Music
I’m not sure I know a single other song by blues rockers Ten Years After but their only hit single has stayed in my mind, thanks to Alvin Lee’s memorable guitar riff.
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The first Elvis song I ever heard, recorded live at the height of his Vegas period, The Wonder Of You topped the charts in the UK and USA in 1970.
Fairports founder Iain Matthews had his solitary hit single with a cover of this Joni Mitchell song, Woodstock, also covered by CSNY. (more…)
There’s no sunshine, surfing or girls in The Beach Boys’ cover of an old Lead Belly tune that gave them perhaps their least typical hit in the summer of 1970. (more…)
Mungo Jerry were a rare mixed-race group in 1970 and revived the skiffle sound in a testosterone-fuelled hymn to the male libido In The Summertime. (more…)
It seems that 1970 was the year of the One Hit Wonder – and here’s another one. It reached No.4 in March 1970 and sold a million copies. It’s brilliant.
Norman Greenbaum was born and raised an Orthodox Jew and came out of nowhere with this fuzzed-up psychedelic masterpiece about how you gotta have a friend in Jesus (“So that when you die / He’s gonna recommend you / To the spirit in the sky”). (more…)
Bob and Marcia took Nina Simone’s prototype Black Lives Matter anthem to the top five of the UK charts in April 1970. It’s just as relevant 50 years later. (more…)
Some time early in 1970 I saved up my pocket money and splashed out on the biggest purchase of my young life – an LP. (more…)
This homsepun slice of whisky-soaked wisdom turned tough-guy actor Lee Marvin into the unlikeliest of one-hit wonders when it topped the charts in 1970. (more…)