Season 256 - At Seventeen

When I was 17, music accessibility was very different than what it is today. Most of the music I heard came from the radio, and because I lived in a smaller city, there was a limited choice of radio stations. There was a pop-rock station, a country station, and a college FM station that played deep cuts and b-sides that I would not normally hear. At 17, Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" was huge, but the local FM station also played the b-side to that single. Here's my take on it.

 
Oh my word, what a great theme! ... now I'm not shy about my age; I had good friends who weren't fortunate to make it to 60... so that's my take on birthdays. We're talking 50 years ago for me - 1967... and I was into my favourite British groups of the 60's, especially the Beatles... and the folk revival, going to folk clubs sometimes twice a week. I bought singles when I could afford; (still at school, not earning) and LOVED my record player - and Radio Luxemburg! Oh yes.... I must do something this week, whatever......
 
Blimey I'm actually beginning to feel quite young here at the tender age of 50 !! ;)
 
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Harry122 & Uke1950 have both already commented on the few radio stations being the main source of music. It was for me too. But even in '77/'78 we really only had BBC Radio 1 (mostly pop, with a few deeper shows in the evenings - hurray for John Peel!), and a few commercial stations (same songs but with adverts). Radio Luxembourg faded in and out on AM/Medium Wave, but still only played the chart stuff. However, on a ship somewhere off the East coast, Radio Caroline, the last surviving pirate station, played a whole lot more. Album tracks. Heavier bands who never got a look-in on mainstream radio, and tracks longer than the regulation three minutes.

"Remember when you were young..."

 
At 17 I made the transition from high school to college and as Randy and Graham and Steve have said, radio was huge those days. By sheer accident in high school I ran across Jethro Tull, Yes, and ELP. But when I got to college, WQDR was the hot FM station, one of the first to play what was called "album-oriented rock." (The college station at Duke University was more freeform, so you could hear Mose Allison or Joan Baez or Ry Cooder.) The WQDR station programmer was the famous/infamous Lee Abrams, and a whole new world of music opened to me. I recall hearing the black/white Fleetwood Mac LP and grabbing everything I could by the band, only to be surprised a bit. (But I grew to love Peter Green and Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch.) Also, Pink Floyd. Even the Syd Barrett material (though my sister thought I was soooo weird for listening to it). So from the Floyd album that was all the rage in 1975, and deservedly so, my very very basic take on the title cut.

 
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Ha! Steve posts from WYWH at the same time I'm loading mine! Great minds, or something ...
 
At the age of Seventeen my musical horizons started to spread out. I started attending coffee houses and concerts at local venues. One such concert featured a young woman by the name of Bonnie Raitt. She was a talented musician who had taken up studying the Blues with the Old Masters, like Mississippi Fred McDowell. and Sippie Wallace. I liked what I heard. Still do!

 
Research? Pah!

So, this afternoon I diligently went through the (British Top 40) singles charts for the entire 52 weeks between my 17th & 18th birthdays. I remember 1972 as being almost unmitigated dross: it was the era of glam rock Little Jimmy Osmond was #1 for something like 7 weeks :eek: and it seemed like whenever he wasn't in the charts, Donny or David (Cassidy) were sure to pop up and fill the gap.

But it turns out, my jaundiced teenage memories had filtered out quite a lot of good stuff, which I present to you below:
Code: 
Singles April 30-1972 May 05-1973 
Heart of Gold
Hold your head up
Tumbling Dice
Rocket man
Back Off Boogaloo
Metal Guru
Stir It Up
Lady Eleanor
California Man
Supersonic Rocket Ship
Oh Girl
Rock & Roll (G Glitter)

I've been lonely for so long
Take me back 'ome
I can see clearly now
Silver Machine
School's Out
Starman
You wear it well
Layla
I'm still in love with you 

Virginia Plain
Mama weer all crazee now
All the young dudes
Sugar me
Suzanne Beware Of The Devil
Long cool woman (in a black dress)
Honky Cat
Wig-wam Bam
Children of the Revolution
John, I'm only dancing
I'll take you there
Little Willy
American Trilogy
Burlesque (family)
In a Broken Dream
My Ding-a-ling
Crocodile Rock
There are more questions than answers
Here I go again
Angel/What Made Milwaukee Famous
Stay with me
I don't believe in miracles
Gudbye to Jane
Ventura Highway
Solid Gold Easy Action
Can't Keep it In

Merry Christmas/War is Over
The Jean Genie
Always on my mind
Ball Park Incident

Wishing Well

Me & Mrs Jones

Paper Plane, Mean Girl

Papa was a rolling stone

Do you wanna touch?

Daniel

Blockbuster

Whisky in the Jar

Part Of The Union

You're So Vain

Feel the need in me
Superstition

Cindy Incidentally

Cum On Feel The Noize

The Look Of Love

Love Train

20th Century Boy

Why can't we live together

God gave rock and roll to you
Hello I'm back again
My Love
Drive-In Saturday

Brother Louie

Could it be I'm falling in love
See my baby jive

At the age of 16, I'd managed to persuade my parents, who regarded rock'n'roll as the devil's music, to allow me to purchase a 2nd-hand record player. Getting the player was only the first hurdle. _Every_ record I purchased had to be smuggled into the house, and long lectures were sure to follow if I was caught in the act.
Still, I can remember my first two albums were the Faces' 'Long Player' and Fleetwood Mac's (Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac) 'Greatest Hits'. The first single I bought was Neil Young's 'Heart of Gold'.

I also went through all the albums that featured the in British Album charts top 50 in 1972-3. I know for sure I had acquired at least the first 15 or so by my 18th birthday, but apart from the Stones' compilations, Nashville Skyline and the Beatles albums (non-compilation), all these albums came out in between May 1972 and May 1973
Code: 
Albums 
Dark Side of the Moon
Never a Dull Moment, Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells A Story
Long Player,  A nod's as good as a wink..., Ooh-la-la
Teaser and the Firecat
Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits
Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano Player
Milestones, High Tide & Green Grass
Beatles Red & Blue albums, Sgt Pepper's, Abbey Road, Let It Be
Nashville Skyline
Simon & Garfunkel's  Greatest Hits

Exile on Main St, 
Meaty Beaty, Big & Bouncy
After the Goldrush
Ziggy Stardust

Talking Book
Super Fly
Transformer

But then I looked round and realised, I needn't have done all this research at all. I'd bought the sheet music to these four tunes back in 1972 - and I've hung onto them ever since! So, pretty obvious what I'll be covering this week!! :)
1972.jpg
 
I must have still been half-whacked on cold medicine yesterday because I looked up a bunch of songs and then looked back at the list again this morning and realized I had looked up songs from 1977 when I should have been looking at 1981!:wtf:

Anyway, I will definitely get something done this week but I have to give my voice a few more days to recover. I'm pretty hoarse today.
 
jimavery said:
I reckon Philip Larkin has the answer.
Click to expand...

Just a year out. I was 17 at the end of 1961 so most of 1962

Love Me Do was actually released in 1962 but it didn't make much impact. I remember there was opinion that this was something different and well in the next year they really began to take off. My father was with the RAF in the Persian Gulf at that time and I spent the summer of 1963 there. When I left I Please Please Me and From Me To You had been hits but over that summer, the Beatles really took off and when I came back to the UK in the late Autumn, having failed to get into University that year, I was staggered just how big they had become over that time. The rest was history as they say.

Talking about getting music over the Radio when I was 17, the only commercial Radio Station we could get was Radio Luxembourg which transmitted in English on the Medium Wave in the evening but reception was distinctly iffy. Apart from that there was the BBC and they were pretty stuffed shirt in those days though they did feature some pop music but it was pretty limited. We got most of our music via Radio Luxembourg and by pooling our record purchases. It was the days of the Dansette Record Player here.
 
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Tootler said:
Just a year out. I was 17 at the end of 1961 so most of 1962

Love Me Do was actually released in 1962 but it didn't make much impact. I remember there was opinion that this was something different and well in the next year they really began to take off. My father was with the RAF in the Persian Gulf at that time and I spent the summer of 1963 there. When I left I Please Please Me and From Me To You had been hits but over that summer, the Beatles really took off and when I came back to the UK in the late Autumn, having failed to get into University that year, I was staggered just how big they had become over that time. The rest was history as they say.

Talking about getting music over the Radio when I was 17, the only commercial Radio Station we could get was Radio Luxembourg which transmitted in English on the Medium Wave in the evening but reception was distinctly iffy. Apart from that there was the BBC and they were pretty stuffed shirt in those days though they did feature some pop music but it was pretty limited. We got most of our music via Radio Luxembourg and by pooling our record purchases. It was the days of the Dansette Record Player here.
Click to expand...



:cool:
 
Well here is one I would have so loved to have been able to play when I was 17 and I was trying to get it right at the time.
Written by a good friend, (Dr) Robert Wolfgram, a very talented guy. He had also co-written a beaut piece of musical theatre on the end days of Christ called Threedom in which my dad and brother performed - I tried out for the song sung by Herod but there was no way I was confident enough to carry it off so someone else got to do it.
This is one of Bob's very early songs but still a fav.
I think one of Dr Wolfgram's recent achievements is the translation of the King James Bible into Fijian.

 
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BOY WAS I AN ASS AT SEVENTEEN!!!! That said, I was worse at fifteen and sixteen and by the time I hit seventeen I was transitioning away from music that was intended solely to piss my parents off to something that had a little more merit. As every kid who listens to the punk rock shows on the college radio will tell you, there will come a time when you are going to hear the late night reggae show and be either completely repelled or totally enamoured.
I was enamoured. Old Ska, Rocksteady, and Skinhead Reggae are still my favorite thing to listen too even though 1989 becomes cloudier and cloudier a memory.
I know this was not written in 1989 (it was 68 or 69), there was little of any merit to be found on the radio that year (at least in my opinion)...
That said, I may drop Pump Up The Jam on you all later. For now- Reggae
 
uke1950 said:
Now that I think about it, most of mine was heard on the radio too, it was the time of 'pirate radio' stations. :)
Click to expand...

OMG the memories! I went to prom with a guy who ran a 'pirate radio' station and we had to leave early because the FCC had caught him out and was raiding his station. We had great radio stations in Chicago. I mostly listened to WLS- like some of you other folks radio was my main musical window. That and vinyl records. CDs hadn't been invented yet lol!
 
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But, but, but......it's only 7:42 on Sunday in HI! Guess I'm a BUTT :)

Seventeen was an odd age. Grown but not. Half in High School, half not and working at the Navy Base in San Bruno, CA. Plus (shhh...don't tell, I was closet Country!). Wait...even I don't know anyone from when I was 17! Never mind!
 
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Great theme Steve - I love the way this theme promotes unique and personal responses from the contributors. Excellent idea!

At seventeen (1978-'79) I was into hard rock like Blue Oyster Cult and Led Zeppelin but I was also into Punk and “New Wave”, and even more incongruously, Prog. I probably won’t have time to do a track representative of each of these genres, but I hope to get at least one more in when Borfus comes to rehearse on Thursday.

For a track representative of my “Punk/New Wave” favorites at age seventeen here’s "Warning Sign" by Talking Heads, for concert ukulele with singing, and Ubass overdub (there's an extra tiny bit of secondary vocal in there as well):



My “Uke-Lear Destruction” CD (see link below to free listen/download) is a whole record of Punk and New Wave classics for ukulele and Ubass
 
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