1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything?

Apple TV+ has a musical documentary titled ‘1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything’.  I haven’t seen it, nor am I likely to since I don’t subscribe.  I don’t know the arguments that are made to establish 1971 as a year that “changed everything.”  I remember Joe Frazier beating Muhammed Ali in the “fight of the century.”  I remember Alan Shepard golfing on the Moon.  I remember my parents always yelling at the TV when Richard Nixon’s face appeared on it.  Coming at the tail end of the Baby Boom, I was only eight years old for most of that year [I turned nine in November].  It is only in retrospect that I know that 1971 was a significant year in music.  Duane Allman, King Curtis, Louis Armstrong and Jim Morrison would not survive the year.  George Harrison staged what is recognized as the first big concerts for charity, the Concerts for Bangladesh.  Several big bands released what are recognized [by some, anyway] as their best works – the Rolling Stones [Sticky Fingers], The Who [Who’s Next], Jethro Tull [Aqualung], and Led Zeppelin [the ‘untitled’ fourth album].  The Allman Brothers Band finally hit the big time with their live At Fillmore East album.  It would be certified “gold” four days before Duane Allman was killed.  The best-selling album of 1971 [and one of the best-selling of all time] came from a female singer/songwriter – Carole King [Tapestry].

As a kid growing up in the Dayton, Ohio area, rock was not the only thing on the radio.  R&B and soul got equal airtime.  What was a white, eight-year-old kid from the Ohio suburbs doing listening to soul music?  Back then, this eight-year-old made no distinction between rock, soul, or funk.  Why would I?  I had my own radio, I liked what I heard on it, wherever the dial happened to sit.  Music radio wasn’t segregated then like it is now.  Some of my favorite soul music emerged from 1971 – Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On examined ecology, Vietnam, and poverty, although those themes escaped these then-eight-year-old ears.  Sly & the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On was their answer to Marvin Gaye’s musical question.  Bill Withers had Ain’t No Sunshine; The Undisputed Truth had Smiling Faces Sometimes.  Isaac Hayes’ Theme From Shaft was everywhere.  Funkadelic made the darkest record of them all – Maggot Brain.

I have a pretty good album collection.  A good number of those albums came from 1971.  Rock music today is homogenized for the most part.  At the risk of sounding like the old guy that yells at kids to “get off my lawn”, there is a sameness that seems to infect today’s rock music.  You couldn’t say that about the music of 1971.  Jethro Tull sounded nothing like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who sounded nothing like Santana, or Traffic.  None of them sounded like Alice Cooper, which was a band before the singer struck out on his own.  There’s a variety of sound from that era that is missing today.  As I surveyed my collection, I was struck by how many of them came from 1971.  I don’t claim to be musically aware of all this stuff when I was eight.  It takes a while to collect all this stuff.  Here they are:

The Allman Brothers Band - The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East

Jethro Tull - Aqualung

Janis Joplin - Pearl

Carole King – Tapestry and Music

Led Zeppelin – Untitled [aka LZ IV]

Alice Cooper - Love It To Death and Killer

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On

Sly & the Family Stone – There’s a Riot Goin’ On

Badfinger  - Straight Up

The Band - Cahoots

Booker T & The MGs – Melting Pot

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Pendulum

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

Jack Bruce - Harmony Row

Albert King - Lovejoy

BB King – Live In Cook County Jail

Black Sabbath – Master of Reality

David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name

Miles Davis – Jack Johnson

Deep Purple - Fireball

The Doors – L.A. Woman and Other Voices

Dr. John - The Sun, Moon and Herbs

Elton John - Madman Across the Water

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus

The Faces – Long Player and A Nod Is As Good As a Wink... to a Blind Horse

Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story

Funkadelic – Maggot Brain

Grateful Dead – Skull & Roses

Humble Pie – Rock On and Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore

Jeff Beck Group - Rough and Ready

Jefferson Airplane – Bark

Hot Tuna - First Pull Up, Then Pull Down

John Lennon - Imagine

Little Feat - Little Feat

The Meters – Cabbage Alley

The Moody Blues - Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

Paul McCartney - Ram

Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey

Mountain - Nantucket Sleighride

Pink Floyd – Meddle

John Prine – John Prine

Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers

Taj Mahal - Happy Just to Be Like I Am

Todd Rundgren - Runt. The Ballad of Todd Rundgren

Santana – Santana III

Stephen Stills – Stephen Stills 2

Traffic - The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

The Who – Who’s Next

Yes - Fragile