DJ Fred’s Top Ten Albums Of The 1970s

The second album from the band from Winnipeg, Canada was released in 1973, and contained great songs like Let It Ride and Taking Care of Business. I turned this album up so loud that it blew the Farrah Fawcett poster off my bedroom wall. Taking Care Of Business never made it into the Top Ten on the singles chart, but it pretty much became the song that BTO is known for.

Wow, I remember the very first time that I heard Can't Get Enough by Bad Company! The exquisite sound of this four man all star band that came crashing out of my Technics quadrasound system. The album that made my old man come barreling into the bedroom to ask, "When are you going to start listening to good music?" Listen to the plain, straight-forward sound of this album, and also to the voice of Paul Rodgers, and you'll soon realize why Rodgers is one of the best voices in rock and roll.

Man, now here's an album cover that you really didn't want your mother to see.  With very conservative parents, including a father that had been in the Navy for 20 years, one didn't need to give them a reason to question you about anything, so this album was conveniently stashed away somewhere under the bed ... with the Playboys. But what a band! Ronnie Montrose, Edgar Winter, Dan Hartman and with a little help from Rick Derringer! Free Ride got it started for me and then Frankenstein slammed it home!

So there I was, school was letting out for the day and I waiting outside of the Middle School ready to board the bus home. I was also holding School's Out by Alice Cooper when the principal approached me and asked "What's that?"

"Why it's an album by a man named Alice," I said dumbfounded and hoping that the conversation was over. It was. The fifth album by Alice Cooper was released in 1972 and its title song became the anthem of the beginning of every summer since.

In 1974 we saw the fourteenth album released by the Rolling Stones. It had some great stuff on it including the Motown classic Ain't Too Proud To Beg and the extended and beautiful Time Waits For No One, which really hits home now a days. My second favorite Stones album of the seventies.

Back in 1978 when Some Girls was released, a lot of critics thought that the Stones had sold out. Meanwhile, consumers and fans like myself thought that they were just keeping up with the times. Miss You may have had that disco sound, but it was quickly followed up by the raunchiness of When The Whip Comes Down! They covered the Temptations classic Just My Imagination and also gave us the country twang of Far Away Eyes!  This 8 Track played continuously as we cruised to Hardee's in my Dodge Super Bee.

My favorite Zeppelin album. D'yer Mak'er did it for me, as Robert Plant got to show off his elaborate vocal style. D'yer seemed to have a little bit of everything to it, the sound of the '50s coupled with the '70s thunder of Zep. Over The Hills And Far Away, The Ocean, The Rain Song and No Quarter, all great '70s anthems!  But, once again, another album cover that left a lot to be desired.

It was 1979 and there I was residing in Hart Hall at Husson College, top floor, first dorm room on the right. My open window would allow the smoke from the furnace's exhaust to waft in. That had to be the reason why we couldn't see from one end of the room to the other. Yeah, Floyd's concept album went very well with furnace exhaust.

Skynyrd's second album released in 1974 may have not had Freebird on it but it did include Sweet Home Alabama. With the Ballad of Curtis Lowe, Call Me The Breeze and Workin' For MCA, it became at least to me the epitome of a southern rock album. I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd in Springfield, Massachusetts in the late spring of 1977. A few months later they were gone and so was my youth and lack of responsibility.

One of the best known songs of the 1970s was Hotel California from America's best known band, The Eagles. With harmonies that rivaled the Beach Boys, Don Henley, Glen Frey, Randy Meisner, Don Felder and the great Joe Walsh made the album of the '70s.  Released in 1977, the year I graduated from high school, it will forever be my favorite.