The 70's: 'Lost Tracks'

[theundecider]

What favorite lost track do you recall. Tell us a little about it.

I use songfacts.com or wikipedia.org to jar my memory.



This is one of my favorites-



'73 "Freedom For The Stallion" The Hues Corporation


...was a minor hit in the states, their name a reference to Howard Hughes (mis-spelled for legal reasons).





Three Dog Night had more success with the song scoring a moderate hit with their version.

[theundecider]

'71 "They Can't Take Away Our Music" by Eric Burdon And War

Talk about your anthems...

Released as a single in its full length of almost 7 minutes.

[theundecider]

'79 "Once Upon A Time In The West" - Dire Straits

from my favorite Dire Straits album "Communique"


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUOqTIaau3o&feature=related
[/youtube]

Some people get a cheap laugh breaking up the speed limit
Scaring the pedestrians for a minute
Crossing up progress driving on the grass
Leaving just enough for room to pass
Sunday driver never took a test
Oh yeah, once upon a time in the west

Yes, it's no use saying that you don't know nothing
It's still gonna get you if don't do something
Sitting on a fence that's a dangerous course
Oh, you could even catch a bullet from the peace-keeping force
Even the hero gets a bullet in the chest
Oh yeah, once upon a time in the west

Mother Mary your children are slaughtered
Some of you mothers ought to lock up your daughters
Who's protecting the innocenti
Heap big trouble in the land of plenty
Tell me how we're gonna do what's best
You guess once upon a time in the west

Once upon a time in the west...

[theundecider]

'75 Patti Smith "Horses"


A song that once heard can never be forgotten.

She is a Poetic genius!

[theundecider]

'72 "I'm A Stranger Here" Five Man Electrical Band

The Five Man Electrical Band was a rock group from Canada's capital city of Ottawa, best known for their 1971 hit single "Signs".

This song offers commentary from an aliens viewpoint.

[vastar iner]

So, who invented punk? The MC5? The Stooges? The Dolls? The Pistols?

Good cases can be made for all of them. MC5 were perhaps more garage, the Stooges more rock, the Dolls the bridge between glam and punk; the Pistols were definitely punk.

But one band forgotten is The Saints. Amazingly enough, "(I'm) Stranded", their coruscating debut single, was released as early as September 1976. An example of a band influenced early by the nascent scene? No. The Saints developed on their own. We know this because they could not have seen the developing punk scene; they were from Australia.

They came to Britain to seek success - and reached the top 40 with the visceral "This Perfect Day" - but refused to be promoted by EMI as a typical punk band, all spikes and safetypins; after all, punk was about doing your own thing, and their own thing was not to have any Westwood fashion about them. They were just a hard-as-nails Aussie rock band who turned up, tuned up and rocked out. Their sound turned slightly more commercial over the years, "Just Like Fire Would" even making the Billboard modern rock listings, by which time only singer/songwriter Chris Bailey was left of the original line-up; co-writer Ed Kuepper moved into Julian Cope territory (Laughing Clowns, solo work). Bailey and Kuepper have teamed up occasionally in recent years for one-off concerts.

[vastar iner]

Someone explain to me how this was not a hit. It swoops and soars, it swaggers, it surrounds. The acme of new wave? It was probably too far ahead of its time, it still sounds fresh today.

Love that quintessentially seventies video as well. As per, drugs finished them off as a band, but they are semi-back together for the odd gig.

[vastar iner]

Not entirely forgotten, one would think, as it made the top 20; but it was Judie Tzuke's only top 20 single, amidst a number of hit albums. Tzuke was born Judie Myers, her family having emigrated from eastern Europe in the 1920s, but reverted to the traditional family name when she moved on in her career.

She definitely had a bit of a leg-up - her dad was the manager of the then-unknown Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and she ended up on Elton John's Rocket label - but if that connexion got her a start, her talent kept her there. Her partner Paul Muggleton co-wrote and appeared on this; one of their children is the burgeoning talent of Bailey Tzuke.

"Stay With Me Till Dawn", incidentally, is the favourite song ever of Nik Kershaw...

[vastar iner]

Pub rock at its finest. Amazed that this was not a gigantic hit, although it generated sufficient interest to ensure the follow-up - "Airport" - went top five. All you need to know is on the pop-ups...

One of the greatest driving songs ever.

[vastar iner]

If it ain't Stiff, it ain't worth a...well, you know. Jake Riviera's label had loads of gigantic hits with such immortal songs as "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick", "House Of Fun" and "They Don't Know".

But the best song ever released on Stiff may have been this one.



For some asinine reason Eric Goulden never reached the singles chart. He did however have a couple of top fifty albums - an unusual achievement for someone who never made the 75. Since leaving Stiff he's released various bits and bobs ever since, including with his wife Amy Rigby. But I doubt he can ever match the sheer transcendental brilliance of the above, his first single, and one of the best of the seventies. Surely it's begging to become a hit some day...

[thehitparade]

It was announced yesterday that the producer Martin Rushent has died. Obviously he's most famous for working with the Human League and I think he's had a mention on here recently for doing 'Happy Birthday' by Altered Images; but I thought I'd mark his passing with an unsuccessful single he produced for one of my favourite bands.



Despite the obviously massive video budget , it didn't even chart.

[raliverpool]

^ From my hometown. One of 12 tracks i posted links to yesterday.

One track I did not post a link to that was produced by Martin Rushent was this post punk gem penned by Pete Shelley that reached the heights of UK#55 in April 1978:

[vastar iner]

And while we're on a Pete Shelley trip, here's an early song he wrote with Howard Devoto, which Devoto took with him when he formed Magazine:



Reached an agonizing 41...kept out of the top forty by a meaningless Queen filler.

[raliverpool]

Now this track, was quite literally lost until 2000.



"Lay Me Down" was recorded in December 1974 at The Beatles' Apple Studios in London and remained unreleased for 26 years. Originally intended to be Badfinger's third album under its six-album contract with Warner Bros. Records, the recordings were shelved when their now legendary/tragic legal difficulties erupted between the band and WB that year, and the version that was finally released did not see the light of day until November 2000.

This lost Power Pop track was penned by main singer/songwriter & guitarist Neil Ham, and was planned as the lead single from the unreleased Head First album. Neil committed suicide in April 1975, with no income and the band's business manager non-communicative, Ham became despondent and he hanged himself in the garage of his Surrey home. He was three days short of his 28th birthday.

[thehitparade]

Ooh, yes, good one that. Pity TotP cut it off in its prime there.
I only found out recently about Pete Shelley's credit (although I knew about Devoto's credits on the first Buzzcocks album.

[raliverpool]

Judee Sill was an American singer and songwriter. Her eponymous debut album was released in late 1971 and was followed around eighteen months later by Heart Food on David Geffen's Asylum label.

Following the classic Nick Drake template of critical acclaim unmatched by the record buying public, a series of car accidents and failed surgery to rectify a painful on going back injury, meant she got addicted to prescription drugs and dropped out of the music scene, finally dying of a drug overdose, or "acute cocaine and codeine intoxication," on November 23, 1979 at her apartment on Morrison Street in North Hollywood.

This track Crayon Angels is taken from her debut 1971 album and has been covered in concert on numerous occasions by the Fleet Foxes.

[raliverpool]

Todd Rundgren - Real Man (1975)

Taken from his sixth solo album Intuition this soulful Gamble & Huff; Hall & Oates influenced track peaked at USA#83 for an act who has influenced the likes of fellow writer, producer (Bat Out Of Hell; The Band; XTC; Grand Funk Railroad; Badfinger; Hall & Oates; Patti Smith; The Tubes; Tom Robinson Band; Bad Religion; Cheap Trick; New York Dolls; and many others) and multi-instrumentalist Prince.

[vastar iner]

Bit of a wistful pub-rock classic. I could imagine this being played as Bruce Banner walked away from another Hulk-inspired session of destruction as yet again he loses the girl. They had to change their name from Glyder because of the pre-existing Glider, hence the somewhat insulting variation.

They ended up releasing precisely one other single, and a double-album made up of cuts and off-cuts after they broke up. Shame they didn't last, given the quality of this debut single. Most of the group ended up in other minor chart-missing band, other than the bassist who joined the Pogues, and the guitarist who joined Darts.

[Whitneyfan]

The Climax Blues Band - Couldn't get it right


I heard thei on the radio the other day and had to find out who sung it, it's amazing. Sounds like a cross between 10cc and the Bee Gees.

[thehitparade]

Jul 1, 2011 9:21:32 GMT 1 Whitneyfan said:

The Climax Blues Band - Couldn't get it right


I heard thei on the radio the other day and had to find out who sung it, it's amazing. Sounds like a cross between 10cc and the Bee Gees.

Well, I don't particularly like either of those bands but I do like this.

I discovered it on a compilation years ago, and then again when I got my first MP3 player and loaded this onto it. I think the singer died a couple of years ago unfortunately.