American Pie-Don McClean
I am Woman-Helen Reddy
Give Peace a Chance-John Lennon
Imagine-John Lennon
Stairway to Heaven-Led Zepplin
Bridge Over Troubled Water-Simon and Garfunkel
Proud Mary-Creedence Clearwater Revival (even though it was recorded in 1969-but Ike and Tina Turner redid it in '71)
Staying Alive-BeeGees (defined the Disco craze)
Dancing Queen-Abba (also defined the Disco craze)
Dreams-Fleetwood Mac
I will Survive-Gloria Gaynor
Killing Me Softly With His Song-Roberta Flack
You Got a Friend-Carole King or James Taylor


I know there is more than 10 and there are probably more but that is a list that I could pull together fairly quickly.



Cat

Cat, You have several songs, most notably "Killing me softly" that I also considered for my list....good job by the way

Cat, You have several songs, most notably "Killing me softly" that I also considered for my list....good job by the way



Thanks. I like some of your choices too. "I Like to Teach the World to Sing" definatelly defines the 70s. I had forgotten that when I posted my list. And "Freebird" I would put with "Stairway to Heaven".

"Ohio" is a very powerful song when you understand the meaning behind it-the Kent State Massacre. I also thought about "Woodstock" (yes, that was Joni Mitchell as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young) but I think that more defined the 60s even though the song came out in the 70s. I was thinking of "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell but decided not to include it.  I'm sure my list is going to grow.



Cat

Thanks. I like some of your choices too. "I Like to Teach the World to Sing" definitely defines the 70s. I had forgotten that when I posted my list. And "Freebird" I would put with "Stairway to Heaven".

"Ohio" is a very powerful song when you understand the meaning behind it-the Kent State Massacre. I also thought about "Woodstock" (yes, that was Joni Mitchell as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young) but I think that more defined the 60s even though the song came out in the 70s. I was thinking of "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell but decided not to include it.  I'm sure my list is going to grow.



Cat

"I'd like to teach the world to sing" and "one tin soldier" are the two songs that not only take me back, but make me pine for those days......"Peace on earth...........was all it said"

"I'd like to teach the world to sing" and "one tin soldier" are the two songs that not only take me back, but make me pine for those days......"Peace on earth...........was all it said"



I LOVE "One Tin Soldier". I think I remember all the words-haven't heard it in YEARS (possibly decades).


Cat

I LOVE "One Tin Soldier". I think I remember all the words-haven't heard it in YEARS (possibly decades).


Cat

I can't believe I forgot Elton John and the "goodbye yellow brick road album"........wow, research this one a little Josh.......certainly one the cornerstones of that era

You guys ROCK!! Thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions. Most of the songs I have heard of, and I would agree with you as to their importance, but some songs I haven't heard of, and those are the ones I'm excited about getting to know. :)

thanks--Josh

You guys ROCK!! Thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions. Most of the songs I have heard of, and I would agree with you as to their importance, but some songs I haven't heard of, and those are the ones I'm excited about getting to know. :)

thanks--Josh
Glad to help...let us know how it goes ;)

You guys ROCK!! Thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions. Most of the songs I have heard of, and I would agree with you as to their importance, but some songs I haven't heard of, and those are the ones I'm excited about getting to know. :)

thanks--Josh


Glad to help. Just out of curiosity, which ones haven't you heard of?



Cat

Just thought of a couple influential Motown cuts from the early 70's:

War - by Edwin Starr
What's Goin' On - Marvin Gaye

These songs seemed influential.

The Rubberban Man!!!

Sorry it took me so long to respond, but in answer to Cat's post I had never heard of "One Tin Soldier" before, or the Billy Jack movies for that matter. Also, I had never heard of Ohio. Thanks for the knowledge.

Also, I had another question for you guys. What factors do you think lead to the decline and ultimately the death of disco??

And, how do you think the emergence of early R and B like Marvin Gaye and Al Green influenced modern music??

Cant wait to hear from you.

Josh ;)

Also, I had another question for you guys. What factors do you think lead to the decline and ultimately the death of disco??

And, how do you think the emergence of early R and B like Marvin Gaye and Al Green influenced modern music??


IMO, the proliferation of disco combined with inferior quality songs becoming big hits made many listeners unhappy, plus it pushed other forms of music out to the background.  Listeners revolted, and the industry responded.

The early R and B and Soul music was extremely influential.  The influence started way back in the 50s and 60s and its natural extension continued into the 70s.  Disco hurt, because the Soul style did not always fit into the "disco" mold, and stations and stores that normally carried Soul music became overrun with Disco.  Soul  artists that did not embrace Disco all of a sudden found their music harder to sell because of it.

Sorry it took me so long to respond, but in answer to Cat's post I had never heard of "One Tin Soldier" before, or the Billy Jack movies for that matter. Also, I had never heard of Ohio. Thanks for the knowledge.

Also, I had another question for you guys. What factors do you think lead to the decline and ultimately the death of disco??

And, how do you think the emergence of early R and B like Marvin Gaye and Al Green influenced modern music??

Cant wait to hear from you.

Josh ;)



If by modern music you mean Rock-n-Roll, it is claimed by many artists to have had an enormous influence on their music, but I don't think there is any one description that would satisfy the question, artists are what they are because of their individual natures, making the influence of R&B on each artists music just as different for each one individually, as the sound they produced was quite different from one another.......

As for Disco, to me it was a fad that suffered from the same malady most fads suffer from, a thing I like to refer to as, the "month of March" syndrome......came in like a lion and went out like a lamb....for me disco wasn't without it's moments or its merits, but I really did just prefer that "Old time rock-n-roll" and in the end I think discos demise was nothing more than substance over style.....It lived hard fast and died young.....how many "classic disco" stations are there?

LYRICS FOR "ONE TIN SOLDIER"

One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)
by Lambert-Potter, sung by Coven

Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.

On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They'd have it for their very own.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there."

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Now the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses! Draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.

Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Sorry it took me so long to respond, but in answer to Cat's post I had never heard of "One Tin Soldier" before, or the Billy Jack movies for that matter. Also, I had never heard of Ohio. Thanks for the knowledge.

Also, I had another question for you guys. What factors do you think lead to the decline and ultimately the death of disco??

And, how do you think the emergence of early R and B like Marvin Gaye and Al Green influenced modern music??

Cant wait to hear from you.

Josh ;)





First of all, I want to thank Frank for posting the lyric to One Tin Soldier. It really is a very powerful song. (Yes, I was singing it as I was reading them)


To answer your questions.

Music has a tendency of always evolving and meshing styles. In the early part of the 20th century, there were a few forms of music: Gospel and Ragtime just to name a few. Somehow they meshed and evolved into jazz and bluegrass. The gospel/bluegrass evolved into country and the gospel/ragtime/jazz evolved into R&B. But then it evolved once again into something called rock-n-roll.  At first it was mainly concidered a black form of music. But as much as many tried to keep it segrated, music expanded racial lines-especially in the early days of radio. People didn't realize that the people they were listening to were black-they just knew they liked the music. (That is part of the reason why parents used to think that R&R was harmful to their children). There were several artists who would listen to the early R&B and thought it was a great sound and incorperated it into their own music. So you get a meshing of styles. It has been happening since the beginning of time. If you listen to anything, you can hear the influences of the styles that came before them.

I think why disco died was because it was very repetitious. Disco was disco was disco. There was never anything new to it and people just got bored with same sound. As you see with other music forms, they evolved but disco never did.



Cat

These are the main songs/music I recall from the 70s:  "Stairway to Heaven" being the #1 most-requested song of the day for months on the "Boogie Check" on WLS radio out of Chicago;  "Band on the Run" (both song and entire album) by Wings; Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way"; Boston's first and second albums being just huge; ELO; "Afternoon Delight" being a fun song at first but getting really tired of it after a few weeks, but it was everywhere; Debbie Boone's "You Light Up My Life" also getting overplayed; Ringo Starr's "no-no" song; the Grease soundtrack; the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack; "Seasons in the Sun"; The Star Wars theme; the Superman theme (both by John Williams); "Beth" by KISS

I could go on all day, but it's time to watch "The Wire"

Enjoy