1971
A Skeletal, Circular Structure
Our neighborhood borders a nice little park. There's a playground with a fake rock wall and a talk tube and one of those spinning seats and—inexplicably—a swingset with just two swings, both for babies. At the southern edge, it slopes gently down toward a weedy soccer field, ringed with a path. The summer before last, Hank and I took the path to the easternmost end. He noticed a swath of trampled grass leading into a narrow band of woods, so we headed in. The grass walkway gave way to a dirt track, which bent right, then across a dry creek bed. After a few more paces, we saw it: a skeletal, circular structure, built with logs and branches. It was more the suggestion of a hut than a true shelter. Inside, someone had carefully arranged shards of bottle glass, and scattered a few jars half-filled with dirt.
I never figured out who made it, or why. Maybe one of the households bordering the other side of the woods assembled it. I don't know what combination of artistry, mysticism, craft or compulsion informed the structure's construction. It was an honor for my son and I to be its newest discoverers for a time, and to play around in it for a while. I mentioned it to him this morning, and he kind of remembers it. Maybe we'll go back over the break.
Constructor's Notes: 1971
Themes
There's a RateYourMusic user who, for everything he reviews from '71, adds a line like "from 1971, the best year for music ever". Even on, like, the dull two-star acid-rock cash-ins. I find the tic very funny. I don't really have much interest in best-year bar convos, partly because I drink alone and partly because there's too much going on in any given year. If you're predisposed to certain sounds—or allergic to others—then sure, you're going to have your lucky number. These playlists have been, maybe above all, good practice in learning to love.
I know there's not a consensus, but it seems like 1971 has siphoned some votes from '77 (and maybe even 1969) for the Anglophone Best Year Ever. Some of that's due, of course, to Asif Kapadia's recent documentary 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything (everything!), itself drawing from David Hepworth's book Never a Dull Moment: 1971: The Year That Rock Exploded. (I added the second colon. Felt right.) Some of it may just be a general weariness with The Sixties, or maybe we've all burned out on talking about 1977. I know it's all an exercise, that the year matters less than its herald. It was still a slog to listen to all this rock music: the countrified come-ons, the reactionary switchbacks of prog. The acidic stuff still tastes like death to me: suffocating and smug.
The harder stuff, the proto-metal, the Sabbath clones... that's different. Italian proggos Nuova Idea released a couple records under the name The Underground Set; the second of those leads off with a sick hollowed-out riff and some killer harmonized belting. Squint and it's Dokken. Another Italian prog act came perilously close to inventing the disco sellout before the real thing even came along: Formula 3's "Eppur mi son scordato di te" is a scorcher, produced (like its parent album) by the pop/rock god himself, Lucio Battisti. A surprising number of my spreadsheet notes said something like pair with "sweet leaf" and thus there's a whole slab of Sabbish stuff, from Pappo's Blues to... Hairy Chapter, I guess, with the deathless, very funny "Sweet Leaf" right in the middle.
(Check out The Day After the Sabbath if you haven't and that's your bag. I've made extensive use of this related RYM list in my research.)
Another act I kept hearing was the Hollies? I don't know their catalog much past the classic-rock hits. Everything after the first 15 seconds of "Long Cool Woman" makes me want to roll out of a moving car, but everything after the bridge in "King Midas in Reverse" (1967) makes me want to run through a brick wall. Still, lotta Nashing detected in '71. There's the way Marvin Welch & Farrar mince into the chorus of "Ronnie", or the choirboy urgency of Arnold Bean's "Captain Marvel", or the respiration on Pooh's strutty power ballad "Tanta voglia di lei".
(MWF was a three-piece, for the record. Sort of a Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds situation.)
The final bit of influence spotting is "(I Know) I'm Losing You", the crackling pyre from the '66 Temptations. Specifically, though, it sounds filtered through Rare Earth's Top-Ten cover from 1970, which got some extra play in 2016. Lot of folks wanted to horn in on that kind of funk-rock action. Here is Bullet's "Hobo". And Sweathog's "Hallelujah" (from The Righteous Gemstones, I guess). And Billy Sha-Rae's "I'm Gone", which hews closer to the Temps, but now we just call it a Northern soul stomper or something. Rod Stewart's lurching cover is out there, but not on this mix: the closing mandolin work on "Maggie May" is too centering, for me.
Before I forget: the rock song of 1971 is Funkadelic's "Super Stupid". Just disgusting.
By '71, bubblegum was already dead. I only found five tracks that qualified, and two of them are basically ballads. First-gen bubblegum was good because it fused blithe Europop to American cynicism. After this year it's back to schlager for the, I dunno... serotonin.
Sequencing
Nothing I strung together was as inspired as Michael mixing Henry Flynt's "Full Telsat" into the Who's "Baba O'Riley". Helped me opt for the towering, gruff "Bargain".
Nonetheless, I'm very happy with Jean-Pierre Mirouze's "Sexopolis" -> the Beginning of the End's "When She Made Me Promise". Hectic, pensive soul/funk. The latter you know from "T.R.O.Y.".
I think this is my favorite opening sequence yet. I almost never start with the slow cut/high-energy switchup. I did something like that for 1982, but that was the first playlist, and I was still in a mixtape mind. I'd love to redo '82 next year, who knows.
25 to Note
These aren't all my favorite tracks from the '71 mix—though some are all-timers, like the Buck and Jara and Linda Lewis—but I think it's a good survey of what's here. Home in on one of these and see how the surrounding cuts grab you. I included Sandro because his little yelp of yeah! is very funny to me.
1. Gran Combo Los Supremos, "Atiza y Atajá"
2. Marion Williams, "Bad News, Bad Times"
3. Arthur Jones, "B.T."
4. Sandro, "Dame el Fuego de Tu Amor"
5. Possessed, "Dream"
6. Victor Jara, "El Derecho de Vivir en Paz"
7. Charles Kynard, "El Toro Poo Poo"
8. The Stingers, "Give Me Power"
9. Jeannie C. Riley, "Good Enough to Be Your Wife"
10. Anne Briggs, "Go Your Way"
11. Linda Lewis, "Hymn"
12. Willie Nelson, "I Can Cry Again"
13. Buck Owens & The Buckaroos, "I Know You're Married, But I Love You Still"
14. Seifu Yohannes, "Mela Mela"
15. Michal Prokop and Framus Five, "Pláču"
16. Blue Planet, "Please Don't Shake Me Baby"
17. Middle of the Road, "Samson and Delilah"
18. Fleetwood Mac, "Show Me a Smile"
19. Myryam's Quintette, "Solo Quintette"
20. Merry Clayton, "Southern Man"
21. Mieczysław Kosz, "Spełnienie"
22. Bill Withers, "Sweet Wanomi"
23. Selda Bağcan, "Tatlı Dillim"
24. Berto Pisano and Jacques Chaumont ft. Edda Dell'Orso, "To Jean"
25. Czerwone Gitary, "Uwierz mi Lili"
Currently & Upcoming
Got about 750 tracks banked from 1961. Will probably stop gathering tracks at the end of the week, maybe get everything sequenced by the first week in December. I've found 25 tracks from 1960 that I'll work into that mix, and I'll highlight some of the additions in the next dispatch. Once the year-end lists start publishing I'll pass on the one ballot I've submitted.
1992 is after that. That and the baby.
Because of that and my track record, I have no idea how often (or for how long) I'll be writing these. I don't even know what the format'll be. We'll figure it out.