1974 was a good year!

Hard Rock Mining #1: 1974

This is my first blog entry discussing hard rock and heavy metal in what I intend to be a regular practice.  I chose November 11 as my official launch date in honor of Nigel Tuffnel Day!  I already have a Facebook group called Hard Rock Mining that I hope will eventually evolve into a radio show, podcast or even a live event.  The format will mostly be a look at what HR/HM was released in a particular year, with a few random musings along the way.  I’m starting with 1974, both because it was 40 years ago and because it was the year that I really started getting into hard rock music (plus, hard rock hadn’t really been created in 1964).  I actually began listening to pop and rock music in about kindergarten, as my older brother and sister were into pop and rock, respectively. 

The first pop/rock albums in our house were my sister’s: If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears by The Mama’s & The Papa’s and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. by The Monkees.  Over the next few years, my brother brought home: Aerosmith - Get Your Wings, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies, Iron Butterfly’s In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, and Three Dog Night’s Captured Live at the LA Forum.  I know those albums inside and out.  The first rock album of my very own was Elton John’s Don’t Shoot Me…I’m Only the Piano Player (in fourth grade!).  Over the next two years, in addition to more Beatles, Jim Croce, John Denver, Elton John, Jackson 5, Paul & Linda McCartney, Simon & Garfunkel, the Osmonds, and Elvis Presley, I acquired Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic and Rocks, Ted Nugent’s Free For All, as well as the album that made the biggest impact on me in my tweens, Kiss Alive!

The hard rock albums that came out in 1974 are amazing!  There are only five that I remember knowing about at the time: Aerosmith’s Get Your Wings, Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s Not Fragile, Grand Funk Railroad’s All the Girls in the World Beware!, Jethro Tull’s War Child, and Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack.

My older brother bought Get Your Wings.  Aerosmith were a Boston band and we lived in a small town not too far north of that city.  I listened to that album repeatedly until I memorized every word…or at least everything that my 10-year-old brain could comprehend.  The BTO and Tull albums I listened to at my friend Carl Flumerfeldt’s house (he had a cool big brother, too, who also introduced me to Yes and Frank Zappa!).  I bought the Grand Funk single, “Some Kinda Wonderful” for a friend’s birthday present, so I knew about that album.  My cousins were big Pink Floyd fans.  And I loved hearing “Killer Queen” on the radio, so I remember looking at the Queen file in the record section at the department store. 

What I find amazing about 1974 is the number of classic hard rock bands that released their debuts that year: Bad Co., Judas Priest, Kansas, Kiss and Rush all were introduced to the world that year. And while none of them have the same line-ups as they did upon initial release, they’ve been performing and recording more or less for the past 40 years!  Rush has had the same line-up since 1975!  And UFO’s Phenomenon may as well have been their debut, as only the die-hard completists own their first two studio - and one live - albums (originally released only in Japan). 

These days, most bands release an album every other year or so; some wait several years in between releases; while some choose to tour on the strength of past glories.  Forty years ago, many bands put out two new albums per year!  In 1974, a Deep Purple reinvigorated by the inclusion of David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes had a double header with Burn and Stormbringer; Grand Funk put out Shinin' On and All the Girls in the World Beware!; Kiss followed their debut with Hotter Than Hell; Mountain released the live set, Twin Peaks (with a half hour version of “Nantuckett Sleighride”!), followed by Avalanche; Queen followed their masterful Queen II with Sheer Heart Attack; and Sweet released Sweet Fanny Adams and Desolation Boulevard.

In addition to those already listed, there were a number of memorable hard rock albums released in that span of 12 months: Canadians April Wine put out their first live album, Live!; Black Oak Arkansas released Street Party; Bloodrock (featuring future Kerry Livgren/AD vocalist/instrumentalist Warren Ham) had their last gasp with Whirlwind Tongues; Blue Öyster Cult released fan favorite, Secret Treaties (lyrics for “Career of Evil” by Patti Smith, “Astronomy” famously covered by Metallica); Welsh rockers Budgie released In for the Kill (featuring another song to be covered by Metallica, “Crash Course in Brain Surgery”); Alice Cooper compiled Greatest Hits (which included the timely, “Teenage Lament ’74”) Ronnie James Dio’s band Elf released their second of three albums, L.A.59; post Humble Pie/pre-superstar Peter Frampton put out his third solo effort, Something's Happening; Geordie (featuring future AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson) released Don't Be Fooled by the Name; King Crimson, trimmed to a trio, released the brilliant Red before a six-year hiatus; Lynyrd Skynyrd’s sophomore effort, Second Helping, produced seven of the band’s most classic songs; Frank Marino’s Mahogany Rush put out the Hendrix-inspired Child of the Novelty; the second and last Montrose album to feature Sammy Hagar, Paper Money, included “I’ve Got the Fire” (covered twice by Iron Maiden!); Nazareth’s Rampant featured a cover of the Yardbirds’ “Shapes of Things”; Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes’ Tooth, Fang & Claw is the first album to feature “Great White Buffalo”; the American Indian quartet, Redbone released Wovoka (with the Top 5 hit single, “Come and Get Your Love,” as well as the hard rockin’ title track); Scorpions released their first album with the incredible Ulrich Roth, Fly to the Rainbow; Steppenwolf – Slow Flux; Styx was still rockin’ on The Serpent Is Rising; Thin Lizzy’s Nightlife featured a solo by Gary Moore on “Still in Love With You”; Robin Trower released his classic Bridge of Sighs; UFO created a Phenomenon with the young Michael Schenker; Uriah Heep released Wonderworld (with drummer Lee Kerslake before he joined Blizzard of Ozz); The Who compiled studio outtakes on Odds & Sods (including the great “Long Live Rock”); and Yes got darker, jazzier and heavier for Relayer (featuring new keyboard player, Patrick Moraz).

For my next blog entry, I plan to take a closer look at the debut albums mentioned above by: Bad Co., Judas Priest, Kansas, Kiss, Rush, and if I may be so bold, UFO.  Then, I plan to tackle 1984!