Stellar Storyteller Songwriters of the Seventies
Copyright © 2018
For the exam, you should know who the singer songwriters in the book are, and listen carefully to the following songs:
Carole King – You’ve got a friend
James Taylor – Fire and Rain
Janis Ian – At seventeen (learn the lyrics to this one well)
Elton John and Bernie Taupin – Your Song
Billy Joel – We didn’t start the fire
John Denver – Annie’s Song
Sixto Rodriguez – Sugar Man
As singers and bands gained more control of their music in the sixties, we find a plethora of singer songwriters of the late 60s and 70s who made it big. Here is a small sample. There are more!
Carole King started her stellar career writing some of the most popular songs of the sixties, but her fame as a solo recording artist resulted from Tapestry, in 1971.
And now this amazing guitar guy.
James Taylor gained fame with his Fire and Rain in 1970, and for his rendition of Carole King’s You’ve Got a Friend (and much more).
and together….
Janis Ian At Seventeen (1975)
Lyrics
I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth
And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say “Come dance with me”
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn’t all it seems
At seventeen
A brown eyed girl in hand-me-downs
Whose name I never could pronounce
Said, “Pity, please, the ones who serve
They only get what they deserve”
And the rich relationed hometown queen
Marries into what she needs
With a guarantee of company
And haven for the…
And how about the Canadian, Gordon Lightfoot?
Elton John has been singing songs we love since the late 1960s. Although he doesn’t pen the lyrics (Bernie Taupin writes most of them), he writes the music and carries the song in a way that noone else can. Your Song is an early classic (1970). Daniel is another of his classics from 1973.
He has his own ebooks!
You asked for Your Song. Here it is!
You also asked for Rocket Man!
What makes Rocket man so great?
Billy Joel started (1973) soon after Elton John. They have a lot in common – both are piano men, have last names that are first names, they performed together, and the tour (Face to Face) was ‘billed’ “Rocket Man meets Piano Man”. Billy even gets a mention in Tiny Dancer:
“Piano man he makes his stand/ In the auditorium”
It took Billy Joel almost thirty years to finish high school. He studied piano reluctantly at the behest of his mother.
Rather than attend summer school to earn his diploma, Joel decided to begin a career in music: “I told them, ‘To hell with it. If I’m not going to Columbia University, I’m going to Columbia Records, and you don’t need a high school diploma over there’.”[18] Joel did eventually sign with Columbia.
In 1992, he submitted essays to the school board and was awarded his diploma at Hicksville High’s annual-graduation ceremony, 25 years after leaving.
He played and sang cover songs during the sixties often imitating other singers.
His song Piano Man is about real people. Wonder what ever happened to them?
Joel likes Yiddish. “I like the Lower East Side humor, the food. I think the Yiddish language is terrifically expressive. Does that make me a complete Jew or a partial Jew? I’m not really sure”.[111]
Joel is right-handed, though he believes left-handed people have an advantage when playing the piano.
Joel’s road to success was tortuous. He didn’t give up.
His song “We didn’t start the fire” is a great way to study history.
and check out:
We didn’t start the fire – a great way to learn history here
Billy Joel – now let’s hear Just the Way You Are from 1977.
Billy Joel book in Hebrew is here!
Vincent (written in 1971)
is similar to…
listen from 0:44, first five notes
from Wikipedia: “A research team undertook a study in 2016 to understand the appeal behind Mercury’s voice.[40] Led by Professor Christian Herbst, the team identified his notably faster vibrato and use of subharmonics as unique characteristics of Mercury’s voice, particularly in comparison to opera singers, and confirmed a vocal range from F#2 to G5 (just over 3 octaves) but were unable to confirm claims of a 4-octave range.[41] The research team studied vocal samples from 23 commercially available Queen recordings, his solo work, and a series of interviews of the late artist. They also used an endoscopic video camera to study a rock singer brought in to imitate Mercury’s singing voice.“
Sixto Rodriguez – Sugar Man
Published: Dec 17, 2018
Latest Revision: Dec 17, 2018
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