Saturday 26 March 2022

My music - 1970 top thirteen

Trying to make the Calamity Chicks series a truly immersive 70s experience, I've spent days of my life trawling through websites to rediscover the best music of my life. As anyone who was a teen in the 70s will know, it took us from tail-end of crooners and Beatles, through all that Glam-rock, Disco and exquisite Soul stuff all the way to Punk and New Wave right at the end.
So I'm gonna put a tentative top thirteen (because I'm not limited to base 10) for each year, and hope people will suggest songs I've somehow left out because this is a long-haul task to fine tune it to the ones which meant the most to me. The numbers at the end are month/year just for completeness.

Here they are:

  1. Mungo Jerry – In The Summertime – 06-70
  2. The Carpenters – (They Long To Be) Close To You – 10-70
  3. Badfinger – Come And Get It – 01-70
  4. Bread – Make It With You – 09-70
  5. White Plains – Julie, Do Ya Love Me – 11-70
  6. Neil Diamond – Cracklin' Rosie – 11-70
  7. The Kinks – Lola – 07-70
  8. Stevie Wonder – Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours – 08-70
  9. The Jackson Five – ABC – 06-70
  10. Gilbert O'Sullivan – Nothing Rhymed – 12-70
  11. Freda Payne – Band Of Gold – 09-70
  12. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – The Tears Of A Clown – 08-70
  13. Diana Ross – Ain't No Mountain High Enough – 10-70

And a few which deserve an honorary mention:
The Beatles – Let It Be – 03-70
Chicago – 25 Or 6 To 4 – 08-70
Clarence Carter – Patches – 10-70
Sacha Distel – Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head – 03-70
Lee Marvin – Wand'rin' Star – 02-70
Matthews Southern Comfort – Woodstock – 10-70
Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water – 03-70

As you can see, a lot of my choices were proper "bubble-gum" tracks, but in my defence, I was only 10 years old for the majority of the year.


Huge thanks to this fab website for taking a lot of the research strain out of it for me: http://www.severing.nu/music/1970UK.html