It Was 35 Years Ago Today...

February 1971
Left Click to Play – Right Click to Save

…doesn’t have the same ring to it as the Beatles lyric from “Sgt. Pepper,” does it? Regardless, it really was 35 years ago this very month when these songs made their debut appearance on the music charts. In retrospect, it is fairly easy to discern how rock and roll had fragmented itself and started to polarize, but at the time, it all just sounded like a very diverse group of songs. Another factor that is obvious from a contemporary standpoint is how popular music had shifted from the optimism and brotherhood of sixties themes and toward ambiguity and confusion. The turmoil of the sixties kicked off one massive, national identity crisis, and these pop songs somehow convey that, if only indirectly.
Here are the songs that we feature in this week’s program;

1) Just My Imagination – The Temptations
2) Proud Mary – Ike and Tina Turner
3) Have You Ever Seen the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
4) Temptation Eyes – The Grass Roots
5) Father and Son – Cat Stevens (as an album track)
6) Paranoid – Black Sabbath (as an album track)
7) D.O.A. – Bloodrock (as a ‘Great Miss’)
8) What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye