1972

Before we trudge into 1972, there were the intervening years of ’69-’71. For those just joining us my first piece in this series titled ‘That year in Music 1969 ‘That year in Music I… 1969  begins in 1967 and explores the music world from the standpoint of The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band… The world in 1970 was trying to get its head around the fact that the Fab Four were splitting up, that The Beatles’ album Let it Be which came out that very year would actually be their last marking the end of an era. There is no band that has influenced and still continues to influence generations of musicians and music listeners as much as those four lads from Liverpool.

Simon and Garfunkel released Bridge over Troubled Waters that same year (1970) and Creedence Clearwater Revival came out with Cosmos Factory ( They disbanded in 1972 though). Eric Clapton went solo and The Doors blasted their way through with the seminal Morrison Hotel even as Led Zeppelin turned on the acoustic vibe and released the phenomenal Led Zeppelin III with an advance order of over a million copies and Wishbone Ash released their self titled debut album as well. Another debut album to release that year was from Heavy Metal giants and pioneers Black Sabbath who actually released two albums Black Sabbath and Paranoid that year Pink Floyd were floating about somewhere too with Atomic Heart Mother as were the Allman Brothers and Supertramp. Jethro Tull’s Benefit came out that year too and the group became an arena band.

The sound had started to get heavier and while Led Zeppelin and The Who were holding down the fort as far as riffs and decibels go, the darker heavier songs and riffs of Black Sabbath were beginning to gain ground and Deep Purple began to cement their place in rock history and along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath laid the foundation of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal.

Deep Purple was to have a huge influence on the rock world. Their earlier releases Shades of Deep Purple and The Book of Talisyn and Deep Purple had come out by 1970 and then as they say when the time is right, things just fall into place enabling one to achieve the extraordinary, so it was that circumstances so came about leading to the formation of the band’s Mark II line-up with the advent of Ian Gillan and Roger Glover joining Jon Lord, Ian Paice and Ritchie Blackmore in 1969.

Between 1970 and 1972 Deep Purple released the three most era and genre-defining albums in rock history, In Rock (1970), Fireball (1971) and the mother of all albums Machine Head in (1972).

The first distinct sound that one associates with Deep Purple is the Hammond Organ pounded by Jon Lord. It’s a sound that just fills the air and grabs the attention of the listener. The rhythm section in Roger Glover’s driving bass lines and Ian Paice’s frenetic drumming holding down the song at mind boggling tempos with Richie Blackmore’s speed guitar playing and fast arpeggio lines and heavy riffs and Ian Gillian’s screaming vocals were the stuff and dreams and fodder that created the template for all the heavy metal bands to follow…

While Zeppelin and The Who and Sabbath were loud and proud alright, no one had heard a sound like this coming from a keyboard and guitar band. Though Robert Plant’s vocals with Led Zeppelin soared, Ian Gillian’s screaming vocal lines when in full flight were just on another planet and all the great vocalists to follow like Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden and Geoff Tate from Queensryche and so many others would have Ian Gillian’s air raid siren template on songs like Child in Time and Highway Star in mind when recording and performing in the years to come…

In the 1970 ‘In Rock’ album the opening bars of Speed King just hit you like a sledgehammer and the speed of the song sets you up for what is to follow. Deep Purple are a band that can play tight, play hard and play fast all at once and back in the ’70’s they were literally speedkings!!!. Black Night, Child in Time and Into the Fire all became Purple standards and the album hit the top 10 remaining in the charts for over a year.

They released Fireball in 1971 with the track Strange kind of Woman charting in the UK but their greatest album was yet to come.

1972 saw the release of one of the most definitive rock albums of all time Deep Purple’s Machine Head. Recorded in Montreux, Switzerland, it was the genesis of the most explosive rock anthem in music history, Smoke on the Water. The story of Smoke on the water is common knowledge written when they went to see a Frank Zappa concert in Montreux where the venue caught fire following the action of a fan who fired a flare gun to the roof. The sight of the flames and smoke on the lake and the mountains in the backdrop inspired them to come up with Smoke on the Water.

Smoke on the water… The riff that launched a million guitar players…There’s no guitar player in the world who has not at some point or another learned that riff. Apparently the guitar solo was recorded while the Police were banging on the door because of the noise (they weren’t in a sound proof recording studio after all)

The band was due to record their album at the very Casino that had now burned down and had to change their plans. After hobbling about looking for the ideal venue they finally settled on the Grand Hotel with the Rolling Stones Mobile Recording Studio at their beck and call. The recording itself was an engineering marvel with cables set up all over the corridors of the hotel, closed circuit TV’s to monitor the recordings, the logistical manoeuvring to get to the recording mobile unit via a balcony and a fire escape through the snow involved going through about 29 doors going through bedrooms and bathrooms because the corridors and hallways were blocked by the insulation.

Insulation was created in the corridors with a carpenter constructing a temporary wall between the foyer and the corridor. Mattresses placed in the hallways created further insulation. The drums and guitars were set up in the hall and corridor. The pressure seemed to help the creative process writing and recording took about two weeks.

The album opener Highway Star with its patent scream and furious pace sets the tone for what is to come. The keyboard and guitar tradeoff solos and pounding rhythm section make for dramatic interludes and high-octane pulsating rock. The track itself was written and played on the Fireball Tour before it was recorded and included in this album.

Space Truckin the other gold standard rocker had throbbing melodic bass lines complimenting the vocals with the heavy riffing going on in the background.

When a blind man cries was a bluesy ballad and Lazy and Never Before explored blues rock grinding away as did Maybe I’m a Leo except their vocal lines weren’t strictly in the blues mode. Pictures of Home, seems like the template that Blackmore would go on to create with his band Rainbow along with the great Ronnie James Dio.

All told Machine Head was their most successful album and catapulted them to the top of the heap. It was their number one album and chartbuster and Smoke on the Water has received over 3million hours of radio airplay accounting for over 44 years if played back to back!

The band then went on to record and release one of the most successful LIVE albums that year ‘Made in Japan.’ The album featured seven songs with long musical interludes, jams and intricate passages and has since been reissued multiple times in various formats and box sets.

Uriah Heep, another Deep Purple-esque band with a heavy organ sound and hard rockin’ riffs released their most successful album in ’72 as well called Demon and Wizards. Formed in 1967, the band released their first album ‘ Very ‘Eavy…’Very ‘Umble in 1970, which included their rock standard ‘Gypsy.’ Incidentally Deep Purple was rehearsing in the room next door when they were writing this song. By 1971 they had their signature hit July Morning from the Look at Yourself album and went into the studios to record Demons and Wizards. Tracks like The Wizard with its ‘acoustic metal’ format and Circle of hands and Traveller in Time gave rise to the term gothic metal as well or ‘gothic metal’ They were also great singers and their backing vocals were the stuff of legend.

Jethro Tull’s massive Aqualung album in 1971 paved the way for the release of one of the ‘concept albums’ of all time called ‘Thick as a Brick’ and the invention of a new genre ‘progressive rock’ influencing bands like Rush, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree and countless others.

 

Thick as a Brick released in 1972. The album was basically just one song with a lot of musical parts and sections that interconnected and weaved in and out with complex arrangements pieced together to make one continuous whole. The story about a poem written by a fictional 8 year old genius poet went on to get a life of its own and the band released the follow up Thick as a Brick II in 2012.

Led Zeppelin became the biggest band in the world in the 70’s and cemented their place in rock history with the release of Led Zeppelin IV in 1971containing one of the most played songs in the world Stairway to Heaven. Their subsequent album House of the Holy in 1973 went to number 1.

Another band that was to influence generations of musicians and bands with its pioneering twin guitar harmonies was Wishbone Ash who released their monster album Argus in 1972 as well. Argus was their third album and though the band was rooted in the blues, their easy vocal style, twin guitar harmonies and rock sound and The Warrior, Throw down the Sword, Sometime World, The King will come are still part of their LIVE set almost 45 years later.

Incidentally Wishbone Ash were recommended by none other than the great Richie Blackmore of well you guessed it, Deep Purple after he had jammed with guitar player Andy Powell during a sound check. Wishbone Ash’s twin guitar sound was the bedrock of classic rock and heavy metal bands to follow like Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.

One of the best LIVE albums of all time also came out that year, the mighty Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night recorded LIVE at the Greek Theater, Los Angeles. Blessed with one of the most unique voices in the world, straddling his acoustic guitar and belting out all his hits, the album remains a reference point of how well crafted simple tunes can touch generations. It is the ‘must have’ album for all Neil Diamond fans.

Bread released their fourth album in 1972 titled Babe I’m a want you. This was their most successful album ever spawning a skew of radio hits including the ‘Babe I’m a want you’, ‘Everything I own’ and the haunting ‘Diary.’ A top ten record the world over the album provided the staples for any Bread set LIVE or in compilations.

Yes, the jazz-progressive rock band from England released Close to the Edge, the follow up to their 1971 album Fragile and was a huge hit reaching platinum status. Critics have compared it to The Beatles’ Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band record in terms of ideas, writing and musical expression and the record is listed amongst the best progressive rock albums of all time. Three songs with sub parts and sections is the template that bands like Rush and Dream Theater who came later would use to such dramatic effect.

With the solid foundation that these bands, artists and albums laid, the 70’s was to become one of the most exciting eras in music and here’s a snapshot of the bands an albums that came out later.

Pink Floyd released Dark side of the moon, the mother of all albums in 1973 that went on to stay on the album charts for a straight 749 weeks. Using complex recording techniques, instrumentation, thematic content, this album is iconic even to this day. They released Wish you were here and Animals in 1975 and their ambitious concept double album The Wall in 1978 that went on to top global charts across the world, became a movie starring Bob Gedolf singer of Boomtown Rats and organizer of LIVE Aid. The whole album was staged with an All Star Band when they broke down the Berlin Wall in 1990. It also premiered as an opera in 2017 and like most of the work of Floyd and Doors and others of their ilk a ‘trippy’ album, to be heard start to finish, the actual way to hear any album, an experience lost to the ‘generation of thumbs’ as it were all searching for a quick fix as they dart about their lives negotiating all the options and screens they have drawing them into little rabbit holes that don’t go deep enough and hence the Wonderland remains elusive…

Rush, arguably, progressive rock’s finest released their debut album in 1974 and had released 6 albums by 1978 including the monumental concept album 2112 in 1976.

Thin Lizzy started to develop their sound post their 1972 release Shades of Blue Orphange and it was only after Eric Bell’s departure in 1973 and the entry of guitarists Gary Moore and later Brian Robertson who along with Scott Graham, drummer Brian Downey and Bassist vocalist Phil Lynott that the band came into their own and by the mid and late 70’s were headlining concerts across the world. Their 1978 LIVE release Live and Dangerous is a classic LIVE album.

Not many know Scorpions, the heavy metal band from Hannover Germany, formed in 1965 and released their debut album Lonesome Crow in 1972! With Uli Jon Roth joining the line up in 1973, the band went to record their early classic albums Fly to the rainbow, In Trance and the hugely successful Virgin Killers and the songs from these albums formed the bedrock of their set for their LIVE double album Tokyo Tapes released in 1978.

1978 of course brings us to the big daddy of all time and the entry of a certain Mr Edward Van Halen who would turn the guitar players’ world on its head and lay down a whole new sound going into the 80’s…

See you in 1985

* all views and musical preferences are personal

Albums featured/mentioned:-

Deep Purple:- In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head, Made in Japan

Led Zeppelin:- Led Zeppelin III

Black Sabbath:- Black Sabbath, Paranoid

Jethro Tull:- Aqualung, Thick as a Brick

Pink Floyd:- Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You were Here, The Wall

Uriah Heep:- Very Heavy, Very Umble, Look at Yourself, Demons and Wizards

Yes:- Close to the Edge, Fragile

Wishbone Ash:- Argus

Neil Diamond:- Hot August Night

Bread:- Babe I’m a Want you

Thin Lizzy:- Shades of a Blue Orphange, Live and Dangerous

Scorpions:- Lonesome Crow, Fly to the Rainbow, In Trance, Virgin Killer, Tokyo Tapes

Simon and Garfunkel:- Bridge over Troubled Water

CCR:- Cosmos Factory

The Doors:- Morrison Hotel

Categories: Music