Talking Heads - Fear of Music (1979)

“Fear Of Music” by Talking Heads (1979)

Release Date: August 3, 1979
Produced by Brian Eno, Talking Heads
Genre: New Wave, Post Punk, Rock, Art-Rock
Label: Sire

Chart Positions: #21 (US), #1 (Holland), #11 (New Zealand), #27 (Canada), #33 (UK), #35 (Australia)
Certifications: Gold (US)
Awards: N/A

Singles and Chart Positions:
“Life During Wartime” #80 (US)
“I Zimbra” #28 (US Dance)
“Cities” (No Chart Data)
 Singles Certifications: N/A
Other Charting Tracks: N/A

Best Tracks: ALL TRACKS: This album is a staple of the 1970s and beyond. A must-have album for any music collector.

“Fear Of Music” by Talking Heads (Click Here) 

Trivia: Fear of Music is the third studio album by American new wave band Talking Heads, released on 3 August 1979 on Sire Records. It was recorded at locations in New York City between April and May 1979 and was produced by the quartet and Brian Eno (this was the second of three albums in which Eno worked with Talking Heads). The album reached number 21 on the Billboard 200 in the United States and peaked at number 33 on the UK Albums Chart. Three songs were released as singles between 1979 and 1980: "Life During Wartime", "I Zimbra", and "Cities". The record was certified Gold in the U.S. in 1985.

Fear of Music received favorable reviews from critics. Praise centered on its unconventional rhythms and frontman David Byrne's lyrical performances. The record is often considered one of the best Talking Heads releases. It has featured in several publications' lists of the best albums of all time. Britain's Channel 4 named the record at number 76 in its 2005 countdown of The 100 Greatest Albums. In 2006 it was remastered and reissued with four bonus tracks.

Talking Heads' second album More Songs About Buildings and Food, released in 1978, expanded the band's sonic palette. The record included a hit single, a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River", which gained the quartet commercial exposure. In March 1979, the band members played the song on nationwide U.S. music show American Bandstand. In the days after the performance, they decided they did not want to be regarded simply as "a singles machine". Talking Heads entered a New York City studio without a producer in the spring of 1979 and practiced demo tracks. Musically, the band wanted to expand on the "subtly disguised" disco rhythms present in More Songs About Buildings and Food by making them more prominent in the mixes of new songs. The recording plans were shelved after the quartet was not pleased with the results during the sessions. A decision was taken to rehearse in drummer Chris Frantz's and bassist Tina Weymouth's loft, where the band members played before they signed to a record label in the mid-1970s. Eno, who produced their previous full-length release, was called to help.

On 22 April and 6 May 1979, a Record Plant van manned by a sound engineering crew parked outside Frantz's and Weymouth's house and ran cables through their loft window. On these two days, Talking Heads recorded the basic tracks with Eno. Instead of incorporating characters in society like in More Songs About Buildings and Food, Byrne decided to place them alone in dystopian situations.Weymouth was initially skeptical of Byrne's decisions, but the frontman managed to persuade her. She has explained that Byrne's sense of rhythm is "insane but fantastic" and that he was key to the band's recording drive during the home sessions. As songs evolved, playing instrumental sections became easier for the band members. Eno was instrumental in shaping their sound and recording confidence and worked on electronic treatments of tracks once they were all crafted.

Fear of Music is largely built on an eclectic mix of disco rhythms, cinematic soundscapes, and conventional rock music elements. Album opener "I Zimbra" is an African-influenced disco track and includes background chanting from assistant recording engineer Julie Last.

The album begins with "I Zimbra", whose lyrics are based on a nonsensical poem by Dadaist writer Hugo Ball. The sound of lyrics, together with the tribal sound of the song, enhanced by guest star virtuoso guitarist Robert Fripp, gave it an "ethnic" style; Jerry Harrison has said that this song influenced what the band was to do on their next album, Remain in Light. "Cities" details a search for the perfect urban settlement to live in and was borne out of Talking Heads' preferences for urban homes, especially in Manhattan. "Paper" compares a love affair with a simple piece of paper. In "Life During Wartime", Byrne cast himself an "unheroic urban guerrilla", who renounced parties, survived on basic supplies like peanut butter, and heard rumors about weapons shipments and impromptu graveyards. The character is only connected to the imminent collapse of his civilization. Byrne considered the persona "believable and plausible". "Air" is a protest song against the atmosphere, an idea Byrne does not consider "a joke". Inspired by The Threepenny Opera, the lyricist wanted to create a melancholic and touching track about a guy who feels so down that even breathing feels painful.

"Life During Wartime" was the first single from their 1979 album Fear of Music in 1979. It peaked at #80 on the US Billboard Pop Singles Chart. In David Bowman's book This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century Byrne is quoted as describing the genesis of the song: "David wrote nine of the album's eleven tracks. Two numbers came out of jamming. The first would be called "Life During Wartime." David's lyrics describe a Walker Percy-ish post-apocalyptic landscape where a revolutionary hides out in a deserted cemetery, surviving on peanut butter. 'I wrote this in my loft on Seventh and Avenue A,' David later said, 'I was thinking about Baader-Meinhof. Patty Hearst. Tompkins Square. This a song about living in Alphabet City.'”
AllMusic's Bill Janowitz reviewed the song, calling attention to its nearness to funk, saying that it is a "sort of apocalyptic punk/funk merge" comparable to Prince's later hit single "1999". In 2012, The New Yorker described "Life During Wartime" as, "an apocalyptic swamp-funk transmission in four-four time," adding "[it] is the band’s pinnacle, and the song is still a hell of a thing to hear."

"Life During Wartime" (1979)

"I Zimbra," the second single from their 1979 album Fear of Music.
The song's lyrics are an adaptation of Dadaist Hugo Ball's poem "Gadji beri bimba". According to Sytze Steenstra in Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present, the music draws heavily on the African popular music Byrne was listening to at the time.

"Cities," the third single from the album, is a fast-paced bass and keyboard-led song. Tina Weymouth's bass playing in the song is described as both "melodic" and "funky", while David Byrne's guitar is said to be jittery, but clean-sounding. The song fades both in and out with a very aggressive funky rhythm and the fade-out makes a building-up feeling as it transitions into the next song, "Life During Wartime." The song's meaning is simple: it is mainly about a man looking for a city to live in, though lead singer David Byrne's surrealistic yet humorous delivery of the song is anything but simple. The lyrics are both deadpan and silly causing a mixed humor in the song. This combination can be seen in lyrics such as "Did I forget to mention, forget to mention Memphis, home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks.

"Heaven" has been called "the calm after their unusual ominous storm" by AllMusic as well as something "psychologists would certainly have a field day with" by journalist Ian Gittins. Dave Bell, writing for quarterly UK magazine Ceasefire, argued that the song "epitomises" pop as Samuel Beckett might write it: tedious, beautiful and desperate"

The following is a Rolling Stone Magazine Review:
Time stands still when you're cracking up. At the brink of mental overload, there's a revelatory instant — a freeze frame in which everything fits together in new ways. Logic dissolves, paralogic reigns. And in that precarious moment, the world is fixed in place, skewed and renewed.

David Byrne's lyrics on Talking Heads' Fear of Music are paralogical visions stated with almost childlike directness: he thinks that air hits him in the face, that animals want to change his life, that "someone controls electric guitar." By itself, this perspective makes Byrne's songs fascinating. But what makes Talking Heads my favorite and probably the best rock band anywhere is that they've invented an audio analog to their view from the brink: rock music that warps and suspends time.

They use a simple device: repetition. Unswerving rhythms, immobile harmonies. Each tune is a chain of sections linked by rhythm, each section a matrix of interlocking riffs. "I Zimbra" stakes Talking Heads' claim to pure mechanization. One by one, the instruments click into place in a rhythm pattern fleshed out by Afro-futurist harmonies and topped by the meaningless chanted syllables of a poem by Twenties Dadaist Hugo Ball. At composition's end, Robert Fripp's guitar phases through the whole pulsing assemblage like the shuttle of a high-speed loom.
Even in the more conventional numbers — those built on ordinary major and minor chords — anything repeatable gets repeated. "Heaven," Byrne sings in his minimalist anthem of the same name, "is a place where nothing happens," and while his songs aren't by any means completely static, their harmonies don't move as fast as most pop progressions do. When a tune lingers on one chord, riffs that go with that chord are played over and over. As for rhythm, drummer Chris Frantz will sometimes hold one lick for an entire cut: for example, the steady hi-hat eighth notes he plays throughout "Mind" and "Heaven." It's deliberately mechanical, but because the riffs are complexly intertwined and there's a solid backbeat, the repetition doesn't inspire Kraftwerk-style boredom or disco claustrophobia. Instead, there's a sense of time being held at bay.

Yet Byrne's vocals keep the music in the present tense. He sings like a Mouseketeer trapped in an endless anything-can-happen day: rattled, wide-eyed, quavery, breaking into glossolalia whenever he runs out of words. Sometimes he slides into sync with the other members of the band, sometimes he dithers above them in lunatic abandon. Though his cohorts play like an efficient machine, David Byrne maintains the beauty of human error.

Last year's More Songs about Buildings and Food signaled that the group, on its second album, had perfected its tech-mech music. The LP was a manic, oddly funky, hard-edged, catchy masterpiece. On Fear of Music, Talking Heads take that style and proceed to torture-test it under every distortion they and co-producer Brian Eno can devise. "Animals," with its dissonance and odd meters (5/4 and 7/4), radically extends the band's musical vocabulary, while other liberties (the jumpy, angular countermelody in "Air," Tina Weymouth's off-the-beat bass line in "Mind") are infiltrated into the more "normal"-sounding numbers. And the new record is programmed to emphasize its most ominous cuts: it opens with "I Zimbra," winds up side one with "Memories Can't Wait," and closes side two with "Animals," "Electric Guitar" and "Drugs." Whereas More Songs about Buildings and Food was crisp and outgoing, Fear of Music is often deliberately, brilliantly disorienting. Like its black, corrugated packaging (which resembles a manhole cover), the album is foreboding, inescapably urban and obsessed with texture.

Fear of Music is Talking Heads' most elaborate production so far, teeming with overdubs and effects the group doesn't try to reproduce in concert. Sounds emerge out of nowhere, echoes tangle the beat, instrumental timbres form unholy alloys. For the LP's spookiest tune, "Memories Can't Wait," the mix is as murky as a film-noir interior. Byrne's vocal is echoed, reverbed, tape-reversed and dizzyingly sped up while he sings about an endless "party in my mind." In the final verse, when suddenly "Everything is very quiet," his voice slips out front, the key changes and the echoes slink away. It's hardly subtle, but it works.

"Drugs" is a radical reworking of a song the band had been performing live and calling "Electricity." Onstage, "Electricity" was an easygoing, almost countryish, guitar-vamp number. On Fear of Music, Eno and Talking Heads eliminate the vamp, reverse the beat, stick a bell on every downbeat (like Jimmy Cliff's "Sitting in Limbo"), change some lyrics, rewrite the bridge in a different key and fill the hole left by the vamp with echoes and strange noises, including slow breathing, garbled voices and — just when the tune threatens to get too serious — what sounds like a bullfrog croak.
Though New Wave conservatives may be appalled at such elaborate studio tinkering, the songs don't suffer a bit. They're not sweetened — they're seasoned. In "Mind," Byrne double-tracks his vocals in ragged octaves on the chorus (which is inspired: e.g., "I need something to change your mind"), ostensibly making it twice as plaintive. But all the while, a giddy, slapstick synthesizer line is busy cutting away any trace of sentiment.

For me, Fear of Music's least interesting track is the rock-disco-like "Life During Wartime," which sounds almost live. The problem isn't the production but the song itself. While "Life During Wartime" is both structurally and harmonically conventional, boasts a silly chorus lyric and even adds a conga player to the group, the tune's real trouble is that it lacks Talking Heads' usual counterpoint. On the other hand, some of the words are arresting: "I got three passports, a couple of visas/You don't even know my real name."

Byrne has drastically shifted his verbal approach for Fear of Music. In his lyrics for earlier records, he let himself be self-conscious: he'd observe, analyze and make judgments. His new lyrics virtually eliminate abstraction — he doesn't consider, he feels. There's very little past and no future, just a jumble of sensations as if it's all he can do to handle right now. The songs are invariably in the first person and mention very few outside characters: the singer's inner world is his last refuge.

This way lies solipsism perhaps. But David Byrne's private, paranoid universe is dangerously close to yours and mine. "Cities," in which a homeless Byrne has to find himself "a city to live in," fades in with a riff and the sound of sirens. I'd played Fear of Music more than a dozen times before I realized that the sirens weren't outside my window.

The following review appeared in the August 18, 1979 issue of Billboard Magazine.

By far the groups strongest LP yet, this third album fully realizes the producing talents of Brian Eno and the lyrical/musical abilities of the art rock new wave band. The sensuous subtle rhythms applied sparingly in the past as in "Take Me To The River" and "Psycho Killer," predominate here with "I Zimbra" and "Mind" merging into disco though they are plainly avant-garde. The centerpiece is "Life During Wartime, a chilling account of what life in the US may be like in the next war. Despite more commercial instrumentation, David Byrne's vocals and lyrics can be as obtuse and irritating as ever.
Best Cuts: "Life During Wartime," "Mind," "Air," "I Zimbra."
Dealers: Last LP went top 30 and produced a top 39 single with Takee Me To The River."

Talking Heads (1979) 

From left to right: Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz, David Byrne, Jerry Harrison

Link to “Fear Of Music” (Click Here)

TALKING HEADS

Dean Friedman- Dean Friedman (1977)

“Dean Friedman” by Dean Friedman (1977)

Release Date: April 1977
Produced by Rob Stevens
Genre: Pop, Rock, Ballads, Adult Contemporary
Label: Lifesong

Chart Positions: N/A
Certifications: N/A
Awards: N/A

Singles and Chart Positions: 
“Ariel” #26 (US), #19 (Canada, New Zealand), #47 (Scotland)
“Woman Of Mine” #52 (UK), #47 (Scotland)
Singles Certifications: N/A
Other Charting Tracks: N/A

Best Tracks: “Company,” “Ariel,” “Woman Of Mine,” “Humor Me”

“Dean Friedman” by Dean Friedman (Click Here) 

Trivia: Dean Friedman is one of those artists that pretty much has gone unnoticed by the masses but has maintained a healthy enough audience to continue releasing albums into this current decade and perform a steady stream of concerts to this very day.

Dean’s popularity began with the hit single “Ariel,” it was the first of two hits from Friedman's eponymous debut LP, Dean Friedman. "Ariel," however, was his only hit in North America. It reached number 26 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, number 17 on the Cash Box Top 100 and number 19 in Canada. The song spent 22 weeks on the Billboard chart and 24 weeks on Cash Box.

"Ariel" has been described as a "quirkily irresistible and non-categorical pop song about a free spirited, music loving, vegetarian Jewish girl", from Paramus, New Jersey, where Friedman grew up. The lyrics describe the young girl from "deep in the bosom of suburbia," who sang "mighty fine," with "'Tears on My Pillow' and 'Ave Maria'" perhaps implying that he was Roman Catholic. It describes the girl Ariel, "standing by the [since dismantled] waterfall at Paramus Park", one of the many shopping malls in Paramus. The quarters she was collecting for "the friends of BAI" refers to the New York radio station WBAI, and their listener association, while the song also makes reference to "channel 2," which refers to local CBS affiliate WCBS-TV.
Chicago radio superstation WLS, which gave the song much airplay, ranked "Ariel" as the 60th most popular hit of 1977. It reached as high as number four on their survey of August 20, 1977.

Lifesong, the record label which produced "Ariel" insisted Friedman change the song's second verse, which refers to the eponymous Ariel as "a Jewish girl", believing that radio stations might use it as an excuse not to play the record. The third verse was also removed to make the single shorter for radio. The management company received threats from the Jewish Defense League protesting against the edit and, at Friedman's insistence; the original version was put on the album.

"Ariel" (1977)

“Woman Of Mine” a more serious adult contemporary tune was Friedman’s first chart appearance in the UK reaching #52 and also scored on the charts in Scotland at #47. The song combines acoustic guitar with a super-smooth classic rock styled electric guitar solo in the middle of the song. Many that have heard this song have felt the song should have been a top ten hit.

“Humor Me,” an album standout is described by Dean Friedman as a love song for hopeless romantics. The song blends an irresistible combination of acoustic guitar and electric keyboards with an understated backing vocal chorus. The song is somewhat similar to a Michael Franks tune.

Here's a little lesser known trivia... Tony Levin, who is best known for playing electric bass with famous musicians such as King Crimson and Peter Gabriel as well as contributing to more than 500 albums for artists such as Paul Simon, Cher, Alice Cooper, Bryan Ferry, Seal, James Taylor and Carly Simon, also performed electric bass on Dean's first two albums.

Dean Friedman 1977

Link to “Dean Friedman” (Click Here) 

DEAN FRIEDMAN

Tanya Tucker - TNT (1978)

“TNT” by Tanya Tucker (1978)

Release Date: November 1978
Produced by Jeff Goldstein
Genre: Country, Country Rock, Rock, Pop
Label: MCA

Chart Positions: #54 (US), #52 (Canada), #2 (US Country, Canada Country)
Certifications: Gold (US, Canada)
Awards: Nominated for the “Best Female Rock Performance” Grammy Award (Donna Summer won the award that year)

Singles and Chart Positions: “Texas (When I Die)” #3 (Canada Country), #5 (US Country), “I’m The Singer, You’re The Song #6 (Canada Country), #18 (US Country), #25 (Canada Adult Contemporary)
 Singles Certifications: N/A
Other Charting Tracks: “Not Fade Away” #70 (US)
Best Tracks: “Not Fade Away,” “Lover Goodbye,” “Angel From Montgomery,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Bown Eyed Handsome Man,” “Texas (When I Die)”

“TNT” by Tanya Tucker (Click Here)

“TNT” was Tanya Tucker’s 9th studio album and was her first to be certified Gold in both the US and Canada. The album also received a Grammy nomination in the category of "Best Female Rock Performance." This was Tanya's third of 10 Grammy nominations. She has yet to win a Grammy.

With “TNT” Tucker made a bold departure from her classic country music style to do a more rock-flavored album – but for good measure kept a slight hint of that country there for her longtime fans. The departure proved to be extremely successful for Tucker as the album is her second highest charting on the US Country chart and her highest charting on the Canadian Country chart. The album was also her highest charting on the US Billboard Top 200 albums chart reaching #54. Only 1991’s “What Do I Do With Me” and 1992’s “Can’t Run From Yourself” have charted higher reaching #48 and #51 respectively. IN Canada “TNT” is Tucker’s highest charting album on the pop charts reaching #52. It was also her first album to make it onto the Canadian Country charts.

Because of the success of “TNT” Tucker followed the album with 1979’s “Tear Me Apart,” another rock-influenced album but captured much less success and by 1980 returned to her country music roots.

Featuring a playful somewhat flirtatious exuberant attitude from Tanya, "TNT was in many ways her coming of age album. She had just turned 20 a month before it's release and was ready to prove she was more than just a cute country music sweetheart.

The album opens with Phil Everly’s synth drum rocker “Lover Goodbye” and sets the mood for the album. Her remake of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” is a beautiful southern rock ballad. Prine wrote and recorded this song for his 1971 debut album “John Prine.” Seals and Crofts helped on backing vocals on the ballad “The River and The Wind.”

The album’s first single “Texas (When I Die)” was the only true country number on the album. The song peaked at #5 on the US country chart and with time has become one of Tucker’s signature songs.

Tucker’s rendition of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” is a real scorching treat. The song was released as the b-side to “Texas (When I Die).” Receiving a fair amount of radio airplay and fan requests it ended up charting on Billboard’s Top 100 Singles chart reaching #70, making it the third highest charting pop single of her career.

Not Fade Away (1978)

Easily one of the album highlights is her rockin’ rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” why they did not release this as a single is a mystery to me. Tucker puts in a flavorful rockabilly rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man.” The song was originally released on Chuck Berry’s 1957 debut album “After School Session” and was used as the b-side to his 1956 single “Too Much Monkey Business.”

Often "TNT" sounds as if Tanya's aim was to crack the AOR radio format and would have done well alongside the queens of AOR such as Pat Benatar, Linda Ronstadt and Anne & Nancy Wilson (Heart).

Link to “TNT” (Click Here)

TANYA TUCKER (1978)

TANYA TUCKER

J. Geils Band - Sanctuary (1978)

“Sanctuary” by J. Geils Band (1978)

Release Date: November 1978
Produced by Seth Justman, Joseph Wissert
Genre: Rock, Classic Rock
Label: EMI

Chart Positions: #49 (US), #53 (Canada)
Certifications: Gold (US)
Awards: N/A

Singles and Chart Positions: 
“One Last Kiss” #6 (France), #35 (US), #58 (Canada), #74 (UK)
“Take It Back” #67 (US), #94 (Canada)
“Sanctuary #47 (US)

 Singles Certifications: N/A
Other Charting Tracks: N/A
Best Tracks: “One Last Kiss,” “Take It Back,” “Sanctuary,” “Wild Man,” “Just Can’t Stop Me”

“Sanctuary” by J. Geils Band (Click Here)

“Sanctuary” was J. Geils Band’s 8th studio album (10th album overall including live albums). It was their first to have 3 songs make it on to the US singles chart. After having achieved success with Atlantic Records, J. Geils Band switched over to EMI to produce their three most successful albums of their career.

“Sanctuary” was the band’s tightest sounding record in years. They produced a leaner and cleaner sound as they play up the keyboards more than in their past albums, giving the album an overall contemporary sound.

The first single release “One Last Kiss,” although not their highest charting hit, received a fair amount of airplay and put J. Geils Band in the minds of music listeners across the US. The hooky hit single was their first Top 40 since 1974’s “Must Of Got Lost.”

The second single “Take It Back” hints at what was to come in 1981 when J. Giles Band entered the realm of commercial pop and had their biggest hits with “Centerfold” and “Freeze Frame,” “Take It Back” was a very distant prototype for those songs.

“Sanctuary,” the album’s third single just barely missed the Top 40 making it to #47 on the US chart. The song sports a Rolling Stone feel that is inescapable. This may have been a good direction to further explore.

Stand out track “Wild Man” continues with that Mick Jagger Rolling Stones vibe and begins with a dramatic keyboard opening. “Just Can’t Stop Me” brings in a glam feel with it’s “Rebel Rebel” sounding opening working into a rough jam band sound.

J. Geils Band

Link to “Sanctuary” (Click Here)

J. GEILS BAND

Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)

“Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” by Bruce Springsteen (1973)

Release Date: January 5, 1973
Produced by Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos
Genre: Rock, Heartland Rock, Folk Rock, Classic Rock
Label: Columbia

Chart Positions: #35 (Sweden), #41 (UK), #60 (US), #71 (Australia), #181 (Japan)
Certifications: 2xPlatinum (US), Gold (Australia), Silver (UK)
Awards: N/A

Singles and Chart Positions: 
“Blinded By The Light” (No chart data)
“Spirit In The Night” (no chart data)
 Singles Certifications: N/A
Other Charting Tracks: N/A

Best Tracks: All Tracks – Solid album from beginning to end

“Greetings From Asbury Park N.J.” by Bruce Springsteen (Click Here)

Trivia: This is where it all started for Bruce Springsteen. It was a humble start as the album only made it to #60 in the US and #41 in the UK. But the critics loved him as they called him a “daring new artists” with comparisons to Bob Dylan. It would take another 2 ½ years, with the release of “Born To Run,” before the public realized the genius of Bruce Springsteen.

Springsteen and his first manager Mike Appel recorded the album at the low-priced, out-of-the-way 914 Sound Studios to save as much as possible of the Columbia Records advance and cut most of the songs in a single week.

There was a dispute not long after the record was recorded—Appel and John Hammond preferred the solo tracks, while Springsteen preferred the band songs. As such, a compromise was reached—the album was to have five songs with the band ("For You", "Growin' Up", "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?" "It's Hard to be a Saint in the City", and "Lost in the Flood") and five solo songs ("Mary Queen of Arkansas", "The Angel", "Jazz Musician", "Arabian Nights", and "Visitation at Fort Horn").

However, when Columbia Records president Clive Davis heard the album, he felt that it lacked a hit single. As such, Springsteen wrote and recorded "Blinded by the Light" and "Spirit in the Night". Because pianist David Sancious and bassist Garry Tallent were unavailable to record these songs, a three-man band was used—Vini Lopez on drums, Springsteen on guitar, bass, and piano, and the previously missing Clarence Clemons on saxophone. These two songs bumped "Jazz Musician", "Arabian Nights", and "Visitation at Fort Horn", leaving a total of seven band songs and two solo songs. The album was originally slated to be released in the fall of 1972, but it was moved back to early 1973 to avoid the pre-Christmas crush.

Both "Blinded by the Light" and "Spirit in the Night" were released as singles by Columbia, but neither reached the US charts. Manfred Mann's Earth Band released a version of "Blinded by the Light" on their album The Roaring Silence, which reached #1 on both Billboard's Hot 100 and the Canadian RPM chart. This recording of "Blinded by the Light" is Springsteen's only number one single as a songwriter on the Hot 100. His best showing on the Hot 100 as a performer was in 1984, with "Dancing in the Dark", which peaked at number two for 4 weeks.[4] Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. first charted in the United Kingdom on June 15, 1985, in the wake of Springsteen's Born in the USA tour arriving in Britain; it remained in the top 100 for ten weeks.

According to Springsteen, “Blinded By The Light” came about from going through a rhyming dictionary in search of appropriate words. The first line of the song, "Madman drummers, bummers, and Indians in the summers with a teenage diplomat" is autobiographical—"Madman drummers" is a reference to drummer Vini Lopez, known as "Mad Man" (later changed to "Mad Dog"); "Indians in the summer" refers to the name of Springsteen's old Little League team; "teenage diplomat" refers to himself. The remainder of the song tells of many unrelated events, with the refrain of "Blinded by the light, cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night".

"Blinded by the Light" was the first song on, and first single from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Springsteen's version was commercially unsuccessful and did not appear on the music charts.

Manfred Mann's Earth Band's recording of the song changes the lyrics. The most prominent change is in the chorus, where Springsteen's "cut loose like a deuce" is replaced with "revved up like a deuce." This is commonly misheard as "wrapped up like a douche" (the V sound in "revved" is almost unpronounced, and the S sound in "deuce" comes across as "SH" due to a significant lisp). Springsteen himself has joked about the controversy, claiming that it was not until Manfred Mann rewrote the song to be about a feminine hygiene product that it became popular.

Blinded by the Light (1973)

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band also released their version of “Spirit In The Night” which made it to #40 on the US Billboard singles chart. The song was originally featured on their 1975 album “Nightingales and Bombers” and was released as a single to moderate success. After the huge success of “Blinded By The Light”, they re-recorded the and rereleased as a single in 1977.

Although "Spirit in the Night" was one of the last songs written for the album, it did grow out of an earlier version of the song that Springsteen had played live prior to receiving his recording contract. The lyrics themselves describe a group of teenagers — Wild Billy, Hazy Davy, Crazy Janey, Killer Joe, G-Man and Mission Man, who is the person in the song telling the story — going to a spot called "Greasy Lake" near "Route 88" for a night of freedom, sex, and drinking. But their escape to the freedom of Greasy Lake is short-lived, the emphasis is on the friends' togetherness. The lyrics of the song echo the Crazy Jane poems of Irish poet William Butler Yeats.
The follow-up album to “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.,” “The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle,” features a song entitled "Wild Billy's Circus Story".

In an attempt to capitalize on the success of “Blinded By The Light” and to a lesser degree “Spirit In The Night,” Manfred Mann’s Earth Band” recorded and released a third song, “For You,” from “Greetings For Asbury N.J.” They only made it to #106 in 1981 with the song.

The lyrics of “For You” are about a woman who has attempted suicide. She does not need the singer's "urgency" even though her life is "one long emergency" as Springsteen sings in the chorus (along with "and your cloud line urges me, and my electric surges free"). The singer is committed to doing anything to save her and admires her ability to hang on. Once again, the lyrics are evocative of images and not details.

The following review was written by Lester Bangs for the July 5, 1973 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine:

Remember P.F. Sloan? Sure you do. It was back when every folk rocker worth his harmonica holder was flushed with Dylan fever and seeing how many syllables he could cram into every involuted couplet. There was Tandyn Almer, of "Along Comes Mary" fame ("The psychodramas and the traumas hung on the scars of the stars in the bars and cars" -- something like that), and David Blue had his own Highway 61 too, but absolutely none of 'em could beat 'ol P.F. He started out writing surf songs, but shook the world by the throat with his masterpieces "Eve of Destruction" and "Sins of a Family," and all his best material was just brimming with hate.

Boy howdy, the first thing the world needs is a P.F. Sloan for 1973, and you can start revving up yer adrenaline, kids, because he's here in the person of Bruce Springsteen. Old Bruce makes a point of letting us know that he's from one of the scuzziest, most useless and plain uninteresting sections of Jersey. He's been influenced a lot by the Band, his arrangements tend to take on a Van Morrison tinge every now and then, and he sort of catarrh-mumbles his ditties in a disgruntled mushmouth sorta like Robbie Robertson on Quaaludes with Dylan barfing down his neck. It's a tuff combination, but it's only the beginning.

Because what makes Bruce totally unique and cosmically surfeiting is his words. Hot damn, what a passel o' verbiage! He's got more of them crammed into this album than any other record released this year, but it's all right because they all fit snug, it ain't like Harry Chapin tearing right-angle malapropisms out of his larynx. What's more, each and every one of 'em has at least one other one here that it rhymes with. Some of 'em can mean something socially or otherwise, but there's plenty of 'em that don't even pretend to, reveling in the joy of utter crass showoff talent run amuck and totally out of control:

"Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat/In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat" begins the very first song, and after that things just keep getting more breathtakingly complicated. You might think it's some kinda throwback, but it's really bracing as hell because it's obvious that B.S. don't give a shit. He singshoots his random rivets at you and you can catch as many as you want or let 'em all clatter right off the wall which is maybe's where they belong anyway. Bruce Springsteen is a bold new talent with more than a mouthful to say, and one look at the pic on the back will tell you he's got the glam to go places in this Gollywoodlawn world to boot. Watch for him; he's not the new John Prine.

This review showed up in Billboard Magazine – February 1973

“The comparisons with Dylan as far as lyrics are concerned will be inevitable, but this new artist proves himself highly original and able to run the gamut from humorous to rather sad songs. Best cuts include "Blinded By The Light," "Growin' Up," "Lost In The Flood," "For You" and "Spirit In The Night." LP should gain strong play from FM stations.”

Bruce Springsteen (1973)

Link to “Greetings From Asbury Park N.J.” (Click Here)

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Joan Armatrading - Joan Armatrading (1976)

“Joan Armatrading” by Joan Armatrading (1976)

Release Date: September 1976
Produced by Glyn Johns
Genre: Rock, Pop, Folk-Rock, Blues
Label: A&M

Chart Positions: #11 (New Zealand), #12 (UK), #52 (Australia), #67 (US)
Certifications: Gold (UK, Canada)
Awards: N/A

Singles and Chart Positions: 
“Love And Affection” #10 (UK), #16 (Ireland)
“Down To Zero” (no chart data)
 Singles Certifications: N/A
Other Charting Tracks: N/A

Best Tracks: “Love and Affection,” “Water With The Wine,” “People,” “Join The Boys,” “Like Fire,” “Tall In The Saddle”

“Joan Armatrading” by Joan Armatrading (Click Here)

Trivia: “Joan Armatrading” is Joan’s third studio album and her first to chart anywhere in the world. This is the album that put Joan on the map. The album mixes acoustic work with jazz-influenced material and displays Joan’s range of interest in music. The album was a big hit in the UK reaching #12 accompanied with a Top 10 UK hit “Love and Affection.”

"Love and Affection" 1976

In 1976, Robin Denselow wrote in The Guardian that the album "showed that we now have a black artist in Britain with the same sort of vocal range, originality (in fact even greater originality in terms of musical influences) and lyrical sensitivity" as Joni Mitchell.

Producer Glyn Johns has produced albums for many greats including Steve Miller Band, Eagles, Humble Pie, The Who, Boz Scaggs, Eric Clapton and more. He helped launch Joan Armatrading’s career when he was hired on to produce this album. He remained with her on her next three albums.

Joan signed to A&M Records is 1972 but it wasn't until after A&M gained worldwide rights to Joan's music that they decided to pour a good amount of money and effort into promoting Joan. A 3 1/2 minute film clip of the singer/guitarist performing "Love and Affection." A&M spent an unprecedented nine months promoting Armatrading's self-titled album, which included magazine ads, television spots (such as an appearance on Saturday Night Live) and promo copies of the album sent to every music critic and concert promoter throughout the world as well as a few film clips one of which shows comments from reviews. A&M spent near $300,000 promoting the album before it was even released.

Up to this point, Armatrading had shown that she had a lovely voice and an ear for interesting arrangements, but her work had been steeped in the folk idiom of the early '70s. Her third album changed all that, with producer Glyn Johns bringing in members of Gallagher & Lyle, Fairport Convention, and the Faces to punch up her folksy sound with elements of rock, country, and disco. The result is her most muscular music to date, with Armatrading adopting a swagger that showed her tales of unluckiness in love didn't have to have dire consequences ("Tall in the Saddle," "Water With the Wine"). Of course, it helped that the record featured her best material delivered in a wonderfully expressive voice that can capture the shades between song and speech like a sweeter version of Ian Anderson. "Down to Zero" (which features pedal steel guitarist B.J. Cole) and "Love and Affection" are the album's most memorable tracks, the latter breaking into the U.K.'s Top Ten (the album itself made the U.K. Top 20). But what endears this record to fans is the quality of each song; it wouldn't be fair to call anything here filler. The artsy and eclectic "Like Fire," the beautiful ballad "Save Me," and the ingratiating melodies of "Somebody Who Loves You" are just as likely to strike a chord with listeners as the better-known cuts. While Glyn Johns deserves credit for bringing Joan Armatrading's songs into a more flattering setting -- it's not coincidental that the record feels like a polished version of The Who by Numbers -- his real stroke of genius was letting the artist flower to her full potential. For many, this album remains the high point in her catalog.

Joan Armatrading 

Link to “Joan Armatrading” (Click Here)

JOAN ARMATRADING

Linda Ronstadt - Living In The U.S.A. (1978)

“Living In The USA” by Linda Ronstadt (1978)

Release Date: September 19, 1978
Produced by Peter Asher
Genre: Rock, Classic Rock, Soft-Rock, Pop, R&B
Label: Asylum

Chart Positions: #1 (US), #3 (Australia, New Zealand), #9 (Canada), #19 (Netherlands, France), #23 (Japan), #37 (Sweden), #39 (UK), #3 (US Country Albums), #19 (Canadian Country Albums)
Certifications: 2xPlatinum (US), Gold (Hong Kong), Silver (UK)

Singles and Chart Positions: 
“Back In The USA” #8 (Canada), #11 (South Africa), #16 (US), 324 (New Zealand), #30 (US Adult Contemporary), #41 (US Country Songs), #43 (Canadian Country Songs)
“Ooh Baby, Baby” #6 (Canada), #7 (US), #10 (France), #2 (US Adult Contemporary), #26 (Canadian Adult Contemporary), #85 (US Country Songs)
“Just One Look” #45 (US), #46 (Canada), #4 (Canadian Country), #5 (US Adult Contemporary)
“Alison” #66 (UK), #30 (US Adult Contemporary)
“Love Me Tender” (Released in Europe – No Chart Data)
Singles Certifications: N/A
Other Charting Tracks: “Love Me Tender” (duet Elvis Presley and Linda Ronstadt) #59 (US Country Songs)

Best Tracks: All tracks – Entire album is solid from beginning to end

“Living In The USA” by Linda Ronstadt (Click Here) 

“Living in the USA” is the 9th studio album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt (her 12th if you count the three albums she released with The Stone Poneys). The album was Ronstadt's third No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and was the first album in history to ship Double Platinum. As a measure of her impact on popular culture in this time period, the front cover photograph of a roller skating Linda in a satin exercise outfit was noted to have increased the popularity of skating in the United States at the time. As People Magazine put it, “Anyone who gave Linda Ronstadt her first pair of roller skates deserves a place in this decade’s social history.”

It was Ronstadt's record sixth consecutive million-selling Platinum album. It was certified by the RIAA for 2 million copies sold in the US alone and has estimated real sales of 3 million US units sold.

“Living in the USA” was a smash hit even before it arrived in stores on Sept. 19, 1978. Given Ronstadt’s incredible streak of five million-selling albums, retailers couldn’t wait to pre-order the new disc; as a result, it reached the shelves as the first album in history to earn double-platinum status prior to its official release. And unlike certain other high-profile records that benefited from advance buzz, only to end up in the cutout bin, “Living in the USA” went on to dominate radio as well as retail sales.

The first hint of anything from the album happened on April 3, 1978 when Linda made an appearance for the premiere of the film FM she did a live performance of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender.” The song was not featured on the film’s soundtrack album but it did appear on Ronstadt’s upcoming album “Back In The USA.”

The album featured a mix of covers of proven hits and newer compositions by some of Ronstadt's favorite singers. Yet there were changes evident as well. For one, as the album's cover photo showed, Ronstadt had cut her trademark long hair and sported a short permed hairstyle. She also traded in her usual country-style dresses for hot pants, and her high heel shoes for roller skates.

In reference to the album cover Ronstadt said, "I remember I wanted to bring my roller skates into the studio. "My friend Nicolette Larson and I used to skate everywhere. She used to bring her skates into the studio because it was really big and she could skate around between takes. My studio wasn't that big. It had too much carpet, so I wanted them to take it out so I could skate."

While Ronstadt paid tribute to the King with a cover of "Love Me Tender," she also acknowledged the influence of the burgeoning British new wave movement by covering the other Elvis. "Allison" had first appeared on Elvis Costello's debut LP, My Aim Is True, and remains his best-known tune today. "I had a friend at the time and that song reminded me of her, so I sang it for her," Ronstadt says. "She was a really sweet girl, but kind of a party-girl type. I felt like she needed somebody to talk to her in a stern voice, because she was getting married and she would have to change." Ronstadt's version was released as a single in the U.K. but stalled at #66, and was dismissed in interviews by the acid-tongued Costello. Ronstadt commented, “I’ve never communicated with him directly, but I heard that someone asked him what he thought and he said he’d never heard it but that he’d be glad to get the money. So I sent him a message. ‘Send me some more songs, just keep thinking about the money.'” (Costello would ultimately end up contributing three songs to Ronstadt’s next album, 1980’s Mad Love.)

The album's first single, a remake of Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A," climbed to US #16. "Back in the U.S.A" was afforded its greatest impact when Linda Ronstadt remade the song in 1978. Ronstadt had heard the Berry original while being driven around Los Angeles by Eagles member Glenn Frey who had once been in her band, the track being on a "home-made" cassette Frey had playing in his tape deck. When 'Back in the U.S.A. came on Ronstadt said, “Boy that would be a great song to sing. I think I'll do that one."

"Back In The USA (1978)

A take of Doris Troy's "Just One Look" stalled at US #44, but Ronstadt wasn't happy with the recorded version. "It took me years to learn how to really sing that, but I could nail it now," she says, 15 years later.

The biggest hit from “Living in the USA” was Ronstadt's cover of Smokey Robinson's "Ooh Baby Baby," which climbed to US #7 and features alto sax by David Sanborn. "We used a live vocal from the rough mix," Ronstadt says. "We tried to go in and add things to it, but it never sounded as good as that live vocal."

Ronstadt is especially strong on her soulful cover of Little Feat’s “All That You Dream.” The song first appeared on Little Feat’s 1975 album titled “The Last Record Album.” Her soulful bluesy take of J.D Souther’s “White Rhythm and Blues” brings side one of the album to an inspiring close. Souther wrote this song for Ronstadt (he also wrote “Faithless Love” and “Heart Like A Wheel” for her). Souther later recorded “White Rhythm and Blues” for his 1979 hit album “You’re Only Lonely” as a duet with Phil Everly.

Although it was never released as a single, Linda Ronstadt's recording of "Love Me Tender" was edited together with the original by Elvis, creating a duet between the two that was played by many radio stations at the time. Elvis did the first verse alone, straight from his original recording, as Ronstadt didn't sing this verse on her version. It garnered enough airplay to chart at #59 on the US Country chart. Ray Quinn, program manager of radio station WCBM in Baltimore, dubbed together Elvis’s 1956 single and Ronstadt’s 1978 version. Although demand for the tape grew, no copies were made available to the public. A three-dollar bootleg single was made, however, on the Duet Label (Duet 101). The duet was inspired by the Barbra Streisand-Neil Diamond’s duet You Don’t Bring Me Flowers. Linda's version was in the same key as Elvis's record, and that would have made it easier for the record company to blend their voices together. There was some talk of recording additional instrumentation to smooth over the parts of the two recordings to give the impression it was just one recording. But that never came to be seen as RCA and Asylum could not agree on a contract for the release.

Billboard Magazine Review (September 1978)

Aside from being one of Linda Ronstadt's more perfect albums, this collection of 10 songs ranging from Hammerstein/Romberg's "When I Grow Too Old To Dream," to Elvis Costello's "Alison" provides a unique display of her vocal charm. The instrumentation, for the most part, is sparse, and it enables the special qualities of Ronstadt's voice to shine through. There are many moods portrayed here, including some husky ones that indicate maturity and a broadening taste, although Ronstadt has always chosen material beyond the merely popular. "All That You Dream" is a classic and could be her biggest song so far. Best cuts: "All That You Dream," "Back In The USA," "Mohammed's Radio," "Just One Look," "Love Me Tender," "Alison."

Link to “Living In The USA” (Click Here)

Linda Ronstadt (1978)

Linda Ronstadt (Rolling Stone Magazine 1978)

LINDA RONSTADT