40 Year Itch: Campus Report for Late August 1973

As reported to Billboard Magazine for their August 25, 1973 issue.

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WTUL -FM

Tulane University

Blues rock supergroup West, Bruce and Laing ( made up of two members of Mountain and Jack Bruce of Cream) are getting the most airplay at Tulane. The Section is a band comprised of session musicians who played on all the great 70's singer songwriters albums. Sunflower is one of vibraphonist Milt Jackson's best selling jazz albums.

1. West Bruce and Laing : Whatever Turns You On

2. The Section: Forward Motion

3. Milt Jackson: Sunflower

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KALX-FM

U. California Berkeley

Coulson, Dean, McGuiness and Flint created a sensation by recording Dylan tunes before they were released on his Basement Tapes album. The Etta James album has already been featured this month. The Andrews Sisters enjoyed a revival when Bette Midler had a hit with their "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"

1. Coulson Dean McGuinness, Flint : Lo and Behold

2. Etta James : Etta James

3. Andrews Sisters : Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

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WUAL-FM

University of Alabama

Bloodshot was the best selling J Geils album until Freeze Frame came along. Don Nix was a songwriter and session musician who worked on the Concert for Bangladesh. George Harrison contribute some slide guitar on this album. Yeah contained Brownsville Station's biggest hit "Smokin in the Boys Room" which would peak at #3 later in the year.

1. The J Geils Band Bloodshot

2. Don Nix : Hobos, Heroes and Street Corner Clowns

3. Brownsville Station: Yeah!

40 Year Itch : American Graffiti

                                       
                                         "Where were you in '62?"
                                                                                -American Graffiti tagline

Just months after That'll Be The Day charmed UK moviegoers with its 50's/early 60's nostalgia, leading to a soundtrack album that topped the charts there for three weeks, George Lucas's American Graffiti became America's top grossing film of 1973. The double album soundtrack went gold and sent Bill Haley and The Comets's twenty-five year old "Rock Around the Clock" back into the Top 40 .



     
 Nostalgia for the Eisenhower era was already very much in evidence in the early 1970's. Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt Kickers's 1962 #1 hit "Monster Mash" was back in the charts in 1973, peaking at #3 in the UK. From Don McLean's #1 hit "American Pie", a remembrance of Buddy Holly, to the remakes of early 60's hits like Donny Osmond's "Puppy Love", Ringo Starr's "You're Sixteen", Grand Funk Railroad's "The Locomotion", the 50's were back. Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" was an updating of the the 50's sound.




Concert promoter Richard Nader can claim some credit for the revival. He sent 50's acts on the road as early as 1969 beginning with Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry and the Platters. In 1972 he managed to get Dion and the Belmonts to reunite.Gene Vincent did one of his shows. A Nader produced revival sold out Madison Square Garden in 1970 and 1974.

American Graffiti inspired TV hits "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley".



These were soundtracks to a less complicated time when America promised of happiness and prosperity. By the early 70's, the first rock and roll generation had faced not just their own disappointments but the ugliness of war and assassinations and a crook in the white house. Can you blame Americans for taking a little break back in time?

40 Year Itch: Danger When You Taste Brown Sugar

With a hard charging cover of Hot Chocolate's "Brother Louie" , the troubled power pop band Stories hit #1 on August 25 1973. Stories was formed when Michael Brown of The Left Banke met Seattle native Ian Lloyd (born Buonconciglio) and the two decided to make Beatlesque music. They made one decent album before Brown left. While recording the second album, as an afterthought, the remaining band has to seek out a single. Ian Lloyd spent a weekend listening to demos when he heard the Hot Chocolate tune, already a Top 10 hit in the UK. As he told Classic Bands.com:

When "Brother Louie" was played, it was crazy because when I heard it, I thought "that's different." Then they got to the chorus. As soon as they hit the chorus, I said "This is the one. This is the one we should do." Obviously I was surprised because you can think something's a number one record, but it won't be a number one record. But the fact that I had really been listening for two days to all this stuff and then heard that and said "This is a number one record," when it finally went to number one, I was surprised. I was kind of like, "Wow! I was right!"

The single shot up to #1 forcing the Kama Sutra label to re-release the band's About Us album with "Brother Louie" as the lead off cut.

The song, about an inter-racial love affair, was very edgy for its time. Billboard Magazine wrote

 "When our review panel heard the song, they like it but felt the sensitive nature of the material would keep radio stations at arms length".

That wasn't the case. Had American's radio listening public decided it really didn't "make no difference if you're black or white" or was there a certain shock value in the lyrics that helped propel the tune to the top of the charts?

Maybe it's just the performance. The funky bass line, the wah wah guitar and Ian Lloyd's Rod Stewart styled vocals just sounds like a soundtrack to a steamy Summer.

There was a second 1973 cover of "Brother Louie" worth noting. Vibes master Roy Ayers recorded a version for his album Virgo Red.

And in 1974 the Undisputed Truth recorded a cover for the album Down to Earth

40 Year Itch: This and That from August 1973

Billy Paul, Barry White and  Bobby Womack headline the 1973 Watts Summer Festival at the 100,000-seat Coliseum, a year after WATTSTAX. Admission is $2. Other stars include Azteca, Bloodstone, Dramatics, Emotions, Intruders, Thelma Houston, Esther Phillips, Barbara Mason and Soul Children.

 The Dean of rock critics, Robert Christgau,  gave the 1973 Esther Phillips album Black Eyed Blues a rare A rating.

The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff, makes its Los Angeles debut August 22, 1973. Cliff can be heard on three different labels. The soundtrack is on Mango. His new album , Unlimited, is on Warner Brothers and Wonderful World, Beautiful People has been re-released on A and M Records.

Shada Music sues D'Amiano Films. producers of Deep Throat with copyright infringement for using the same melody as "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing ( In Perfect Harmony)"  to something a bit more intimate.

John Denver makes his acting debut on "McCloud" where he gets to chime in with his trademark catch phrase "Far Out!" ( at :59 seconds in the clip below)

Columbia Records signs Billy Joel

    Impressed with the songs he wrote for Roger Daltry's solo album, Chrysalis Records signs Leo Sayer.

After Rolling Stone called them the "best unsigned band in America", ABC/Dunhill has signed Orleans whose debut album is recorded at Muscle Shoals Recording Studio. It would take three albums before Orleans caught on with the public thanks to singles like "Dance With Me" and "Still the One".

40 Year Itch: Rollin' Down Highway Forty-One

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“The way the title Brothers And Sisters came about was that even though we have had two great losses, we were still a family. " -Gregg Allman 

 Just a few months after recording the landmark album At Fillmore East, guitar legend Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident. He was only 24. Just a little more than a year later bassist Berry Oakley was killed in similar circumstances. It would be perfectly understandable for the band to take a break...if not break up. Oakley's death happened right in the middle of sessions for a new album, to be called Lightnin' Rod. Instead, with a new bass player (Lamar Williams) and Chuck Leavell on piano, they released the astonishing Brothers and Sisters, released in August of 1973.

In an 1974 interview with Cameron Crowe of Hit Parader, Allman explained how the band kept going: “First of all, we were all friends … if you’ve ever read about wolves, you know they travel in packs. One wolf would die, man. One wolf can’t tackle a moose. He needs the pack to survive. So there you go. Together, we knew that we had something and that no matter how far the bullshit went, we would survive if we hung together. In the early days of the Allman Brothers Band we went out and collected bottles and shit to keep going."

While "Ramblin' Man" peaked at #2 on the pop charts, Brothers and Sisters topped the album chart for five weeks and sold seven million copies. While drummer Butch Trucks's son Vance is on the cover, it's still heartbreaking to realize that Berry Oakley's daughter Brittany is posing on the back cover just months after losing her father. 

                            "Suddenly my dad wasn't here," she told People Magazine in 1996. "It was painful."

Aside from "Ramblin' Man", Brothers and Sisters gave us one of the great road songs, "Southbound", "Wasted Words" and the instrumental "Jessica", all FM mainstays.

Although the inner sleeve pictured a huge multi-racial family, heavy touring, solo albums, drugs and Cher all took their toll on the band. Allman married Cher twice, the first time for just nine days. But as the Allman Brothers faded, they opened the doors for other Southern rockers like Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Marshall Tucker Band. 

If they ramble into your neck of the woods, check them out. The Allman Brothers still put on a great show.

40 Year Itch : One Week's Worth of '73 Soul Singles

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For proof that 1973 was a great year for soul, look no further than this list of singles that all entered the Billboard soul charts on August 25, 1973. 

Entering the charts the highest is "Get It Together", the title track from the Jackson 5's new album which closes with the future  #2 hit "Dancing Machine".

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Entering the soul chart at #64 is "Sexy, Sexy, Sexy" from James Brown's soundtrack to Slaughter's Big Rip Off. The single peaked at #6 on the soul chart and #50 on the pop chart.

The future #1 single ( originally written as "Midnight Plane to Houston" by Jim Weatherly) debuted in the soul charts at #75. Rolling Stone ranked it #432 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Tina Turner says Marc Bolan of T.Rex plays guitar on this rocking, semi-autobiographical single that became Ike and Tina Turner's last big hit. Debuting on the soul charts at #79, the song peaked at #11 and #22 on the Hot 100 pop chart.

Originally released by Lee Dorsey in 1970, "Yes We Can Can" debuted at #83 on the soul charts for the Pointer Sisters on its way to #11 on the pop charts and #12 on the soul charts. Written by Allen Toussaint.

Other new singles:

#81 Tribe - KDKE, pt 1

#86 Freda Payne - Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right

#90 John and Ernest - Soul President Number One

#97 Barrett Strong - Stand Up and Cheer for the Preacher

#98 Manhattans - Do You Ever

#99 Eddie Floyd - Check Me Out

#100 Creative Source - You Can't Hide Love

Seattle Police to Hempfesters: Do Listen to Dark Side of the Moon

shot from Joshua Lewis/KOMO News

A message on the Doritos Seattle Police handed out to this weekend's Hempfesters includes the suggestion they should listen to the 1973 Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon "at a reasonable volume". An unopened bag is selling for $50 on EBay.  More shots from the Hempfest here.