The Music of My Life – 1971

Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life.  In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless   I explain otherwise).

The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.   Now, without any further ado, let’s head to 1971.

1971

In January of 1971, Tom Jones had his fifth (and final) Billboard Top 10 Hit with a Paul Anka song that Paul had released a year earlier – She’s a Lady.

Tom and Paul actually sang this as a duet on a 2013 Paul Anka album.  Paul changed the lyrics a bit because he felt like it was a bit chauvinistic.

I only knew a few of Tom’s hits until my old radio pal, Rob, introduced me to more of them.  I came to appreciate his music a lot after that. 

She’s a Lady

Also released in January of 1971 was a cover version that gave new life to a song that remains a wedding reception classic.

Creedence Clearwater Revival never had a number one record, however, Proud Mary made it to number two.  Ike and Tina Turner’s version took the song in an entirely new direction and it became one of Tina’s signature songs.

The song starts as a slow groove with Tina talking over Ike singing the lyrics.  When the tempo picks up, there’s no stopping it!  The horns kick in, the Ikettes join in, and Tina blows the roof of the place!

Proud Mary

I suppose it would be wrong not to include the number one song for the entire year of 1971 on this list, even if the members of the group how recorded it called it a “kid’s song” and a “silly song.” I can see that, especially when the lyric is about a frog named Jeremiah.

Legendary songwriter Hoyt Axton wrote “Joy to the World” and it was a monster hit for Three Dog Night. The song was released in February of 1971, and by April it had sold a million copies. Believe it or not, the first line of the song was supposed to be, “Jeremiah was a prophet,” but no one really cared for that. When Axton played it for the band, two of the three members (Danny Hutton and Cory Wells) didn’t like it. It was Chuck Negron who felt the band needed to do something like this “silly song.” Negron said in an interview that the song “wasn’t even close to our best record, but it might have been one of our most honest.” It is hard to believe that this song was almost never recorded!

Joy To The World

I’ve never claimed to be a huge fan of The Doors, but I do acknowledge that Jim Morrison was a one of a kind talent. His legacy lives on to this day. One of my favorite Doors songs was released in March of 1971. It was the first single from their LA Woman album – Love Her Madly.

The story goes that Doors guitarist Robby Krieger was messing around on a twelve string guitar and while doing so he came up with the music and melody for the song. He turned to real life for the lyrical story. He wrote the lyrics based on his troubles and fights with his then-girlfriend and later-wife Lynn.

The song peaked at number 11 on my first birthday – May 15, 1971.

Love Her Madly

As you listen to this next selection, imagine Elvis Presley singing it. Why? Well, it was supposedly written with him in mind to sing it. Take it a step further and imagine the Grass Roots doing it, because it was pitched to them, too, and they passed on it. Luckily, a new trio got a shot at it and Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds had a top five hit with “Don’t Pull Your Love.”

The story of how they came to the song and their record deal is a cool one. “Joe Frank Carollo would recall how he and his fellow band members Dan Hamilton and Tommy Reynolds were performing a Creedence Clearwater Revival medley to audition for ABC-Dunhill when Steve Barri stopped the trio to play them the demo of “Don’t Pull Your Love” two or three times until the trio themselves could sing it for Barri, who resultantly arranged for Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds to be signed to ABC-Dunhill that same day.”

The song was released in April of 1971.

Don’t Pull Your Love

I would bet that Carole King’s Tapestry album has influenced almost every female singer today. It is considered to be one of the best albums in music and it spent nearly six years on the album charts. Talk about a legendary songwriter, Carole has written over 100 songs that have appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. For my next selection, I’m choosing half of a two-sided hit.

In April of 1971, Carole King released I Feel The Earth Move/It’s Too Late. I Feel The Earth Move is such a great song for so many reasons. Do a search for the song on Google and there are countless quotes about it. For example, Rolling Stone magazine praised King’s voice on this track, saying it “negotiates turns from “raunchy” to “bluesy” to “harsh” to “soothing”, with the last echoing the development of the song’s melody into its chorus.” Cash Box described the song as a “forceful ‘earthquake song'” and considered its pairing with “It’s Too Late” as a single to be “double dynamite.”

I love the song because of the way the piano and the vocal intermingle with each other. There is great syncopation in the way that she delivers the lyrics as well. Her version of the song peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June of 1971. It remained there for five consecutive weeks.

I Feel The Earth Move

Willie Nelson once sang, “You just can’t play a sad song on the banjo.” The banjo is prominent in my next song which is a tribute to a Canadian city. The lyric even says, The banjo and me, we got a feel for singing.” So what do you do when your band doesn’t have a banjo player?

The Canadian rock band The Stampeders, released Sweet City Woman in May of 1971. According to songfacts.com: “Sweet City Woman is one of the most famous banjo-driven hits in rock history, but the band didn’t have a banjo player. Rich Dodson wrote that lick on guitar and played it on that instrument while they were working it out during live shows. When it came time to record the song, he decided a banjo might give it an interesting texture, so he borrowed one and played it in guitar tuning. It was a propitious choice: The banjo gave the song a back-porch feel that makes it lively and oh-so singable. The woman is a metaphor for the big city, Toronto in particular. The lyric was inspired by the city, where the group had been living for about five years. They’re from Calgary, which isn’t exactly the sticks, but Toronto is much bigger and more metropolitan.“

The song went to Number One in Canada and it was a Top Ten in the States.

Sweet City Woman

In July of 1971, Bill Wither’s released his first hit song – Ain’t No Sunshine. It appears on his debut album Just As I Am. I have written about this one in more detail in the past for Tune Tuesday. You can read about it here:

Tune Tuesday – Ain’t No Sunshine

Ain’t No Sunshine

A tragedy that involved the death of three early rock and rollers inspired the monster hit that was released in October of 1971. It seems that we always refer to plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper on February 3, 1959 as “The Day the Music Died.” You can thank Don McLean for that.

American Pie was the title track of McLean’s 1971 album. The track on the album clocks in at 8:42. When it was released as a single, the song was split up with Part 1 on the A side (4:11) and Part 2 on the B-side (4:31). This month’s edition of Turntable Talk was about music and Max at the PowerPop blog chose this as his song. You can read about it more here:

May 17 – Turntable Talk 26 : The Single That Was More Like A Home Run

American Pie

My final song from 1971 is one that can mean many things to many people, both now and when it was released. This one is the second “sunny” song on my list – Sunshine by Jonathan Edwards.

Edwards has said that he has received many letters stating what people think the song means, or what it means to them personally. When asked by Songfacts.com what he had in mind when he wrote it, he states that the song “has left me with is the wisdom to not answer the question, because everyone’s interpretation is way more creative and interesting than my original impetus for the song. So you go with it.”

The song was almost not recorded. Fate stepped in, however, when an engineer accidentally erased the master of a track called “Please Find Me” near the end of sessions for the album, and “Sunshine” was recorded to take the place of the erased song.

The song was released in November of 1971 and was a Top 5 record for him. Regarding its success, Edwards stated, “It was just at the time of the Vietnam War and Nixon. It was looking bad out there. That song meant a lot to a lot of people during that time–especially me.”

Sunshine

Thanks for reading and listening! See you in 1972!