I miss the 70's

[mas music]

   I was burning the midnight oil watching youtube. I thought it would be fun to check out some of my favorite pop artists from the 70's. I watched videos from Jim Croce, Harry Chapen, James Taylor & Joni Mitchel to name a few. As I watched tears filled my eyes and I'm not quite sure why. Sure the music was great but it was the audience that moved me. They were of one heart and one mind with the performing artist. They were focused and tuned in, there was a vibe of simplicity and sincerity that seems lost on our world today. I realised that there were no pagers, no cell phones or blackberries to distract them. No emails awaited them. It was all about the music. I miss the 70's.

[bearsville0]

 
As I watched, tears filled my eyes and I'm not quite sure why.

I'm quite sure it's because you're really old.

[Danny]

     I don't miss the 70's.   But I really do miss the 50's.

[tuffythepug]

    I don't miss the 70's.   But I really do miss the 50's.

Awww come on Danny.  You were just a baby in the 50's.    

 

[unclrob]

Even though I'm sure I have some missing time during the 70's I too miss the audience's.Now if your not putting on some fantasy show and charging hundreds of dollars for tickets your dead in the water.Watching a band preform there tune's live was and incredable learning experience.Hearing them transform a simple 3-5 min. tune into something fresh.Even playing bar gigs then was more enjoyable then now.

[Glennd]

I understand completely. Can you imagine what would happen at festival the magnitude of Woodstock happening today? As violent and "me" oriented as the our culture has become I think it would be mayhem. I too often think back to a more "harmonious" time. While we will likely never again have good times, no one can take away the memories.

[jeremy3220]

I understand completely. Can you imagine what would happen at festival the magnitude of Woodstock happening today? As violent and "me" oriented as the our culture has become I think it would be mayhem.

It does happen every year(at 2x the magnitude) and from what I gather much safer than woodstock was. http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/97033519.html

I too often think back to a more "harmonious" time. While we will likely never again have good times, no one can take away the memories.

Civil rights movement, Vietnam war protests, the homicide rate was(in the 70's) almost double what it is today... no thanks.

I'm sure ya'll remember it being harmonious but every generation looks back on the days of their youth with rose colored glasses and remarks how things have declined. The youth of today will be saying the same things you're saying one day.


Here's Penn & Teller's take on 'The good ol' days' (not for kids)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ0NRhgiL2M

[Danny]

It does happen every year(at 2x the magnitude) and from what I gather much safer than woodstock was. http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/97033519.html

Civil rights movement, Vietnam war protests, the homicide rate was(in the 70's) almost double what it is today... no thanks.

I'm sure ya'll remember it being harmonious but every generation looks back on the days of their youth with rose colored glasses and remarks how things have declined. The youth of today will be saying the same things you're saying one day.


Here's Penn & Teller's take on 'The good ol' days' (not for kids)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ0NRhgiL2M

Jeremy it was not LOVE, JOY and PEACE. Your statement is correct. I was on my way to live in a commune in Taos in the late 60's / early 70's. A marijuana possession charge changed that. But my closest friend at the time went with his wife. This guy was the biggest pacifist in our town. But he wound up toting a handgun and in a hippy vs. cowboys feud with the rest of the commune. His wife left him with the kids.

  I have a lot of memories, mostly bad.  

[unclrob]

Never thru rose coloured glass's but I did wear yellow coloured ones for a while.I thought this post was about music.All my memories aren't good one's and I won't get into that here.Its about the music......

[Danny]

Never thru rose coloured glass's but I did wear yellow coloured ones for a while.I thought this post was about music.All my memories aren't good one's and I won't get into that here.Its about the music......

You are right about the topic. It is music.  To that I'll add the mid to late 70's were rather a disappointment to me.  Clean rock and roll was about out of the picture and we were being led in to the "Saturday Night Fever" generation.

   These were good artists as stated by the OP "Jim Croce, Harry Chapen, James Taylor & Joni Mitchel"

[jeremy3220]

Yeah the music was good. Of course there is certainly fluff in every decade. I think there is great music from every decade but I guess the big difference between the 60's/70's and today is that the good music was popular then, it takes some effort to find great current music.

[Michael T]

Today's rap influence and techno back beats etc. are so course and lifeless. It's like a Club DJ on every stage. When listening to the actual creativity of the days gone by there were definite inspired moments and messages in the music that flowed rather than beat it into your head. Actually I find little to listen too anymore other than some acoustic jazz or cross over country. Then again there is the price of venues to deal with. I couldn't justify weekly concert's expenses anymore, back in the day the ticket was likely the least expensive of the outing's expenses.

[ducktrapper]

Maybe a list of truly horrible 70's moments will make you feel better? You could certainly argue with a few here but still ...

http://www.furious.com/perfect/badsongs.html






   

   

[mas music]

 I did not mean to suggest that the 70's was wonderfull and that the day in which we now live is terrible. The 70's were a turbulent time for sure. Lest we forget, the 70's gave us shag carpeting, orange counter tops and ugly paneling not to mention fine automobiles like the Pinto,the Gremlin and the Pacer. The music of the early to mid 70's however is a part of the culture and fabric of America. Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby stills & Nash were not the product of American Idol or slick marketing. Harry Chapen and Jim Croce were not heart throbs they were musicans who poured there hearts into there music. This is what I miss about the 70's.     

[teh]

Never got to see these guys perform live but just listen to these lyrics by Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen's lead guitar playing on a Martin D-35. He didn't start playing guitar until he was 17 and died at 24.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2iS8XctJKo&feature=related

[JOYCEfromNS]

70's 

[Walkerman]

I understand completely. Can you imagine what would happen at festival the magnitude of Woodstock happening today? As violent and "me" oriented as the our culture has become I think it would be mayhem. I too often think back to a more "harmonious" time. While we will likely never again have good times, no one can take away the memories.

1. Woodstock was in the 60's.....as was Altamont, the Chicago Democrat Presidential Convention, the Manson murders, the Watts Riots, Viet Nam, the civil rights marches, and so on.  Kent State opened the 70's. Watergate, the oil embargo and the Munich Olympics massacre were also in the 70's...anyone remember Patty Hearst?  Sometimes I think we look back through rose colored glasses.

OTOH, my formative years with regards to music were also in the 60's....I started out listening to Bobby Darrin, Little Peggy March...moved on to the Beachboys, stepped up to the Beatles as I entered highschool  and never looked back.  Probably the best 10 years of music evolution we have ever seen.

BTW...the Warp tour every year is a pretty darn good event.

[Tycho]

Listening to Deep Tracks on Sirius/XM is a good way to remember how much great music there was in the '70s.

On the other hand, if, like me, you lived in a small town and did not have access to a good underground FM station at the time, it's just as easy to remember the 70s as the era in which commercial radio out-drecked all other eras including the '80s and the present day.  75% of commercial radio music in the first half of the 70s was utterly horrendous, and the only reason we don't remember that fact today is that radio mercifully doesn't play any of that music any more, and those of us who were there have managed to block out the hideous memories.

But just to bring them back,how could we forget such gems as: Sammy Davis Jr., "The Candyman"; Mouth and MacNeal, "How Do You Do"; Starland Vocal Band, "Afternoon Delight"; Bloodrock, "DOA"; Think, "Things Get a Little Easier Once You Understand"; Middle of the Road, "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep"; "Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, "Billy Don't be a Hero"; anything by Tony Orlando and Dawn....

And so many more.  If you've never heard any of those songs, check them out online.  But get ready to rip your own hair out.

[Tycho]

Also, anyone who remembers going to concerts in the '70s will know that it was a much more menacing experience than the nice, calm, structured, well-policed events we have today.  You never knew when the speed freak in the next aisle might decide to pull a knife on somebody, or when a full-scale riot might break out (as it did when I saw David Bowie in Ottawa in 1974).

Of course there are probably some people who miss the danger.

[Walkerman]

"...But just to bring them back,how could we forget such gems as: Sammy Davis Jr., "The Candyman"; Mouth and MacNeal, "How Do You Do"; Starland Vocal Band, "Afternoon Delight"; Bloodrock, "DOA"; Think, "Things Get a Little Easier Once You Understand"; Middle of the Road, "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep"; "Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, "Billy Don't be a Hero"; anything by Tony Orlando and Dawn...."

It was the mid 70's that made me seek refuge in country music.  Fortunately, that was the time of Willie, Waylon, Tom T. and so many others.  For a number of years, I didn't miss "rock" at all.