Most Beautiful Songs - 1960 - 1979

[mhardy6647]

Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks":

If you haven't read it -- you might find this book interesting. Or perhaps not.
It's not a great book, but, having lived in the Bay State for quite a while, working in Cambridge (MA, that is) for some of that while, I did find it interesting.

 

[Robin L]

since I was bad earlier (with malice aforethought, I confess )

Most Beautiful Songs - 1960 - 1979

Speaking of Randy Newman... I love both Manfred Mann's and Harry Nilsson's cover of his (So Hard) Living Without You. Two very different takes on a great, deceptively simple song. Here's Nilsson's: Not to be confused with Nilsson's big hit version of Badfinger's Without You (another gorgeous...

www.audiosciencereview.com

...and it's too late to edit, here are the original artist renderings.
From Neil Young to you, in no particular order

Don't Let It Bring You Down

Helpless (CSN&Y)

Old Man (live on the Beeb)

After The Gold Rush*

__________________
*In my defense, the cover I posted earlier is "from the nineteen-seventies"

I'm a big fan of when Shakey went into the ditch ("For the Turnstiles" from "On the Beach"), 1974:

 

[Robin L]

If you haven't read it -- you might find this book interesting. Or perhaps not.
It's not a great book, but, having lived in the Bay State for quite a while, working in Cambridge (MA, that is) for some of that while, I did find it interesting.

View attachment 434342

I just finished "Small Town Talk" by Barney Hoskyns. It's about Woodstock, New York, the town's history with a particular focus on the music scene that grew around the town once Albert Grossman rolled in (1963) creating music venues, recording studios, resturants and all the other elements making the Woodstock an attractor to Bob Dylan, the Band, and - yes - Van Morrison. Recommendable for those wondering what went down there and how the name got attached to a music festival in Bethel, about 60 miles away:

 

[Robin L]

One of the tracks from "Music from Big Pink", 1968, the Band: "Tears of Rage":

 

[Nonick]

 

[Robin L]

Right song, right guy, wrong year.

This version is from 1967:

I guess this thread is pulling towards British Folk and Amaricana, not a problem as this marks a couple of similar musical sub-genres that share a lot of good traits.

Glen Campbell's version (also '67) has one of the most wonderful production jobs of any song of the era. It's the Wrecking Crew (Campbell was one of those "first-call" session players in L.A.) and it sounds like pure bluegrass only smooth and relaxed. Wonderful musicianship:

 

[mhardy6647]

One of the tracks from "Music from Big Pink", 1968, the Band: "Tears of Rage":

Speaking of The Band....

There are two groups from the '60s that have, I think, a shared style (or sensibility, as they used to say), even though their oeuvres (is that a legitimate plural?) don't overlap all that much. Those two groups are the Dead and the Band.
I say this for two reasons.
1) much of their output, arguably, offers glimpses or snapshots of a past that's largely fictional, although it feels like oral history, and also often unstuck in time (to borrow from Vonnegut) and even place.
2) their best songs don't feel written. It feels like they always existed, as if the "songwriters" collected them by chipping them free of the surrounding strata in some bizarre metaphysical mine, deep in the bosom of North America.


Two beautiful (i.e., on topic ) examples from the Band.

1) The Weight

OK, this one is based on a real person ("Annie", that is) and events, but if feels ageless and existential.
It's also my favorite song of theirs, FWIW.

2) The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

This one feels like it could've been sung on the battlefields in the 1860s -- or in the aftermath shortly afterwards.

Joanie's cover works, too (and it's old enough to include legitimately) -- and it was a big hit for her!

 

[JustJones]

Maybe a little Motown

 

[mhardy6647]

Stevie Wonder turned out a few beautiful songs. Maybe more than a few.

This is my favorite song by Mr. Stevland Morris is, I'd opine, beautiful -- even if the subject matter is melancholy, bordering on harrowing.
The groove that propels this one is so thick, it would take a chainsaw to cut through it!

Living for the City.
This is the single version.

Here's the full monty:

 

[mhardy6647]

Since the great and much missed John Hartford was mentioned a few posts earlier...

Two beautiful songs recorded by Glen Campbell in his pop/country music prime, both written by the great Jimmy Webb.
I liked both of these when they were hits, and I love them both still.

Wichita Lineman

Galveston

 

[mhardy6647]

Canadians, eh?

Bruce Cockburn is a big fave of mine -- great songwriter and guitarist, and... like Dylan (perhaps?!)... a good singer for his own tunes (although he's recorded some covers, too). He's had a long career, so I can pick a couple of beautiful-to-me songs that predate the Eighties.
Here are two very nice examples (again, IMO) from his -- ahem -- breakthrough album (it's all relative! ), Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws.

Creation Dream

Wondering Where the Lions Are

 

[Eulipian]

Here are some that still touch the nerve I have left:

And if you only listen to one, this one:

 

[Eulipian]

My favorite Steeleye Span album is Please to See the King. Here's "Lovely on the Water" Featuring Maddy Prior:

Great band. He's a rousing one that makes me want to turn it up to 11. Jitter and noise be damned!

 

[Eulipian]

....and Johnny B. Bach's "Aire on a G String" redone on by some English lads with a saturated Hammond B-3 and who knows what else....

 

[Robin L]

....and Johnny B. Bach's "Aire on a G String" redone on by some English lads with a saturated Hammond B-3 and who knows what else....

Lovely but it's not air on a G string. though the sequence starts with a few bars of that work:

"Brooker later acknowledged how this process often led to subconscious musical influences weaving their way into the finished product. At the time, Brooker was “listening to a lot of classical music,” and, as such, that listening moulded the sound of ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’.

As the frontman recalled: “I remember the day it arrived: four very long stanzas, I thought, ‘Here’s something.’ I happened to be at the piano when I read them, already playing a musical idea. It fitted the lyrics within a couple of hours. Things can be gifted. If you trace the chordal element, it does a bar or two of Bach’s ‘Air on a G String’ before it veers off. That spark was all it took. I wasn’t consciously combining rock with classical, it’s just that Bach’s music was in me.”"

How J.S Bach inspired Procul Harum's biggest hit

Join us as we explore the surprising influence of Bach on one of the best-selling singles of the summer of love, Procul Harum's 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale'.

faroutmagazine.co.uk

 

[Eulipian]

Lovely but it's not air on a G string. though the sequence starts with a few bars of that work:

"Brooker later acknowledged how this process often led to subconscious musical influences weaving their way into the finished product. At the time, Brooker was “listening to a lot of classical music,” and, as such, that listening moulded the sound of ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’.

As the frontman recalled: “I remember the day it arrived: four very long stanzas, I thought, ‘Here’s something.’ I happened to be at the piano when I read them, already playing a musical idea. It fitted the lyrics within a couple of hours. Things can be gifted. If you trace the chordal element, it does a bar or two of Bach’s ‘Air on a G String’ before it veers off. That spark was all it took. I wasn’t consciously combining rock with classical, it’s just that Bach’s music was in me.”"

How J.S Bach inspired Procul Harum's biggest hit

Join us as we explore the surprising influence of Bach on one of the best-selling singles of the summer of love, Procul Harum's 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale'.

faroutmagazine.co.uk

Yes, this is known. But the point is that if you lift your first 4 chords from Johnny B it's going to lead to something Goode, always.

 

[Robin L]

Yes, this is known. But the point is that if you lift your first 4 chords from Johnny B it's going to lead to something Goode, always.

This, on the other hand, is the whole enchilada: Paul Simon propiated most of J. S. Bach's melody from "Erkenne mich, mein Hüter", a sacred chorale found in the St. Matthew Passion:

 

[Martin]

Can't believe this one hasn't been posted:

Martin

 

[bluefuzz]

Karen Dalton - Something On Your Mind (1971)

 

[bluefuzz]

Robbie Basho - Blue Crystal Fire (1978)