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The “Disco Decade”? Yes – and No.

by Hondo••121

Longtime readers know that Jonn tolerates an occasional “walkabout” from me on various and sundry subjects.  Well, consider yourself warned.  Here comes another.

. . .

The 1970s are considered by many  a “lost decade” in popular music.  And in truth, the 1970s did give us that abomination called “disco” – which IMO indeed royally polluted the popular music scene for much of the decade.  Derision for that is IMO deserved.

Still, the decade wasn’t musically a total loss.  Besides those musicians who sold their souls for a quick buck in the disco/dance craze, many other artists were making some memorable music.

Here’s some of what IMO is that decade’s better music – none of which is disco – at one song per year, along with a few comments on each.  I’ve intentionally omitted songs from that decade I’ve featured here in previous articles.  There’s plenty more from each year worth listening to.

Without further ado:  yer 1970s non-disco popular musical sampler.

. . .

1970:  Mississippi Queen (Mountain)  – inspired when Corky Laing (later to become Mountain’s drummer) saw a Southern beauty wearing a near see-thru dress during a power failure at a gig on Nantucket Island – and pulled out all the stops (with a hour-long drum solo) to keep her dancing.  The song is one of two (along with BOC’s Don’t Fear the Reaper) responsible for making the cowbell a fixture in rock music.

1971:  Riders on the Storm (Doors) – the Doors’ final recording, and the final Doors single released in Jim Morrison’s lifetime.  Hella good finale.

1972:  Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple)  – the lyrics literally tell the story of a fire, stared by “some stupid with a flare gun”, at a Frank Zappa concert in Switzerland in Dec 1971.  The song’s intro is gripping – I still remember where I was the first time I heard it.

1973:  Time (Pink Floyd) – from Dark Side of the Moon.  Perhaps the best (and my favorite) track on the album.

1974:  Free Man in Paris (Joni Mitchell) – well before she became Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Joni was one helluva good singer/songwriter.  One of her best tunes.

1975:  Rock and Roll All Nite (Kiss) – the lads could rock. From the live album that did a great deal to establish them as major stars.

1976:  Lido Shuffle (Boz Scaggs) – an absolutely great tune from his greatest album, Silk Degrees.

1977:  Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffett) – hard call between this and another great Buffett tune from the same year (and title tune of the album containing both), Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes.  Pretty sure most of us can identify with either tune.

1978:  Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits) – from their debut album.  Introduced a guy named Mark Knopfler, who plays a fair guitar.  (smile)

1979:  Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) (Neil Young) – regardless of his politics, when he wanted to the man could flat-out rock.  One of his best.

. . .

OK, that’s all for today.  Time to head back to the ‘res.

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121 thoughts on “The “Disco Decade”? Yes – and No.”

  1. Cheap Trick, Missouri, David Bowie, The Clash…all products of the 1970s.

    Let’s not forget Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and the Nuge…

    1. Though all of those were popular in the 1970s Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Nugent all began their recording careers in the 1960s. Nugent did so as a member of the Amboy Dukes in 1965; the others released their first albums in the late 60s.

    1. Misty Mountain Bop.

      Also, ZZ Top, Kansas, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bad Company, Boston, Steve Miller, Foreigner, Journey.

      1. Steve Miller played more shows at the Fillmore than any other band. Recollection is that he did over 400 shows there.

  3. I would have left Kiss off that list, not a fan says he. (But what do I know, I was born in’80)
    +1 with the Joni tho.
    What about Neil Diamond?
    King Crimson
    Cheap Trick
    Blonde(they had some good stuff and Deb is really easy on the eyes)

    1. I amend: Rush and Yes (Yes was founded in ’68 but since we have The Doors on, I’m doing it)
      Grand Funk Railroad
      Doobie Brothers
      The Band (also ’68 but re above)
      ISFAIC Disco died and it’s memory is naught (except for Lipps, Inc.’s funky town…love that song)

      2. Rush was also founded in 1968, but trying to get a decent song anywhere in the first half of the decade by a band firmed after 1970 would be damned near impossible.

        Remember, even Lynyrd Skynyrd was formed in 1964. Few groups just came out of nowhere or were overnight successes.

    2. I keep double mentioning. Apologies to Ret_25X, Ex-PH2.
      I was born too late to be in this convo anyway but I do have a great appreciation for good music.
      I’m going to shut up now and sit in the corner.

    1. I can’t believe you left out Billy Joel. I know he wasn’t a ‘band’, but his stuff still works.

      1. All three were good, and I might have used “Closer to Home” for 1970 – if Mountain hadn’t released “Mississippi Queen” the same year. I chose to go with the tune that at least arguably changed rock music by popularizing (if not introducing) the use of the cowbell.

        In any case, at the risk of belaboring the point:

        Here’s some of what IMO is that decade’s better music – none of which is disco – at one song per year, along with a few comments on each. I’ve intentionally omitted songs from that decade I’ve featured here in previous articles. There’s plenty more from each year worth listening to.

        (smile)

      1. Since Leo later did a disco song I shall attempt to redeem myself with listing Jethro Tull, Nazareth, and Sweet

  8. I heard lots of good music and saw lots of good concerts in the 70s.

    Disco was there too….but just something in the background of my memories. A lot of those bands were much less annoying than the rap artists which followed.

    2. I remember hearing Manfred Man’s Earth Band being announced on the radio when I was a kid, talk about a hippie band name!

          1. I immediately began boycotting Springsteen as soon as he started getting political, what a PUNKASS!!!

  10. Well, there’s MY songs – – –

    that were never published or heard by the public, because I never did find fame or fortune (or girls!) with my music.

    I figure I’ll probably get “discovered” about a hundred years, or so, after I’m long dead and gone.

        2. I remember staying up on Saturday nights JUST to watch ‘ol Wolf Man Jack host “The Midnight Special”!

  12. It’s a good list, Hondo. Personally, I sometimes wonder if the Gibb brothers should have been set adrift on an ice floe as children. Here’s a short list of releases which ignores if a band/performer had already done work in the 1960s.

    1970 – Santana – Album: Abraxas

    1971 – Don McLean – Single: American Pie; Rolling Stones – Single: Dead Flowers

    1972 – Jethro Tull – Single: Thick as a Brick; Bob Seeger – Single: Turn the Page; Carly Simon – Single: You’re So Vain

    1973 – Lynyrd Skynyrd – Single: Free Bird; Bob Marley – Single: I Shot the Sheriff; Golden Earring – Single: Radar Love; Marshall Tucker Band – Single: Can’t You See

    1974 – Bad Company – Single: Bad Company

    1975 – Fleetwood Mac – Album: Fleetwood Mac; Heart – Album: Dreamboat Annie

    1976 – Eagles – Single: Life in the Fast Lane

    1977 – Bob Seeger – Single: Night Moves

    1978 – Joe Walsh – Single: Life’s Been Good

    1979 – Billy Joel – Single: My Life

    In going through Billboard 100 lists from those years, it seems apparent the early part of the decade was better than the later, IMHO.

        1. Most of their best recorded work was done in the 1970s – their debut album Can’t Buy a Thrill was released in 1972. But I’ve featured some of their work previously, so I didn’t include any of their stuff here.

          For similar reasons, I didn’t include anything from The Who – even though two of their best albums (Who’s Next and Who Are You) were 1970s releases (1971 and 1978). Ditto Badfinger, the Rolling Stones, and BOC. And probably a number of others.

          My whole point here was to provide a sampler. As observed by others, the 1970s were a time of transition; they were hardly a “musical desert”. They just happened to have, as Zappa put it, “that disco thing” mucking up the works.

        2. 1967 was the crossover point where soul music was overcome by rock. Sam & Dave were doing well in ’67 as was Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Peaches & Herb, The Magnificent Men, The Young Rascals, Esquires, James Brown, Hugh Masekela, Temptations, Four Tops, Four Seasons…

          So many triggering memories that the snowflakes could never understand.

          For those from the deep south, there were The Boogie Kings.

          Albeit, the topic is the 70s and many of those fabulous bands became less prominent after 1970.

          To my taste, The Allman Bros Band never sounded as good again as they did on their Live At The Fillmore East album.

          Thank goodness, Johnny Winter soldiered on until he died.

          1. To my taste, The Allman Bros Band never sounded as good again as they did on their Live At The Fillmore East album.

            Well, the fact that Duane Allman bought the farm about 3 months after At Fillmore East was released might have had something to do with that . . . .

          2. Including the Rascals in this group is like one of those “which one of these doesn’t fit” puzzles. Buncha mid-Atlantic white boys, not to be confused with Motown or the immortal Stax.

      1. I remember years ago a bartender friend telling me a Dan Hicks story:

        Hicks was an SF Bay Area local, and for awhile practically lived in a saloon in Marin called Sweetwater. One year as a gag, he had himself listed in the telephone yellow pages under “Bar Fixtures.”

        I was also at one point fairly friendly with one of Steve Miller’s girlfriends. Not that such a thing counted for much; at the time, serious Miller groupies would have probably made up at least a platoon.

  17. Phoebe Snow, had as unique a voice as you’ll ever hear, rest her soul.

    Maria Muldaur still thrills my electronically assisted ears.

    The Chambers Brothers, Time Has Come Today, rates a place with Mississippi queen for instantly identifiable song.

    Little Feat, with Lowell George, was incomparable.

    Alas, I remain a Zappaphile, Another Band From LA!

    Argh, can’t overlook Blood Sweat & Tears version of God Bless The Child–DCT had the voice, he just didn’t know how utterly the band was to his career.

  18. We haven’t even touched on the great keyboard players of the 70s, Joey DiFrancesco, Tony Z, Focus (Hocus Pocus), Sugar Loaf’s Green Eyed Lady or the house band from Saturday Night Live…and David “Fuckface” Letterman’s most dangerous band in the world featuring Paul Shafer…Which also relates to Keith Emerson.

    I used to tell my mother that she could hear some of the best in the world within 50 miles of wherever you may be if you just look for it.

    Imagine Asleep At The Wheel having to rely on AM or FM radio to have ever found an audience.

    Bonnie Bramlett. Leon Russell.

    Were it not for disco, I might never have heard Esther Phillips beautiful voice, I Love The Night Life although I did know the song What A Difference A Day Makes.

  19. Hot Tuna, David Bromberg, Zephyr, Seals & Croft…and The Carpenters. (yeah, I know, fuck me but I liked them anyway)

    Rare Earth is still playing!

  20. Still no one has said The Allman Brothers Band.
    I waited but could wait no longer.

  22. The Doobie Brothers, “Black Water,” and I’ll have to admit I’m a big fan of “Earth, Wind, and Fire,” (arguably disco.) EWF had a great, original sound IMO. Especially use of the horn instruments. Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship in the 70s, they still produced some great songs.

    “Country rock” genre and its bands, absolutely fabulous. (Maybe “good old boys” couldn’t be “good old boys” in the 60s without attracting heat? I don’t know…too young at that time to understand the social conflicts. N.B. it’s kind of a farce to place one “Baby Boom Generation” between 1946 and 1964…I was born in the latter part of that generation so Vietnam made no impact on me.) It seems to me that the 70s were a “transitional” time for American popular music, but no less valuable than the classic 60s rock.

    Thank you for walking about, Hondo.

  24. If I learned one thing from the 70’s, it was that Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

    Oh, and that when taking a shower with a wash rag, do your face before your ass.(Army training)

    1. Well, I screwed that up royally.

      It should read as “when taking a whore’s bath from a canteen cup, do your face before your ass.”

      Mea Culpa.

    1. Hella good tune, and one of my favorites from EJ. But I was limiting the sampler to 1 tune per year, and 1973 was the year Dark Side of the Moon was released. Time got the nod.

      1. Oh, I get it…just throwing it out there. It has special meaning for me and also reminds me of some good times spent with folks who are no longer with us.

      2. I didn’t catch any concerts in the 70’s, but did see the Pink Floyd Live in Pompeii movie while assigned to Loran Station Seneca.

  27. Did I miss it? Did nobody say Boston?!?

    Also agree with Queen, Eagles, ZZ Top, and Bob Seger.

    It can be argued that the likes of Elvis and The Beatles created modern pop/rock music, but it was definitely defined (or refined more specifically) in the 70s. Legendary music from that decade.

    80s had some good work in the rock area, but it was all (aside from the over use of the synthesizer) incrementally built on the 70s formula of good beat, excellent lead guitar, and loud, clear vocals.

    1. Boston suciks.
      Saw them in Seattle in 77.
      The lead singer stopped the show 3 times to scream at the soundman, other musicians etc.
      Played Foreplay Long Time for opener and the encore…
      Been played to death…
      Boston sucks…

  28. Well, seeing all these additions to the list, I’d have to say the 70s weren’t a “lost decade” after all.

  29. I’m Still into Earth Angel and Still Of The Night. Still love those R&B vocal group harmony songs of the 1950’S, 4 guys hitting the notes in a tiled bathroom for the echo. The 70’s flew by me with no interest in that decade of music. I miss carrying a pair of drumsticks in my back pocket and playing them on garbage can lids or a stoop.

      1. How can you guys forget Black Slacks?
        “Black slacks, ooh, black slacks, cool daddy-o,
        when I put ’em on I’m a rarin’ to go.”
        Must’ve been the mid- to late-fifties.

  30. I love the classic rock but my heart is with the punk, post punk, and new wave bands. Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, Blondie (my first crush), Joy Division, The Cure, Elvis Costello, Husker Du, The Replacements, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joan Jett, The Police, The Cars, and The Psychedelic Furs. Squeeze, Madness, The (English) Beat. All started in the 70s.

      1. Jenifer Connelly and Jennifer Connelly and then there’s…Jennifer Connelly. Sorry.

          2. Anybody remember the name of that Don Johnson movie from the 80s where she showed us all the inside of that tanktop?

            1. Out of curiousity, I think I tracked it down to The Hot Spot from 1990 when Connelly was only 20. Johnson had just come off a six-year run on Miami Vice, and plays a sort of sleazy used car salesman who shows up in a small Texas town. The film was directed by Dennis Hopper, and if memory serves, was good with sort of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams tones.

              I don’t remember the part where Connelly flashes any tank-top twins, but it’s been awhile…

              1. Might be worth a rewatch, Perry. For purely scientific purposes, of course.

  31. If anyone doesn’t think 1970s (and 1980s) American rock didn’t have a lasting impact on the world, just listen to the radio stations in Germany. I swear that the FM stations here are some cool time machine.

  32. I’m a child of the 80s. I wasn’t even crawling yet when I went with my parents to see “Red Dawn” at the drive-in theater–remember those? But…

    “Simple Man”
    Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1973
    Greatest song ever.

      1. Only if you’ve never heard “Sweet Home Alabama.” Or “Behind Blue Eyes” (a tune so good that even a version played on traditional Irish folk instruments ROCKS.) It’s a matter of taste… ‘Simple Man’ would barely make my list of Skynyrd hits, much less all-time. As an example: most of the Graham Parsons/Jerry Garcia affiliated groups like the Flying Burrito Brothers, Graham Parsons Project, or especially NRPS, did better songs.

  34. Joe Ely. Rory Gallagher. Roy Buchanan. (In addition to others previously mentioned.)

    I hated disco in those days, and proudly displayed a “Disco Sucks” sign in my bedroom. In retrospect, I have to say that some of it wasn’t too bad. Some of the Bee Gees’ songs have stood the test of time, although I much prefer their earlier hits.

    Here’s my favorite anti-disco song from the 70s –
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3adalXADJM

    1. You mean you didn’t have a “DEATH BEFORE DISCO” bumper sticker as well?

  37. Mid to late 70s, my High School days. Steeley Dan, Seals and Crofts and being a Carolina Boy..The Marshall Tucker Band.

  38. Speaking of Dr.Demento: I remembered waiting for night time to roll in, so I could pick up WLS (AM) in Chicago on my transistor Radio and listen to him.

  40. Me and Bobby McGee, as performed by Joplin and released in ’71.

    Written by veteran, poet, bad singer, and sporadically decent actor Kris Kristofferson…

    2. I tended to like Janis better when she was still with Big Brother and the Holding Company. She seemed to have then more of a blues-edged bang-all-the-boys-in-the-backfield thing going on, if that makes any sense. Ball and Chain is a classic tune from 1968, IMHO.

  41. Trying to keep in line with Hondo’s format, forgive me if I repeat some of what has been mentioned earlier:
    1970–Spill the Wine (Eric Burdon and War)
    1971–Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (Paul McCartney)
    1972–American Pie (Don McLean)
    1973–Frankenstein (Edgar Winter Group)
    1974–The Joker (Steve Miller)
    1975–Jackie Blue (Ozark Mountain Daredevils)
    1976–Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
    1977–Carry On My Wayward Son (Kansas)
    1978–Miss You (Rolling Stones)
    1979–Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)

    Again, some of these groups were around well before the 70’s, but showing how much influence their sings still have 40+ years later, when disco is a bad memory.

    1. One quibble: Dire Straits 1st album (containing Sultans of Swing) was released in 1978.

      Otherwise, not a bad list, and all eminently listenable. Just not for the most part the ones I chose to list above.

      1. I put down 1979 because while released in 1978, it hit the charts in 1979. Ditto with Bohemian Rhapsody–Night At The Opera was released in October 1975, but the single didn’t top the charts until early ’76.

        Same with Steve Miller.

        1. That was about the same time as Molly Hatchet “Flirtin’ With Disaster”, The Knack “My Sharona” and The Doobie Brothers “What a Fool Believes” were getting a lot of airplay around Cape May/Wildwood (I heard it nonstop during Galley Week at basic.

  42. The Guess Who, whom later reorganized and known as Bachman Turner Overdrive

  45. And there were Christian Rocker Band/Artists who performed in the 1970s and were quite popular. Just to name a few: Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, Petra, Degarmo and Key, Third Chapter of Acts.

  46. The ’70s really birthed Southern Rock and prog rock. Acid rock died, along with the hippies, and many of the traditional ‘hippie’ era groups put out much more polished (and in many cases, more boring) albums. Had to laugh at the addition of ‘Spill the Wine’ – saw them perform that live, and Burdon was so lame he was almost booed off the stage. War, however, was tremendous and induced me to watch 3 additional shows.

  48. “Evil Woman”, “Turn to Stone” and “Don’t Bring me Down” by ELO

    “Taking it to the Street” by the Doobie Brothers

    DEATH BEFORE DISCO!!

  49. I don’t think of it as the decade of Disco so much as the decade of a lot of great music. Music which you had to do a lot of button pushing to find, in order to get away from Disco. Disco, repetitious bad sounds, much like rap or hip-hop. No melody, no great vocals, no great instrument talent, no great lyrics, just really bad noise to avoid. That’s why I will never give rap or hip-hop the honor of even being referred to with the “M” word.

  50. My biggest disappointment with rap, was that the East coast-West coast rap rivalry, didn’t end up with all of them killing each other off.

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