40 Year Itch : Goodbye 1973

In 1973 The James Last Orchestra performs a medley of Hawkwind's Silver Machine, T. Rex's Children of the Revolution and Alice Cooper's School's Out.

40 Year Itch : Fave Nuggets of 1973

1973 Nuggets Sampler

Some of our favorite tunes from 1973 are the ones we didn't really know until we immersed ourselves in the music of that year.

Buckingham Nicks "Long Distance Winner"



Elliot Murphy "Hangin' Out"

Fanny "All Mine"

Judee Sill "The Kiss"

Neu "Fur Immer"



Yoko Ono "Move On Fast"

T. Rex "Electric Slim and the Factory Hen"

Jane Birkin "Help Camionneur!"

Al Green "Beware"



Marcos Valle "Nao Tem Nada Nao"

Terry Reid "River"

Cockney Rebel "Muriel The Actor"

Golden Earring "Just Like Vince Taylor"

Deodato "Super Strut"




Hall and Oates "Las Vegas Turnaround"

Kim Jung Mi "Wind in the Trees"

Neil Sedaka and 10cc "Breaking Up is Hard to Do"

The O'Jays "Ship Ahoy"

Syl Johnson "Back for a Taste of Your Love"

Roxy Music "The Bogus Man"



Procol Harum "Grand Hotel"

Electric Light Orchestra "Momma"

Secos e Molhados "Sangue Latino"

Bachman Turner Overdrive "Blue Collar"



Willie Nelson "Devil in a Sleeping Bag"

Pescado Rabioso "Cementerio Club"

Rory Gallagher "A Million Miles Away"

Can "Moonshake"

Earth Wind and Fire "Evil"

40 Year Itch: Top 40 Albums of 1973

My list of fave 1973 albums is a good mixture of records I've loved all my life and some I've discovered just this year. Yes, all year, while most people were paying attention to Miley and Beyonce, I listened almost exclusively to the music of 1973. Next year I'll be scratching the 40 year itch by listening and reviewing the records and events of 1974. Hope you'll join me.

Stevie Wonder Innervisions
Brian Eno Here Come the Warm Jets
Paul Simon There Goes Rhymin Simon
Elliot Murphy Aquashow
Cockney Rebel Human Menagerie
Roxy Music Stranded

Paul McCartney and Wings Band on the Run
Mott the Hoople Mott
David Bowie Aladdin Sane
Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon
Sly and the Family Stone Fresh
Al Green Call Me

The Who Quadrophenia
Genesis Selling England By the Pound
Iggy and the Stooges Raw Power
Isley Brothers 3 + 3
The New York Dolls
Roxy Music For Your Pleasure

Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Roy Wood Boulders
The Wailers Burnin
Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy
Can Future Days
Hall and Oates Abandoned Luncheonette

10cc
Terry Reid River
John Martyn Solid Air
Pescado Rabioso Artaud
King Crimson Lark's Tongue in Aspic

John Cale Paris 1919
Marvin Gaye Let's Get it On
The Wailers Catch a Fire
Black Sabbath Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Dan Penn Nobody's Fool
Lynyrd Skynyrd Pronounced

Secos e Molhados
Allman Brothers Brothers and Sisters
Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall
Judee Sill Heart Food
Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Babies

40 Year Itch: Top 40 Singles of 1973

My fave singles from 1973.

1 Stories "Brother Louie"
2 Isley Brothers "That Lady, Pt 1 and 2"
3  Dobie Gray "Drift Away"
4 Ringo Starr "Photograph"
5 Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes "The Love I Lost"



6 Jose Feliciano and Bill Withers "Compartments"
7 ELO "Showdown"
8 Elton John "Daniel"
9 Beach Boys "Sail On Sailor"
10 Bob Dylan "Knockin on Heaven's Door"



11 Sensational Alex Harvey Band " Faith Healer"
12 Roxy Music "Pyjamarama"
13 Spinners "I'll Be Around"
14 Can "Moonshake"
15 Ann Peebles "I Can't Stand the Rain"



26 Judee Sill "The Kiss"
17  Edgar Winter Group Frankenstein
18 Al Green Here I Am ( Take Me)
19 Bobby Womack "Across 110th Street"
20 Stevie Wonder "Living for the City"



21 BB King "To Know You is To Love You"
22 Marvin Gaye "Let's Get It On"
23 Sweet "Ballroom Blitz"
24 The Who "5:15"
25 Sly and the Family Stone "If You Want Me To Stay"




26 Aaron Neville "Hercules"
27 Bloodstone "Natural High"
28 Genesis "I Know What I Like In Your Wardrobe"
29 Sylvia "Pillow Talk"
30 Steely Dan "My Old School"



31 Temptations "Masterpiece"
32 Timmy Thomas "Why Can't We Live Together"
33  Paul McCartney and Wings "Live and Let Die"
34 Aerosmith "Dream On"
35 Paul Simon "Kodachrome"




36 Detroit Emeralds "Feel the Need In Me"
37 Stevie Wonder "Higher Ground"
38 The Pointer Sisters "Yes We Can Can"
39 Dr John  "Right Place, Wrong Time"
40 Aretha Franklin "Master of Eyes"

More 1973 Albums We Missed

[Out of Print]

Harper (the subject of Led Zep's "Hats off to (Roy) Harper" and the vocalist on Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar")   follows the now legendary Stormcock with an album of songs recorded when he was ill and facing the possibility of dying. Jimmy Page plays on several of the tunes including "Bank of the Dead". Side Two is one ambitious 23-minute track, "The Lord's Prayer", which begins with a long monologue and is made up of at least 5 movements. Harper would recover from what ailed him and follow this with another masterpiece in 1974, Valentine.

[Purchase]

John Martyn's follow-up to his masterpiece Solid Air. Recorded with members of Traffic, Inside Out is jazzier than Solid Air and highlighted by tunes "Fine Line" and "Make No Mistake". Some of the singing is too over-the-top for these ears.

[Purchase]

  1973's best live album? ( Bill Withers, Yes and Focus fans might disagree.) That's right, kids, people once had time to play four sides of a live album for their friends. Especially one recorded this well. Alvin Lee and his band raise the game from their legendary Woodstock appearance. Plenty of boogie. Plenty of blues. Most CDs don't contain the epic drum solo in "The Hobbit". 

[Purchase]

Cobbled together from a variety of session, Roadmaster still offers great tunes. Gene Clark recorded "Full Circle Song" again for the Byrds 1973 reunion album. Clark would top this effort in 1973 with the more complex No Other.

[Purchase]

With Uriah Heep near the peak of its success, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ken Hensley took Heep bassist Gary Thain and Heep drummer Kerslake into the studio to record this solo album. Mellower than what the Heep was putting out but great stuff.

[Purchase]

Milton Nascimento's backing band has made the transition from psychedelic rock to jazz fusion

[Out of Print]

Mexican garage rock. Ole!

Some 1973 Albums We Missed

[Purchase]

Tainted by scatalogical songs about pissing , farting and Pamela's popo, Serge Gainsbourg's follow up to Histoire de Melody Nelson is saved by the title cut and his devastating goodbye song, "Je Suis Venu Te Dire Que Je M'en Vais" which translates into English as "I've Come to Tell You I'm Leaving" and features the real life sobbing of actress Jane Birkin.

[Purchase]

Recorded with CSN and Y's touring band as well as members of Neil Young's band ( and Neil himself on piano credited as Joe Yankee), Graham Nash's Wild Tales is darker material than his fans might expect. But it rocks as fine as anything he's ever done. One of the year's great surprises for me!

[Purchase]

Vibe master Roy Ayers knocked out one of the best blaxploitation soundtracks of all time on this 1973 effort, highlighted by the funky "Coffy is the Color".

[Purchase]

With the hit title track, which was also featured on the soundtrack to Cleopatra Jones, Millie Jackson hits her stride. She gets super funky on "Hypocrisy". She'd follow It Hurts So Good with Caught Up, which will be in the running for my fave soul album of 1974

[Purchase]

Late of Lindisfarne, Alan Hull released his first solo album, the very tasteful Pipedream, in 1973. File between Duncan Browne and John Martyn.

[Purchase Henry Cow Leg End]

Henry Cow set out to be avant rock and anti commercial. Signed to Virgin, Fred Frith and company  challenge listeners with dissonance,  moments of beauty and  on "Nine Funerals of the Citizen King", a political statement. Robert Wyatt would soon proclaim Henry Cow his favorite group.

[Out of Print]

Is Lightnin' Rod's Hustlers Convention the birth of rap? With Kool and the Gang providing back tracking,  Last Poets member Jalal "Lightnin' Rod" Uridin ( Alafia Pudim) rhymes the story of two hustlers, Sport and Spoon, in the drug and crime infested inner city streets.

40 Year Itch : Those We Missed December '73

[Purchase]

Big ass riffs and stadium-quality power chords made Bachman Turner Overdrive's second album one of the biggest of 1974. It ain't anywhere near as sophisticated as what Bachman had pulled off with The Guess Who, but with hits "Let It Ride" and  "Takin' Care of Business", BTO found the formula to success.

[Purchase]

Producer Andrew Loog Oldham told reporters "If you hated Cosmic Wheels, you'll love this one." Whereas the former was Donovan's entry into the Glam Rock fashion styles, Essence to Essence is a quiter more spiritual album with Donovan whispering cosmic lyrics over acoustic guitars.

[Purchase]

By most accounts recorded on acid in a French castle, Gong's follow up to Flying Teapot

[Purchase]

Live Dates is a double live album featuring the double lead guitar attack of Andy Powell and Ted Turner. It should make fans of Wishbone Ash's masterpiece, Argus, happy. Turner would leave after this album and many fans would follwo his example.