40 Year Itch : A Supernatural Delight

While Elton John holds firmly at the top spot with his first #1 hit, "Crocodile Rock", the US charts see two new entries in the Top 20: Deodato's future Grammy winning "Also Sprach Zarathustra" from 2001: A Space Odyssey enters the chart in the Top 10 and Dr Hook and the Medicine Show's satirical "Cover of the Rolling Stone" debuts at #15 on its way to #6. King Harvest, a band made of American expats in Paris, is on its way to peaking at #9 with "Dancing In The Moonlight".



1. Crocodile Rock
Elton John
2.You're So Vain
Carly Simon
3. Could It Be I'm Falling In Love
The Spinners

4. Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?
Hurricane Smith
5. Love Train
The O'Jays

6.  Superstition
Stevie Wonder
7.  Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)
Deodato



8.  Do It Again
Steely Dan
9.  Killing Me Softly With His Song
Roberta Flack
10. Why Can't We Live Together
Timmy Thomas
11.  Dancing in the Moonlight
King Harvest



12. Rocky Mountain High
John Denver
13. The Last Song
Edward Bear
14.  Dueling Banjos
Eric Weissberg
15. The Cover Of The Rolling Stone
Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show



16.  Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend
Lobo
17. Daddy's Home
Jermaine Jackson
18. Trouble Man
Marvin Gaye


19.  Do You Want To Dance
Bette Midler
20. The World Is A Ghetto
War

40 Year Itch : Eloquent Profanity

[Purchase]

After Sailin' Shoes failed to hit , Little Feat broke up. Bass player Roy Estrada went into computer programming and was replaced by two New Orleans musicians, New Orleans native Kenny Gradney and Merry Clayton's percussionist brother Sam. New Orleans music fan Paul Barrere, a Hollywood High classmate of Lowell George's, also joined the band. The new line-up changed the sound of Little Feat as Paul Barrerre recently told Offbeat.com :

  

Little Feat before myself and Sam (Clayton) and Kenny (Gradney) were very cerebral. If you listen to the first two records there’s some incredibly diverse music on there. But the one thing that they didn’t do really, really well… I hate to bust ‘em on this, but they didn’t boogie. When you listen to the original “Tripe Face Boogie” it sounds pretty stiff. I think what happened when Sam and Kenny and I joined was we brought in some funk. It just got a little more soulful, and I think they all appreciated that.

Dixie Chicken is the album that helped Little Feat find its audience. It's where they introduced their trademark lazy, grooving second line shuffle on songs like "Dixie Chicken, "Two Trains" and "Fat Man in the Bathtub"--all concert favorites. Lowell George's slide guitar never sounded better. But if the album is full of good vibes, it didn't necessarily feel that way to George as he revealed to an Australian broadcaster:

 Dixie Chicken had a very thick sound because there was a lot of overdubbing done. As a matter of fact the song Dixie Chicken had nothing except the original conga part on it from the original session. And drums were overdubbed, and nobody does that. I mean you do, but you regret it later. I had a very good engineer at that point, Richie Moore, who got a very good drum sound on that particular tune. And so I just plodded right through as best I could. And it was fun. That whole album took a great toll emotionally and physically. I collapsed for two weeks after it was over.



While the band sounds like they finally got it together, the label didn't see it that way. Warner Brothers wouldn't invest in promoting an album by a band that looked like it would break up any minute. And they were right. Little Feat were always breaking up, getting back together, recording and touring.

For a listen on their live sounds check out this 1974 concert at the Bottom Line


 They would get close, especially on the 1978  live album Waiting For Columbus, but they would never top Dixie Chicken. In 1979, in the middle of a solo tour, Lowell George collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack. He was 34.

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40 Year Itch: Before The Splatter of Marmalade

[Purchase Atem]

On February 15, 1973 Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann , the members of Tangerine Dream, took to the stage of the Theatre Parisien l'Ouest in Paris to perform with their handmade electronic instruments, tape machines and keyboards. 500 fans were turned away at the door. The music was atmospheric and hypnotic and so was the light show. It would probably still stand as one of the great highlights of Tangerine Dream's career except for the actions of a single audience member.
  As Tangerine Dream's own website puts it:

One idiot from the audience threw a large plastic bag filled with marmalade onto Edgar’s equipment. He hit his mark perfectly and a large part of the equipment was destroyed by the marmalade which oozed over knobs, faders and keys.

Atem, released in March of 1973

This would still be a big year for Tangerine Dream. DJ John Peel spent much of 1973 championing Atem, released in March, as the album of the year and by December the band would trade their German label for Virgin.

The portable analog synthesizer VCS-3, one of Tangerine Dream's most used instruments

40 Year Itch: Bowie's St Valentine's Day Massacre

[Purchase Aladdin Sane]

  With the likes of Truman Capote, Salvador Dali and Todd Rundgren in the audience, David Bowie took the Radio City Music Hall stage to perform an unforgettable sold out concert on Februaru 14, 1973. It was unforgettable alright.

After a fan leaped on stage to embrace Ziggy during "Rock And Roll Suicide", Bowie fainted. Some people thought it was part of the act. Others could swear they heard gunshots. But those who have listened to the concert bootleg, St Valentine's Day Massacre, couldn't hear anything like that.


     An attending nurse blamed the ordeal on exhaustion. Someone with a medical degree added that Bowie's blocked up pores from all that Ziggy Stardust make-up probably didn;t help matters. David Bowie slept for 12 hours straight and performed again the next night.

SET LIST
1. Ode to Joy (Introduction)
2. Hang Onto Yourself
3. Ziggy Stardust
4. Changes
5. Soul Love
6. John I'm Only Dancing
7. Moonage Daydream
8. Five Years
9. Space Oddity
10. My Death
11. Watch That Man
12. Drive-In Saturday
13.Aladdin Sane
14 Panic in Detroit
15 Cracked Actor
16 The Width of a Circle
17. Time
18. The Prettiest Star
19. Let's Spend The Night Together
20. The Jean Genie
21. Suffragette City
22. Rock N Roll Suicide

40 Year Itch : Just A Sexual Glider

 On February 14, 1973 T. Rex played their Slider track "Buick MacKane" live on the German version of Top of the Pops, Musik Laden. Marc Bolan is in rare form and the band stretches out the tune by two minutes thanks to Marc's guitar God theatrics. (Jack White, eat your heart out) Though it wasn't a single, the band made a promo video for "Buick MacKane" as well.( Seen below)

 

40 Year Itch : Living On Solid Air

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"I didn't like that finger-in-the-ear stuff. I'm a funky, not a folkie."
 -John Martyn

 Described as a "poet-ruffian" by the Guardian, the tempestuous John Martyn released his best album, Solid Air, in February of 1973. It's one of those middle of the night folk-jazz "growers" that, if heard at the right time, will mesmerize its listener. Fans of Terry Callier, Beth Orton and Nick Drake should find something special here.

     Martyn had already made five albums by the time he entered the studio with acoustic bassist Danny Thompson and Fairport Convention's Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks. Playing an effects-laden acoustic guitar, Martyn and his band explored that place where deeply personal lyrics meet hallucinogenic improvisation.

The title cut was dedicated to Martyn's friend , Nick Drake, who had died of an overdose 18 months earlier.




Of the song Martyn said "Now Solid Air... I really like the title track. It was done for a friend of mine [Nick Drake], and it was done right with very clear motives, and I'm very pleased with it, for varying reasons. It has got a very simple message, but you'll have to work that one out for yourself."

The best known song, his tribute to kinship "May You Never", was covered ( some say "butchered") by Eric Clapton on Slowhand, earning Martyn a sizable royalty check. At a lifetime achievement award for Martyn, Clapton sent a message saying Martyn was "so far ahead of everything, it's almost inconceivable".

40 Year Itch : Hornswoop Me Bungo Pony

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On their sophomore album Tyranny and Mutation , released February 11, 1973, Blue Oyster Cult raised the volume and kicked up the intensity for a release that would be the most raucous of their career. The album hits the ground running with their Canadian Mounties  tribute "The Red and The Black" ( later covered by The Minutemen on 3 Way Tie For Last). The song features the unforgettable lyrics:

 Hornswoop me bungo pony, dogsled on ice/ 

                  Make a dash for freedom baby don't skate on polar ice

Blue Oyster Cult doesn't take their foot off the pedal until after they've melted heads with the likes of "7 Screaming Dizbusters" and "Hot Rails To Hell". And that's just Side One ( "the red side").

Side Two ( "the black side") is less crazed but notable because it features "Baby Ice Dog"  the first BOC tune co-written by keyboardist Allen Lanier's then-girlfriend Patti Smith. Always a critical favorite, Blue Oyster Cult rewards the listener who dives deeply into the back catalog.

Patti Smith and Allen Lanier