batter. I got all of that at once. And I ran inside to write it down before I forgot it.
Only problem was, I forgot to shut off the lawnmower. It kept moving and went into the neighbour's yard and ate her rose bushes. Cleared a little path straight through. So those lyrics wound up costing me, I don't know, maybe 1,500 bucks. But it was well worth it. The neighbour, though, she was pissed. I said to her, "You don't understand! I got the words!" But she just looked at me. [My Life in 15 Songs: Rolling Stone, May 2016]
"Dream Police" is a song written by Rick Nielsen and originally released in 1979 by the American rock band Cheap Trick. It is the first track on the group's album of the same name. Nielsen has stated that the song "is an attempt to take a heavy thought - a quick bit of REM snatched right before waking up - and put into a pop format." He also stated that "the song was about Big Brother watching you.
"Dream Police" dates back to 1976. It was one of 22 songs the band had written for their first album, and it didn't make the cut. The song evolved as they played it live and refined it in the studio, and it was released as the title track of their fourth studio album. By this time, their live album At Budokan had been released, breaking them big with the single "I Want You To Want Me." The next single was "Dream Police," and it became one of their most popular songs, reaching #26 in the US on the Billboard Hot 100.
In the '60s, The Beatles had topped UK and U.S single and album charts all at the same time but never technically with the same product, it took Rod Stewart to achieve what even the mighty Fabs hadn't. Still the frontman of The Faces but increasingly becoming better known for his solo albums, in 1971 Stewart recorded his LP masterpiece, 'Every Picture Tells A story'. As usual, it was made up of a highly unusual mixture of folk, soul, and rock, an epic version of "I'm Losing You" rubbing shoulders with Stewarts beautiful rustic evocation of frontier life, "Mandolin Wind." It also featured a collaboration between Stewart and classical guitarist Martin Quittenton about the artist's first sexual conquest.
Despite a raunchy theme and a catchy, jangling melody set off by an arresting mandolin solo, all driven home by Stewart's unique emotional rasp, Mercury Records didn't think that the song was hit material, relegating it to a B-side, instead, "Reason To Believe" was chosen as the album's single. But fate in the form of DJ opinion intervened, and the single "Maggie May" was given the radio play she deserved; on October 9, 1971, the song topped the singles charts in the UK. it had made the top spot in the United States on October 2, the same day as the album had topped the U.S. album charts. With the album also lodged at NO. 1 in Britain, it made for an unprecedented double-double whammy.
At one time, Boston’s debut release was the fastest-selling debut album of all time. Nearly everything about this album is masterfully crafted, from the volume to the layering and everything in-between. The musicianship found in every song is superb. While Tom Scholz plays several instruments, his most notable is the guitar. Although there are many good musicians out there, that’s not where Boston makes it’s case.
Take for instance the opening track “More Than a Feeling.” This debut single entered the Billboard chart on October 16, 1976 on its way to peak at No. 5. Aside from having one of the more recognizable riffs, the way everything comes into place at just the right time is something few were able to do before Boston.
It’s sound is difficult to explain without listening to the album, but I'll give it a try. Imagine a level of sound where the lead guitar is playing and the forefront, where it usually is. With Boston, Scholz found a way to make every instrument, from the drums, to the organ, to the bass; be easily heard at the same time, in just the right places for maximum effect.
There’s something about Boston's debut LP that makes it one of the best LP's of all time, and although they hit it big with their single "More Than A Feeling", this album has much, much more to offer.
This post consists of FLACS ripped from my Concept Vinyl and includes full album artwork and label scans. This is one of my favourite compilation albums and offers a broad range of hits from the 60's and 70''s. A couple of rarities worth mentioning on this comp: Uriah Heep's "Gypsy" (the single release being a shorter version to the album release that people are more familiar with) and Procol Harum's studio version of Conquistador (most people are more familiar with the Live version).
The only negative I have with this comp is the absence of any Aussie Anthems, which is a bit short sighted of the part of Concept in my opinion. But then again, this is only a Concept Record ! LOL
Tracklist
A1 – Meat Loaf (Bat Out Of Hell)
A2 – Elton John (Crocodile Rock)
A3 – The Spencer Davis Group (Gimme Some Lovin')
A4 – Dave Edmunds (I Hear You Knocking)
A5 – Canned Heat (On The Road Again)
A6 – T. Rex (Get It On)
A7 – Joe Cocker (With A Little Help From My Friends)
A8 – The Kinks (All Day & All Of The Night)
A9 – Santana (Black Magic Woman)
A10 – Toto (Hold The Line)
B1 – Bachman-Turner Overdrive (You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet)
B2 – Status Quo (Rockin' All Over The World)
B3 – Steppenwolf (Born To Be Wild)
B4 – Free (All Right Now)
B5 – Uriah Heep (Gypsy)
B6 – Procol Harum (Conquistador)
B7 – Joe Walsh (Rocky Mountain Way)
B8 – Cheap Trick (Dream Police)
B9 – Rod Stewart (Maggie May)
B10 – Boston (More Than A Feeling)
Rock Anthems Link (437Mb) New Link 05/01/2024
