We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago...... I give you a two-for-one today as we look back at the two Lps released in 1971 by the Berkeley based group Joy of Cooking. The band was formed in 1967 but didn't cut a record until 1971 when they released two. The were led by pianist Toni Brown and guitarist ...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... There is nothing quite like the sound of twin guitars playing in harmony. Especially when they re played well. The English band Wishbone Ash had a good run in the 70's relying on that twin guitar attack from Andy Powell and Ted Turner. Added in to the bass of ...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... There are many albums recorded in 1971 that sound dated....the 3rd album from Santana is not one of them. The record is simply superb...highlighting the lightning guitar interplay between Carlos and the 16 year old protege Neal Schon who had joined the band si...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... 1971 was a long time gone from the early success of the Jefferson Airplane. The albums Surrealistic Pillow and Bathing at Baxters had made the band stars but their last LP Volunteers in 1969 didn't do as well. The band was in transition as well as they recorde...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... The Band was struggling in 1971. After three outstanding LPs, the booze, drugs and decay seemed to ripen into a chasm of trouble on the 4th LP 'Cahoots" released in 1971. The album was recorded at Albert Grossman's new studio and Robbie Robertson didn't l...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... Peter Green was long gone...and Jeremy Spencer had left as well. The two guitarists who had helped found the band Fleetwood Mac as a blues drenched rock band were on to other things. Drugs and a weird religious cult mostly. Mick Fleetwood decided to move the b...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago....... John Lennon was in a pretty good place in 1971...which makes some of the bile on the album "Imagine" hard to understand. It is an album of contradictions which I guess, is a good description of Lennon as well. The music on the album is much more lu...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago...... In 1971 many rock & rollers were finding their quiet sides...pulling out the acoustic guitars for some introspective moments as the singer-songwriter movement intensified. One of the bands that visited the quieter side of rock & roll was Ten Years Aft...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago...... We again visit the inscrutable world of jazz-fusion. Guitarist John McLaughlin had played with Miles Davis and Tony Williams Lifetime and also released three solo records. In 1971 he gathered together Rick Laird on bass, Jan Hammer on keyboards, violinist Je...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago...... The Chicago style of blues music had a moment in the mid 60's to mid 70's. When white rock musicians like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds started playing the music of the old blues-men that had popularized the style, mainstream audiences became familiar ...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... As I was re-listening to the LP "Who's Next" released in 1971 I looked up the definition of the word "classic". Let's face it...sometimes we have heard the "classic" rock songs so many times that we can forget how good they are......

By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file a lawsuit on Friday challenging a Georgia election law that im...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... I think there were two important and memorable pieces of media in my adolescence that formed my interest in books and music and the cutting edges that both could reach. One was the book 'Ball Four" by major league pitcher Jim Bouton, a behind the curtain ...

We continue our look at the music of 50 years ago..... The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia just like to play...anytime, anywhere. And by 1971 he had added the pedal-steel guitar to the list of stringed instruments that he was proficient at. (You remember his notable steel part of CSNY's Teach Your Children the year before...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago.... Memphis Tennessee was the place to be for soul music in the 60's and early 70's. While Motown continued to crank out "cleaned-up" soul and R&B for the masses...Memphis was where the grit was. And the two big studios that were the backbone of the s...

We continue our look back at the music of 5o years ago..... The sound of some music can immediately take you to a certain place. The Dead and the Airplane send you tripping to Haight-Asbury......listen to the Beach Boys and you're surfing on Hermosa Beach....early ZZ Top and the tumble weeds are blowing through West Te...

We continue our look at the music of 50 years ago..... Every rock musician got into the game for various reasons. Some liked the rush of being on stage. Some were looking for fame and fortune. Some just thought they could do better with the ladies with a guitar in their hands. But all heard something in their heads tha...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago....today we once again visit the world of Top 40 radio with some hit singles that we listened to in 1971. Nothing screams "the 70's" than Issac Hayes in a chain mail shirt lip synching his funky classic "Theme from Shaft" at the Academy Awards. ...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago.... It has often been said that women plying a trade in a traditional "man's" world have to work twice as hard to get through. The world of rock & roll was no different. Outside of the overt sexism that existed there was was the more subtle kind that ...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... Prog rock had many different variations in the early 70's. From the bombast of ELP to the keyboard & guitar pyrotechnics of Yes...to the folkie earnestness of Fairport Convention and rock based tales of Jethro Tull. Of all the bands working at the time, th...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... We've mentioned before how musical artists would escape their pain by heading to the studio. thus, it was for Stephen Stills in 1971. CSNY had splintered, he had lost both Judy Collins (the love of his life) and Rita Coolidge who had left him for Graham Nash. ...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago.... There are very few bands that generated the love of fans and the disdain of critics more than Black Sabbath. That many critics these days have tempered that criticism and even have changed their minds on the importance of the band can't change the vitriol they ...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago...... Years before he joined the E Street Band, Nils Lofgren had his own band called Grin. He along with bassist Bob Gordon and drummer Bob Berberich released a number of hook-laden pop albums throughout the early 70's before Lofgren plied his craft as a solo artis...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... I'm not sure what record executive green lit the cover of the Herbie Mann LP "Push Push" that came out in 1971 but if you can stifle your gag reflex for a bit and listen to the record you will be pleasantly surprised. The jazz flautist had worked in ...

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago..... Motown Records had been looking for a certain act for years. A white, rock act that could play with a soul sensibility. They found it in 1969 right there in Detroit. The band known as Rare Earth had been playing around the Motor City for years and the folks at...