Riffling through my big sister’s records the other day, I noticed a couple of boxes in the back of her closet. Opening one of the boxes, I discovered some big stacks of 45 singles … yeah! So today let’s drop the spindle on the turntable and slap on a few of her glorious singles. Let’s concentrate today on people known in the 1970s as “singer/songwriters” – performers who turned out to be the best representatives of their own material.
When Bob Welch came into the spotlight, he had some big shoes to fill – in 1971 the American singer/guitarist was invited to join British blues-rockers Fleetwood Mac, replacing guitarists Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer. With the Mac, Welch cut five albums including 1972’s Bare Trees, which contained his composition “Sentimental Lady.” He quit Fleetwood Mac in 1974, formed the short-lived band Paris and finally went solo in 1977. “Ebony Eyes” was a rockin’ single Welch released that year – it was actually the followup to his Top 10 smash “Sentimental Lady” (re-recorded with some then-current members of Fleetwood Mac: Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham). “Ebony Eyes” was a guitar rocker that reached No. 14 on the U.S. singles charts.
MP3: “Ebony Eyes” by Bob Welch
Albert Hammond was a British musician who first made his mark as a songwriter. He co-wrote a number of U.K. hits in the late 1960s-early 1970s including a few that spanned the globe – “Gimme Dat Ding” by the Pipkins (1970) and “The Air That I Breathe” by the Hollies (1974). It was after he moved to the United States that Hammond became a singer, and he had a big hit in 1972 with “It Never Rains In Southern California.” Hammond followed that up the next year with “The Free Electric Band,” the title song for his second solo LP. The story of a trust fund kid who decided to chuck it all and become a long-haired rock and roller, the song was Hammond’s only chart hit in his native England.
30 Days Out 