One of these days, and it won’t be long, I’m going to write a little essay on the greatest year in rock and roll. It will not be 1971, which often gets that honor. In fact, spoiler alert, it will not be any year from the late 1960s or early 1970s. To those of my generation, that is an apostatic declaration. So let me make amends with this….
The ten-year period from around 1969-1978 is, in fact, the greatest decade in rock history. It may not have the greatest individual year, but it has a lion’s share of the top ten. American pop culture, across the board, was in a golden age. Movies, television, music – pretty much everything, with the glaring exception of fashion – they were all achieving artistic peaks.
It’s as if the burst of creative energy unleashed in the late 1950s and early 1960s had grown up. The work being produced was no less explosive, but it now had a maturity. From "All in the Family” to The Last Picture Show to the wealth of metal, funk, glam and singer-songwriter music, almost every art form found traction.
Rock and roll was expanding in all directions and confronting both political and personal challenges in a more sophisticated manner.
Five sensational 1970s album ripe for rediscovery
Given that embarrassment of riches, it isn’t surprising that a lot of brilliant ‘70s music has been overshadowed in ensuing decades. Dark Side of the Moon has never been forgotten. (It has been in Billboard’s Top 200 for almost one thousand weeks.) Neither has Zeppelin IV. What’s Going On and Blue still get accolades. But there was so much more to ‘70s music.
With that in mind, here are five fantastic albums from the 1970s that may make the occasional critics' list but have otherwise been largely forgotten over the years. Each is worth revisiting – or, if you have never heard them, worth discovering for the first time.
Teenage Head by the Flamin’ Groovies (1971)
The Flamin’ Groovies were the antithesis of San Fran psychedelia, flower power rock. In the days before Aerosmith and J. Geils would become the USA’s answer to the Stones, Roy Loney and Cyril Jordan were cranking out R&B-based rock and roll that rivalled the best of England. Teenage Head was their third album – the final one with lead singer Loney.
From the needle drop, this is bona fide blues rock. From the opening guitar riff of lead track “High Flyin’ Baby,” the music oozes it. When Loney starts his vocals, you’d swear this is a lost Stones' track.
However, Loney distinguishes himself from Jagger by bringing a distinctly American swampiness to his singing. Then, on the acoustic “City Lights,” we are clearly on side two of the Stones’ seminal Sticky Fingers, released the exact same month as Teenage Head.
They fill the rest of the album with dynamite tunes, including the chugging title track. They cover Robert Johnson and Randy Newman with equal aplomb, and close the show with “Doctor Boogie” and “Whiskey Woman.” How blues is that? Loney would depart after Teenage Head, and the band would soldier on, but without such a heavy dose of the blues that made them so special.
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