I I don't know why, but I always hated that label. What an improvement when they went to orange. My copy of Playground is the orange one. How fitting...I must have started being a collector of music right after the changeover, so it must have been late 72 or early 73. Except, I just remembered I think I had a copy of I Can See Clearly Now on that label above!
Hard to argue with that, but they did have quite a run for awhile with that kind of music, much like Buddah when they concentrated on bubblgum. They must have made a mint on the Osmond family, and when some of them recorded solo, what a bonus! But yes, the epitome of square! I do miss that label.
It was during late April - early May 1973 that the orange Epic label was phased in. My collection is usually by original release, and the copy you see of "Playground . . . " is mine. As for that song . . . the transition between the end of the first chorus and the start of the second verse, in its drum fills, seemed a bit derivative (to my ears) to that heard on "Nice To Be With You" by Gallery. B.T.W., in its last year or so, the yellow for the Epic label appeared to be Pantone 109 in semi-"matte" finish mode.
As long as we're mentioning important musical developments of the time, 1972 also saw the release of an album that had an enormous effect on the direction music, especially underground music, was to take in the next few years. Lenny Kaye was a guitarist who in 1972 was working for Elektra Records. He was a big fan of sixties rock, but many of his favorite songs from the era were made by artists who were one or two hit wonders and had fallen off the public radar. These were the songs that in later years would be labeled 'garage rock': primal rock filled with fuzz guitars, a maximum of three chords, and often a lot of attitude. He convinced Jac Holtzman, owner of Elektra, to allow him to compile a record containing the best of these sides. Holtzman agreed, and the result was 'Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-68'. Kaye unearthed songs that by that point had been virtually forgotten by the mainstream, but would go on to be a huge inspiration to the budding underground scene in places like New York and London. Musicians in those scenes were bored by the arena-rock direction that music had taken and really appreciated the simpler, more primal style of these songs. Not long after the release of Nuggets, they started to make their mark with groups like the New York Dolls (very much a sixties influenced group) and Suicide, and a group of four young men who liked to play very very fast, the Ramones. Kaye himself would become a guitarist a few years later with a poetess named Patti Smith. Below: Smith and Kaye at CBGBs in the 70s Kaye's liner notes for Nuggets contain one of the first known references to these garage rock tracks as 'punk rock'; of course, we know that term was later adopted to explain a whole musical movement of a few years later, one which took major inspiration from Nuggets. The album itself would be re-released and expanded in later years, and would inspire many more copycat compilations. Among the songs in this original collection were: I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night (the Electric Prunes) Dirty Water (The Standells) Lies (the Knickerbockers) A Public Execution (Mouse) - still fairly obscure but very interesting. Pushin' Too Hard (The Seeds) Liar Liar (the Castaways) Hey Joe (the Leaves) Psychotic Reaction (Count Five) Open My Eyes (the Nazz featuring Todd Rundgren) Sit Down I Think I Love You (the Mojo Men) Here's a great clip from the Knickerbockers -- man this rocks! The dancers are losing their minds!
I had no idea this was a number one! I would've thought it made the middle of the charts. I sure heard it enough back in the day. In later years I heard and liked his song "The Shelter of Your Arms". I guess Sammy was yet another artist whose biggest hit was also his most uncharacteristic.
I know we have a lot of David Bowie fans on the forum and around this time (early summer 1972) I bought his single "Starman". I knew very little about him at the time, I really bought the record because I was into "space rock". Little did I know how big a star he would become in a relatively short period of time. Slightly before buying "Starman" I had heard his song "Changes" on the local FM station and really liked it -I turned my little brother on to it and he liked it also. It definitely had a cool picture sleeve!
[/QUOTE] That MGM label takes me back to the early 70s soooo much.It must have been the Osmond records and all the jukebox 45s I would see.I was only around ten or eleven but my friends mom ran a small kitchen in the back of a bar so we were always at the jukebox.
In the early seventies, I'm really more interested in what's going on in the British than American charts. Mid-1972 is when the glam/glitter rock movement really kicked into high gear, and I love it -- the ridiculous costumes, the boots-not-made-for-walking (how can you walk in elevated boots like those?), the great beats, the interstellar flim flammery, and the utter fakeness of it all. Bowie's Starman was the song that really launched his career in the UK. He had had one previous top five hit, Space Oddity, back in 1969, but many were beginning to view him as a one-hit wonder over there. Since then, he had gone in several directions: the hard rock of Man Who Sold the World, the pseudo-glam of Hunky Dory, but nothing had really clicked. He was known, but not a star. His new album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, needed an extra track they could use as a single. The record company convinced Bowie to add Starman to the record. The song was doing OK in the charts, but then Bowie made an appearance on Top of the Pops singing it, and OVERNIGHT, everything changed. Bowie and his wild intergalactic outfit and outrageous hair and unprecedented gender fluidity instantly made Marc Bolan and the other glamsters seem square. It was all the kids could talk about the next day. Even years later, several of the New Wave stars of the 80s would talk about how that one broadcast had changed their lives. The BBC stupidly wiped many of the musical performances in their libraries over the years, but miraculously, this one survived. And HERE IT IS! Bowie, the Spiders and the immortal Mick Ronson! (more specifically, the fans of this clip mention 1:39, when Bowie says he 'picked on you' and points at the camera, as the moment they knew they loved this guy and his willingness to flaunt the conventions of the time. They claim they felt like he was talking directly to them -- picked on YOU. It's amazing how much impact a single gesture can make, isn't it?).
Speaking of glam rock, I mentioned David Bowie in my post above, but I was much more of a Marc Bolan-T. Rex fan. I bought the LP "The Slider" in the summer of '72 after getting the "Telegram Sam" single. I already had "Electric Warrior" and the less well known "T. Rex" LPs. Also looked around hard for the "Hot Love" single and never found it (I still have never seen a copy, on Reprise). But Marc Bolan never was able to follow up his "Bang a Gong" for another hit here in the states. Another band I picked up on was Slade, their 45 "Mama Weer All Crazee Now". I think I bought it without hearing it, don't recall it getting radio play. That one was LOUD!
1970s MGM also released two Grateful Dead "early years" compilations, one of which had a bottle of Ripple on the cover. (By the way, two of the "drug-oriented artists" Curb dropped from the label were the Cowsills and Connie Francis, neither of whom were symbols of the counterculture.) I can think of even more egregious examples of how Mike Curb ran that label, but they all involve politics, and frankly this isn't the place for it. However, from references I've seen in rock magazines from that time, MGM was considered a laughing stock during those years.
They weren't middle-aged...they were just very conservative-looking. (I, too, thought they didn't look the way they sounded.)
" The Candy Man" - I heard the song a lot in 1972, but didn't realize it went to #1 until a few years later. My mother bought the single, and this is one of the last singles my family bought (the only later one I can think of that was purchased was "Kodachrome"). I really didn't buy too many singles until 1981-1982, and even then I only bought a couple. WRT to other songs called Candy Man (or some variant of), I always think of the very short track by Mississippi John Hurt. WRT to blue MGM label, the only 45s I have with this label are Sammy Davis Jr. "The Candy Man", Cowsills "Indian Lake", and C.W.McCall "Convoy". Notice no Osmonds here (they weren't big in our house). With the exception of "Indian Lake", none of these get played that much. The only LPs I have with this label are two of my cherished items that I pull out and play a bit more often - Velvet Underground's self titled LP from 1969, and Nico's Chelsea Girl. The fact that I don't have many post-"Curb purge" MGM items in my collection tells you how I feel about who was left after that was done.
Ooh, I'd forgotten about the ol' "Mike Curb pushing Grateful Dead cash-ins" issue. Here's a vintage Ben Fong-Torres piece about that: Grateful Dead Sources: 1971: The Sunflower Records Story
A few years back, for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, I burned a couple of CDs consisting of the top five Billboard hits the week they were married, and the week each of their five children were born. 30 songs in all. It was a fun little project hunting them all down and putting them together. Most of the songs were pretty good, some were great, and just about all were at least decent. The one glaring clunker was "The Candy Man", which was actually #5 and on its way back down the chart the week one of my brothers was born. I don't mind records with children's voices (I love Sinatra's "High Hopes" and Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", to name a couple), but this one is just too saccharine (pun intended) for my tastes. My brother was pretty horrified (he had been unaware of the tune). But it was part of the wonderful diversity of pop radio at the time, so I can't hate it too much.
"A Public Execution" is the absolute best Bob Dylan imitation ever recorded. Nasty song, too -- it makes "Positively 4th Street" sound like "Baby Love".
The first Hank Williams album I ever bought was a 1977 greatest-hits album I found in a dollar bin. It was credited to "Hank Williams, Sr." It wasn't till later that I caught on that there were overdubbed instruments coming out of one speaker, just so it could barely qualify as stereo. To their credit, these overdubs were subtle, but I damn sure bought the original undubbed tracks later on. Just on principle.
I wasn't going to get into politics viz Mr. Curb, and I shan't. But one part of his run of the label worth mentioning was that it was in 1971 that their Bloomfield, NJ plant - which had been in existence since the label's startup in 1946-47, and once counted as a major custom client Atlantic Records (plus, in the 1950's, being one of the plants that did contract pressings of RCA Victor product at the ultimate height of Elvis-mania, and also handled contract work in the '60's for them, Capitol and Columbia) - closed its doors, putting some 300 out of work. Thereafter, MGM shifted most East Coast pressing to Pickwick's Keel Mfg. plant in Hauppauge, NY. In the early months of 1972, MGM's relationship with New York-based Pace Press, Inc. - which also dated to 1946-47, and which typeset many of the records emanating from the East Coast - also ended. The last known 45 with the fonts from that printer was a certain hit from earlier in the year by Donny Osmond: Pace would, however, do label typesetting for mostly promo singles on MGM's Sounds of Memphis imprint as late (in terms of releases) as July 1972. I also direct you to a quote from The Worst Rock & Roll Records Of All Time, where the authors mentioned that The Mike Curb Congregation - which duly backed Mr. Davis on "The Candy Man" - "made The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sound like The Soul Stirrers."
I was just going to say, so do I. I was a huge Sly Stone and Donovan fan, so I had a host of singles with that design. I just had a flashback about my first Epic single, it was "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" by Donovan. I also liked the Memory Lane reissue label design. The orange label was cool too, though. I think the first one of those I saw was "Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter.
Speaking of the Mike Curb Congregation, when I first got into buying records (late 1970) this song was on the charts. It's not bad, actually:
Of course... as we all know, Mike Curb Congregation is backing Sammy up on this track... And while I really LOVE "Burning bridges".. they have had their share of well...
And when you see them perform live, they have that antispectic, Stepford, Lawrence Welk thing going on:
And one more thing I wanted to post... Even thought it's a Nixon campaign song, the fast version of his 1972 Campaign theme that they did was perhaps some of Curb's best work, musically. It's one HELL of a toe-tapper.
