CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION – Twenty great albums from 1976………..

[email protected] January 14, 2020

If you were to draw a line of lineage, admittedly a wavy one in places, forward from the breakthrough of The Beatles through to The Clash opening for The Who on their 1982 US Tour, as a twenty year family tree it looks like the eldest and youngest children spending time together.

Their outlook formed by disaffection and rebellion, the punk rock bands of the late 70s had more in common with the attitude and anger of their big brothers, say the Rolling Stones and The Who, than their closest sibling – who for the sake of argument can be viewed as the awkward middle child, artists whose first recordings, for the most part came in the post-Woodstock, pre-Watergate era.

With hindsight it must have been difficult for these acts to find, in quoting a phrase, ‘a place to make your stand‘.

Dylan and The Beatles had said just about everything worth saying, Jimi Hendrix had played every guitar line possible (along with a few that were not) and yet in the wake of Vietnam and collapse of the 60s counterculture, by 1976 American artists in particular, had found a vantage point from where to view the wreckage – Jackson Browne using the title track of his magnificent ‘The Pretender‘ album to ask:

‘I want to know what became of the changes we waited for love to bring.’

Three albums into his career and already the most accomplished lyricist around, ‘The Pretender‘ gives full rise to his concerns – be they of a personal or global nature.

Writing from the perspective of father, son, concerned citizen and sadly, bereaved husband, (his wife Phyllis committed suicide during the early days of recording), producer Jon Landau, fresh from sprinkling gold-dust on ‘Born To Run,’ provides Browne with the most clear and effective canvas he has yet worked on.

If there is a flaw in his trio of proceeding albums it lies with occasional lapses in production – but with Landau at the controls Browne concentrates on conveying his heartfelt perceptions (‘Oh Lord, are the’re really people starving still,’) over soft-rock arrangements that are never fussy or cluttered.

In any other year an album of such emotional force would have most likely walked away with the end of year honours – but Browne inadvertently contributes to his runner-up status by overseeing the second-coming of Warren Zevon.

With only a long forgotten late-60s curio to his name, Browne enticed Zevon out of the wilderness – the ensuing ‘Warren Zevon,’ an audacious collection that revealed Zevon wrote in a tougher, more strident style than Browne, while using the same melodic sensibilities identified with 70s California.

In ‘Carmelita,’ ‘Join Me in LA,’ ‘The French Inhaler‘ and ‘Desperadoes Under the Eaves,’ he paints a vivid, but disturbing portrait of Los Angeles, exposing the dark underbelly with a literacy to rival that of novelist extraordinaire Raymond Chandler.

If in one astonishing sweep Zevon had become the foremost proponent of song-noir, then Eagles drummer and principal lyricist Don Henley was also emerging as a wordsmith from the shadowlands.

Unlike Asylum stablemate Browne – who had persuaded the label to sign Zevon – production on Eagles albums had never been an issue and on four successful outings to that point, some critics had complained sheen outweighed substance.

But with ‘Hotel California‘ they delivered a cohesive work that took a significant step forward in terms of lyrical content. On the eerie title track and epic closer ‘The Last Resort,’ Henley probes the dark corners of the American Dream and finds distorted illusions and sense of paradise lost.

With the dual lead guitars of Don Felder and recent joinee Joe Walsh taking them further from their country rock roots, the Eagles hit a creative peak few believed them capable of – although further personnel changes and three year wait for an anti-climatic follow-up left their detractors claiming their ‘Hotel California‘ finest hour had been something of a fluke.

Detroit-born Eagles founder member Glenn Frey had first been heard singing background vocals on ‘Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man‘ by Bob Seger, a delicious slice of atmospheric mid-60s power pop which went down a storm in his native Michigan, but nowhere else. In the time since, Seger had made some fine Chuck Berry/Creedence influenced records and been labelled ‘the next big thing‘ more times than he cared to remember, only for lesser talents to steal the limelight.

Just when it appeared he would forever remain a peripheral figure in the mainstream arena, 1976 brought a breakthrough that was sudden and massive.

The double, in-concert set ‘Live Bullet‘ (Seger was now working with a backing outfit called ‘The Silver Bullet Band‘), recorded in front of a wildly partisan Detroit audience, showcased much of his previously ignored material and after ten years of struggle made him an overnight sensation.

The success was richly deserved as ‘Live Bullet‘ is arguably the most enduring live album of the era. The intense playing and his vocal conviction (Seger had always been considered a first-rate live performer), send it far beyond the norms of the ‘live double’ that was fast becoming de rigueur for any act with a couple of moderately successful studio albums behind them.

Seger then consolidated his emergence with the sublime ‘Night Moves‘ – the title track one of the most affecting songs of the year, the artist offering a glorious assimilation of how innocence gives way to experience.

Due to a sense he had come from nowhere, to what must have been his great amusement Seger found himself described as new wave, a label attached to an emerging breed of artists who merged Who/Stones energy with Springsteen-affected rock – thus invigorating the way fledgling bands should sound.

In 1976 the finest exponents were Graham Parker & The Rumour, whose ‘Howlin’ Wind‘ debut and equally energetic follow-up ‘Heat Treatment‘ were a brilliant one-two punch in the name of impassioned, hungry rock. With a powerful voice and sharp turn of phrase, Parker was a product of the London pub rock scene (soon to be overwhelmed by punk), his standout songs, of which there were plenty, had overtones in Van Morrison-styled R&B.

Meanwhile in the US, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers ploughed a similar furrow with their impressive debut set, a collection unmistakably influenced by Gene Clark-era Byrds, hardly the worst place to go in seeking inspiration.

But the two most instantly recalled debut albums of 1976 came from opposite ends of the scale – one primitive, the other polished.

My teenage ears had never heard anything so raw and adrenaline-charged as The Ramones first album. What at first sounded funny and frantic could soon be taken as a delicious antidote to the self-absorbed excesses of slick production techniques and lyrical pomposity – The Ramones delivering sixteen short, hell for leather songs, in the time it took a guitar god to tune up.

On occasion the lyrics, admittedly, were coarse and unsettling but at others more insightful than their dumb, New York street punk persona would have you believe.

Taken as a template by The Sex Pistols and The Clash, two bands who would by the following year have influenced two hundred more, the impact of The Ramones first LP is hugely significant – but in the marketplace was left in the dust by the self-titled debut of ‘Boston‘.

Not even together at the start of the year, by the end Boston had a platinum-disc to their name – the ten song album the brainchild of guitar/keyboard whizz Tom Scholtz.

Sure, ‘Boston‘ sounds contrived and purposely conceived to tick every box in the realms of mellow metal. Yet if The Ramones were proof of how subversive popular music could be, ‘Boston‘ – and in particular the distinctive hit single ‘More Than a Feeling‘ – showed there was a still a vast audience for less-confrontational, mainstream rock.

Indeed, ‘Boston’ had more in common with established hard rock groups than punk upstarts, two of whom, Blue Oyster Cult and Thin Lizzy recorded with a aplomb in 1976. ‘Agents of Fortune‘ (BOC) and ‘Jailbreak‘ (Thin Lizzy) both contain fine moments, the swagger evident in ‘The Boys Are Back in Town‘ single, penned by bassist/lead singer Phil Lynott, ensured Lizzy were never far from the top of lists when best songs of the year were compiled.

The heavyweight champions of male and female singer-songwriters, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, both weighed in with stellar works. Dylan continued in the rich vein of form he had shown on ‘Blood on the Tracks,’ with ‘Desire‘ and, although lacking the overall consistency of its predecessor, ‘Joey‘, ‘Hurricane,’ and ‘Sara‘ were undoubted examples of his on-going magnificence.

On the jazz infused ‘Hejira‘ Joni was harder to pin down, some oblique lyrical references nevertheless well-served by the sparse instrumentation.

Back in the UK, the self-titled third album by Joan Armatrading brought her widespread attention, not least for the alluring hit single ‘Love and Affection‘. But her acoustic, jazz-tinged ballads were the work of some accomplishment and prompted Glyn Johns, who had performed producer duties for the Eagles, The Faces and The Who, to claim it the best album he had ever worked on.

In a swathe of live-concert double albums to appear ‘Frampton Comes Alive‘ by ex-Humble Pie guitarist Peter Frampton was likeable enough and contained a sufficient amount of soft-rock hooks to earn sales figures in a different stratosphere to almost everyone else.

‘One More from the Road‘ by Southern-rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd was also hard to truly dislike, but ‘Viva! Roxy Music‘, while earning marks for not just being a run through of their hits, at times sounds too cool and detached, although that might have been the point all along.

Fresh from his involvement with Bob Dylan’s ‘Rolling Thunder Revue,’ Roger McGuinn filched great new songs from Dylan (‘Up To Me‘) and Joni (‘Dreamland,’) joined forces with former Bowie-sideman Mick Ronson and with some fine material of his own came up with ‘Cardiff Rose‘ – easily the pick of his post-Byrds solo work.

Meanwhile some of the big-hitters in the field were also making their presence felt – literally in the case of Led Zeppelin, whose ‘Presence‘ set was a curious mix of highlights and thin spots.

‘Achilles Last Stand‘ rocks sure and steady, ‘Royal Orleans‘ nods in the direction of soul, but with ‘Candy Store Rock‘ and ‘Hots on for Nowhere‘ Zeppelin are beginning to sound like anyone of their numerous, hackneyed imitators.

After a two-year absence Stevie Wonder returned with the epic studio double ‘Songs In The Key Of Life.’ One of those rare instances where a record transcends categorization to become a cultural reference point, it was monumental in scope, erratic, brilliant, fascinating, a touch baffling, but well worth the wait.

Embracing soul the previous year with the superb ‘Young Americans,’ David Bowie was somehow able to better it with the magnificent ‘Station To Station,’ while Rod Stewart was able to set aside such distractions as tax exile status, film star girlfriend and break-up of the Faces with the largely excellent ‘A Night On The Town.’

Like his previous outing ‘Atlantic Crossing,’ at the suggestion of current paramour Britt Ekland it was split into a ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ side, the ‘slow’ material giving full range to his undisputed talents as a vocalist, song-writer and interpreter.

Despite taking differing approaches to their craft, Bowie and Stewart ended 1976 not only riding a wave of critical and commercial success, but on opposite sides of the same coin – the embodiment of artists who had risen to prominence in the post-Beatles, pre-punk era.

But as the middle child their time as the one receiving most attention was, for the moment, drawing to a close – an angry, rebellious young sibling already breathing, or perhaps more aptly, spitting down their necks.

To be continued……….

TWENTY GREAT ALBUMS of 1976:

1. WARREN ZEVON – Warren Zevon;
2. THE PRETENDER – Jackson Browne;
3. STATION TO STATION – David Bowie;
4. HOTEL CALIFORNIA – Eagles;
5. SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE – Stevie Wonder;
6. HEAT TREATMENT – Graham Parker & The Rumour;
7. LIVE BULLET – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band;
8. DESIRE – Bob Dylan;
9. HOWLIN’ WIND – Graham Parker & The Rumour;
10. THE RAMONES – The Ramones;
11. NIGHT MOVES – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band;
12. JAILBREAK – Thin Lizzy;
13. TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers;
14. HEJIRA – Joni Mitchell;
15. JOAN ARMATRADING – Joan Armatrading;
16. A NIGHT ON THE TOWN – Rod Stewart;
17. CARDIFF ROSE – Roger McGuinn;
18. PRESENCE – Led Zeppelin;
19. BOSTON – Boston;
20. AGENTS OF FORTUNE – Blue Oyster Cult;

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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book.