Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 26, 2024 14:37:38 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1974 And we're back with this exercise. Mind if I play along? Might be fun. You never know, we might even have some albums in common (though perhaps not). So, having had a quick look at the spreadsheet on which I catalogue my record and CD collection, I've picked out a Top 10 favourite releases from 1974 (not including compilations or archival releases). #10 - ST11261 by Brewer And ShipleyThe sixth album by this tokin', line-crossing, hippie folk-rock duo is a bit of a mixed bag and definitely not a patch on earlier albums, such as Weeds, Tarkio Road or Shake Off the Demon. Part of the problem, I think, was that the duo was struggling to find where they fit in to the American musical landscape now that the '60s and early '70s counter-culture movement was all but over. The musicianship on the album is very professional sounding, with studio cats like Jesse Ed Davis (lead guitar), Russ Kunkel (drums), and Sneaky Pete Kleinow (pedal steel) accompanying the duo, but the results are just a bit too slick and definitely lacking the fun and excitement of earlier releases. The songwriting too is just not up to the level of the preceding albums. Still, it's far from being a bad album and is quite an enjoyable listen. Highlights for me would be "Keeper of the Keys", "Bound To Fall" and "Ballad of a Country Dog". The stunningly beautiful love song "Shine So Strong", written by Mike Brewer, is worth the price of admission alone...
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 26, 2024 14:50:23 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1974 And we're back with this exercise. Mind if I play along? Might be fun. You never know, we might even have some albums in common (though perhaps not). So, having had a quick look at the spreadsheet on which I catalogue my record and CD collection for albums, I've picked out a Top 10 favourite releases from 1974 (not including compilations or archival releases). #10 - ST11261 by Brewer And ShipleyThe sixth album by this tokin', line-crossing, hippie folk-rock duo is a bit of a mixed bag and definitely not a patch on earlier albums, such as Weeds, Tarkio Road or Shake Off the Demon. Part of the problem, I think, was that the duo was struggling to find where they fit in to the American musical landscape now that the '60s and early '70s counter-culture movement was all but over. The musicianship on the album is very professional sounding, with studio cats like Jesse Ed Davis (lead guitar), Russ Kunkel (drums), and Sneaky Pete Kleinow (pedal steel) accompanying the duo, but the results are just a bit too slick and definitely lacking the fun and excitement of earlier releases. The songwriting too is just not up to the level of the preceding albums. Still, it's far from being a bad album and is quite an enjoyable listen. Highlights for me would be "Keeper of the Keys", "Bound To Fall" and "Ballad of a Country Dog". The stunningly beautiful love song "Shine So Strong", written by Mike Brewer, is worth the price of admission alone... Heck yeah play along. I sincerely only know Brewer & Shipley for "One Toke Over the Line." I'm predicting overlap on the 1974 list of one or possibly two albums.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 26, 2024 16:28:02 GMT -5
I'm predicting overlap on the 1974 list of one or possibly two albums. Yeah, I can think of at least one album by a particular artist that we'll both be likely to pick.
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Post by tartanphantom on Mar 26, 2024 16:33:35 GMT -5
I'm predicting overlap on the 1974 list of one or possibly two albums. Yeah, I can think of at least one album by a particular artist that we'll both be likely to pick.
I'd play along, but '71-74 were so loaded with good albums, I don't know that I could narrow down top 10 favorites for any of those years. Would they need to be ranked, or just top 10 favorites unranked?
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 26, 2024 16:42:01 GMT -5
Yeah, I can think of at least one album by a particular artist that we'll both be likely to pick.
I'd play along, but '71-74 were so loaded with good albums, I don't know that I could narrow down top 10 favorites for any of those years. Would they need to be ranked, or just top 10 favorites unranked?
Whatever blows up your skirt, man. It's all out of fun.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 26, 2024 17:30:48 GMT -5
I'd play along, but '71-74 were so loaded with good albums, I don't know that I could narrow down top 10 favorites for any of those years. Would they need to be ranked, or just top 10 favorites unranked?
Whatever blows up your skirt, man. It's all out of fun. I'm ranking mine...so, #1 will be the album that is my favourite of the year, but you do whatever you want TP. Whatever or whichever works best for you.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 26, 2024 17:33:22 GMT -5
Whatever blows up your skirt, man. It's all out of fun. I'm ranking mine...so, #1 will be the album that is my favourite of the year, but you do whatever you want. Whatever or whichever works best for you. I'm ranking mine also. But I've also been working on this off and on for close to six months.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 26, 2024 17:38:15 GMT -5
I'm ranking mine...so, #1 will be the album that is my favourite of the year, but you do whatever you want. Whatever or whichever works best for you. I'm ranking mine also. But I've also been working on this off and on for close to six months. Ha! I was working on mine for close to 6 minutes! I just sorted my record collection spreadsheet by year of release, picked out about 30 or so of my favourite album releases from 1974 (not including compilations or archival releases) and then whittled that down to a Top 10. I already knew what my #1 would be because I'd drawn up a list some years back of my all-time favourite album of each year from 1955 up to the present ('cause, you know, I'm a music nerd). 🤓
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 26, 2024 17:41:33 GMT -5
BTW, tartanphantom, I meant to say in reply to your earlier post that I'm also a big fan of the Pure Prairie League (especially the first two albums, when Craig Fuller was in the band). I like Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen too, but I only own a "best of..." CD, not any of their individual albums.
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Post by tartanphantom on Mar 26, 2024 18:33:08 GMT -5
BTW, tartanphantom , I meant to say in reply to your earlier post that I'm also a big fan of the Pure Prairie League (especially the first two albums, when Craig Fuller was in the band). I like Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen too, but I only own a "best of..." CD, not any of their individual albums.
Yeah I think the band could have had much greater success if not for Fuller's draft issues. After he bowed out, it was a tough go for several years until Vince Gill joined. By that time, they weren't even the same band musically. Then of course, Gill went and did his own thing after that.
The first two PPL albums are my favorites, followed closely by Two Lane Highway, and their revival album from 2006, All in Good Time-- where Fuller returns as the lead writer and lead vocals on most songs. For an updated version of the band, it's worth seeking out.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 26, 2024 19:31:58 GMT -5
BTW, tartanphantom , I meant to say in reply to your earlier post that I'm also a big fan of the Pure Prairie League (especially the first two albums, when Craig Fuller was in the band). I like Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen too, but I only own a "best of..." CD, not any of their individual albums. Yeah I think the band could have had much greater success if not for Fuller's draft issues. After he bowed out, it was a tough go for several years until Vince Gill joined. By that time, they weren't even the same band musically. Then of course, Gill went and did his own thing after that.
The first two PPL albums are my favorites, followed closely by Two Lane Highway, and their revival album from 2006, All in Good Time-- where Fuller returns as the lead writer and lead vocals on most songs. For an updated version of the band, it's worth seeking out.
Did you ever hear Fuller's slightly later, mid-70s stuff with American Flyer? They were something of a supergroup, with Eric Kaz (Blues Magoos), Steve Katz (Blood, Sweat & Tears), and Doug Yule (Velvet Underground) also in the band.They did two pretty reasonable albums, with the first being the better of the two (that first album was produced by George Martin). American Flyer were much less country than the PPL, but those albums are enjoyable just to hear some more of Fuller's songwriting while he was still in his prime.
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Post by tartanphantom on Mar 26, 2024 20:03:16 GMT -5
OK, Slam_Bradley and Confessor , after much debate I've compiled my top 10 favorite albums from 1974. The top 5 were fairly easy to rank, it was the bottom 5 that gave me trouble.
I think this list will give you an idea of how absolutely wide a net I cast in my musical preferences, and truthfully I've been that way since I was a small child. I got my first "record player" at 3, and my parents didn't limit my records to the usual kiddie fare such as Teddy Bear's Picnic, The Little Engine That Could, or Mother Goose songs.
No, thanks to my parents (mainly my father, who was a music aficionado himself) at the wise old age of 3 I was already listening to Herb Alpert, The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Dukas, Dvorak's New World Symphony, The Village Stompers, and even Grandpa Jones as well. Thanks to my mother, who was a teacher, I also began basic reading around the same age. By the time I hit the 10th grade, I had already amassed a collection of around 250-300 albums, larger than my father's own collection. Today, it's well over 3500 if you count all formats (vinyl, cd, digital).
If anything, my musical tastes have expanded with age, which is directly inverse of the norm for most people. No genre is off the table for me-- good music is good music, and it refuses to be pigeonholed by convention.
Which leads me to Album #10 from 1974--
While Stafford is usually musically typecast along with Ray Stevens as a "funny guy", his debut record made a big impact on me as future songwriter. I realized that songs could be entertaining and fun. His first record, contains some of his biggest hits, several of which crossed over and charted simultaneously on both the Pop and Country charts (he was generally considered a country artist).
Stafford wrote most of his own material, and had a real knack for comedic double entendre and catchy earworm melodies. As a kid, I was completely enthralled by the storytelling aspects of songs like Swamp Witch and Wildwood Weed.
And then from the very same album, we got the catchy, seductive hook of Spiders and Snakes, and the groundbreaking (for its time) suggestive My Girl Bill.
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Post by tartanphantom on Mar 26, 2024 20:13:00 GMT -5
Yeah I think the band could have had much greater success if not for Fuller's draft issues. After he bowed out, it was a tough go for several years until Vince Gill joined. By that time, they weren't even the same band musically. Then of course, Gill went and did his own thing after that.
The first two PPL albums are my favorites, followed closely by Two Lane Highway, and their revival album from 2006, All in Good Time-- where Fuller returns as the lead writer and lead vocals on most songs. For an updated version of the band, it's worth seeking out.
Did you ever hear Fuller's slightly later, mid-70s stuff with American Flyer? They were something of a supergroup, with Eric Kaz (Blues Magoos), Steve Katz (Blood, Sweat & Tears), and Doug Yule (Velvet Underground) also in the band.They did two pretty reasonable albums, with the first being the better of the two (that first album was produced by George Martin). American Flyer were much less country than the PPL, but those albums are enjoyable just to hear some more of Fuller's songwriting while he was still in his prime.
I think that way back in the far reaches of this discussion thread, I posted this-- my autographed copy of the first album, autographed by both Craig and Eric.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 26, 2024 20:29:36 GMT -5
Which leads me to Album #10 from 1974-- I vaguely know that song "Spiders & Snakes", but the name Jim Stafford is completely unknown to me, so would not have been able to tell you it was him. Sounds nice and rootsy though. I think that way back in the far reaches of this discussion thread, I posted this-- my autographed copy of the first album, autographed by both Craig and Eric. Ha! Oh OK. I don't remember that, but I'm sure you're right. Nice collectible there.
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Post by berkley on Mar 26, 2024 20:34:43 GMT -5
Yeah, I can think of at least one album by a particular artist that we'll both be likely to pick.
I'd play along, but '71-74 were so loaded with good albums, I don't know that I could narrow down top 10 favorites for any of those years. Would they need to be ranked, or just top 10 favorites unranked?
Yeah, those are probably some of the peak years for myself as that's around when I started buying records. Also, I was probably reading more about music through the decade of the 1970s than at any other time of my life so I'm more aware of stuff from that time plus the late 1960s than I am of anything that came after. But I'll have a look at the wiki list for 1974 and if I think I can narrow it down to a top ten maybe I'll play along as well.
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