Fabulously Flamboyant Fridays – 1972 And All That

Welcome back my friends to the flamboyance that never ends, as Fabulously Flamboyant Friday proudly delivers yet another light-loafered, groin-polished googly from the gasworks end of musical magnificence.

I’ve recently been re-reading David Hepworth’s rather splendid tome, 1971 – Never a Dull Moment: Rock’s Golden Year. It remains a thoroughly entertaining book and one that I’m happy to commend to the house.

I’ve always had a soft spot for dear old Heppers. He was by far the best of the post-Bob Harris presenters on the BBC’s legendary Old Grey Whistle Test. Nightingale was a lightweight, Kershaw was irritating, Ellen and Skinner were bland, but Hepworth, well, he pitched it just right.

Anyway, Hepworth’s book is an engaging and entertaining read with a very simple premise: “1971 was the most febrile and creative time in the entire history of popular music.” A bold claim indeed, but one the author largely stands up via a splendid mix of facts, insights, dry wit, pithy comment and some interesting anecdotal detail.

Danny Baker (before he was cast out for sundry un-woke simian shenanigans) accurately described Hepworth’s book as a “forensic sweep of [an] astonishing twelve months… thoroughly absorbing… appropriately rollicking, expertly guiding us through a miraculous year in all its breathless tumble of creation”. A typically Baker-esque comment, but one with which I am not minded to quibble.

One of Hepworth’s comments that resonates with me still, is that we had absolutely no idea of just how extraordinarily lucky we were to be living through such an astonishingly explosive period of youthful creativity – a point I have belaboured (no doubt to the chagrin of my interlocutors) over many a Friday night pint. And, for me, this period of musical magnificence did not end with ’71, because ’72 was an absolute corker as well. In fact, as much as I enjoyed Hepworth’s book and as much as I enjoyed 1971, I actually preferred the musical output of ’72.

So, is 1972 a neglected sibling? Well, I’m not suggesting ’72 has been thrashed, beaten and banished to the bedroom like an unwanted ginger step-child. However, compared to 1971, I don’t think it has received the love, care and attention it so richly deserves.

Well tonight, dear reader, we shall attempt to right at least a portion of that wrong. And so, without further ado, ladies and gentlebodies, please be welcome to tonight’s edition of Fabulously Flamboyant Friday and the musical monster of a year that was 1972 – Not Arf!

Please note: there will be no attempt on my part to draw up a definitive list of ’72’s greatest musical moments. Tonight’s missive will simply be a consideration of the music that made the very young and foolish me sit up and take notice.

And I suppose we should probably begin tonight’s proceedings with glam rock, which of course began in 1971. The appearance of T. Rex on Top of the Pops, performing Hot Love, is oft cited as the true beginning of the glam rock era, but it was in ’72 that we witnessed the full glam rock explosion. Artists such as David Bowie, Sweet, Slade, Roxy Music, and *ahem* Gary Glitter quickly and enthusiastically jumped upon the tinsel and glitter band wagon, and things were soon moving along quite nicely indeed, thank you very much.

Marc Bolan and T. Rex had an absolutely cracking year, with Children of the Revolution, Debora, Jeepster, Metal Guru, Solid Gold Easy Action and Telegram Sam all making the UK top ten. On top of this stellar chart performance, T.Rex also released The Slider – an album that will always live in the shadow of ’71’s Electric Warrior, but a damn fine effort, nonetheless.

’72 was also the year in which Bowie embraced glam rock, with the release of his cumbersomely titled but hugely successful Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. Roxy Music burst onto the scene, released their eponymous and highly innovative first album, and then startled us all with their genre-defining single, Virginia Plain.

Slade also had a very good year. They released two of their finest albums, Slayed? and Slade Alive, and had a string of top twenty singles, including Gudbuy T’Jane, Look Wot You Dun, Take Me Bak ‘Ome and the truly magnificent Mama Weer All Crazee Now.

To be honest, Slade were always an odd fit for the glam rock movement. They were certainly marketed as glam rockers, but always looked more like brickies’ hod carriers than glam rock stars. Additionally, as Mama Weer All Crazee Now and their powerful in-concert performances amply illustrated (and, by-the-way, this was a quality shared with the equally accomplished and equally hard-rocking Sweet), they had more than one foot in the rock camp and could seriously kick arse on stage.

On the subject of hard rock, ’72 produced some absolute belters. Black Sabbath were on a roll and released their seminal (stop sniggering at the back) Vol. IV. Not to be outdone, Deep Purple released not one, but two genre-defining albums: Machine Head and the staggeringly powerful Made In Japan. All three of these albums went on to acquire near-legendary status in the rock world and their influence is still clearly heard today.

’72 saw Uriah Heep release two classic albums, Demons & Wizards and The Magician’s Birthday; Wishbone Ash released Argus; the Stones (at the absolute peak of their powers) released Exile On Main Street; the Eagles released their eponymous (and rather splendid) debut album; Lou Reed released his gender-bending classic, Transformer, and Status Quo released Piledriver.

Piledriver was an interesting album and a pivotal release for the mighty Quo. They had been gradually moving away from the faux psychedelia of their early recordings and had travelled a long way down the path that would eventually lead to the heads-down, no-nonsense, 12-bar boogie that would define their enormously successful career. Ma Kelly’s Greasy Spoon (1970) and Dog of Two Heads (1971) had shown the way, but it was ’72’s excellent Piledriver that finally nailed the formula. They would of course follow this up in ’73 with Hello! – for me, the finest album of their career – pure, distilled, quintessential Quo.

Hawkwind released an absolute corker in 1972, with Doremi Fasol Latido. The album was well received by both press and punters alike. But the band were still considered by most to be a bit of an odd, underground outfit – a bunch of permanently stoned stoners, where the only thing more stoned than Hawkwind was Hawkwind’s perma-stoned fan base, who, on the very rare occasion when they weren’t stoned, were fully focused on getting as thoroughly and comprehensibly stoned as they possibly could, as soon as was humanly possible. However, they startled us all in ’72 by shaking off their niche status and landing the biggest hit of their career with Silver Machine.

Motown and Soul also had a splendid year. ’72 saw the great Stevie Wonder release two albums that began what is now considered to be his hugely influential classic period. Music of My Mind was Wonder’s fourteenth studio album, but his first with full artistic control over his music – and it really showed.

Wonder had become interested in synthesizers and electronic music after first hearing Tonto’s Expanding Head Band. He subsequently recruited the group’s members (Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff) and dived head-first into his now legendary early-70’s synth period. The success of this collaboration also saw the ’72 release of Wonder’s peerless Talking Book – a truly magnificent album, which, to this day, remains a firm favourite of mine.

Outside of the innovative work of Stevie Wonder, ’72 also saw the release of some stone-cold classic soul albums: Curtis Mayfield released Superfly, Aretha Franklin released Young Gifted & Black, Al Green released Lets Stay Together, Labi Siffri released Crying Laughing Loving Lying, and The Isleys released Brother, Brother, Brother. That really is quite a year.

And now… with much trepidation and appropriately grave trigger warnings, we must bite down hard on our comfort pillows, don our industrial grade Tenna pads, and cautiously approach the damp, dark and foetid world of prog rock. Many, of course, will now be running from the room, screaming in abject yet perfectly understandable terror; but for those brave and hardy souls who choose to remain – some, no doubt, quivering behind the couch – 1972 was a magnificent, pivotal and truly progtastic year.

King Crimson released Earthbound, Genesis released the truly wonderful Foxtrot, Gentle Giant released Octopus; Jethro Tull, Thick As A Brick; Renaissance, Prologue; Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Trilogy (my absolute favourite by them), and Pink Floyd released Obscured By Clouds and then began to debut tracks from their soon-to-be-released Dark Side Of The Moon album during their now legendary 1972 live shows.

’72 was also a wonderful year for Italian prog. Although they were doomed to remain under the UK rock radar for far too long, Premiata Forneria Marconi’s Per Un Amico and Storia di un Minito, LeOrme’s Uomo di Pezza, and Banco del Mutuo Soccorso’s eponymous debut and sophomore follow up (Darwin) all stand up alongside the most inventive and original prog from that magnificent golden era.

The Germans, too, were having a splendid prog year and were in fact out-proging almost everyone on the planet. Their burgeoning (and soon-to-be staggeringly influential) Krautrock movement was up and running and, amongst the many highlights of ’72, Neu released their eponymous debut, Amon Duul II released both Carnival in Babylon and Wolf City, and also managed to find time to record their seminal Live in London LP. Faust released So far; Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk 2; Can, Egg Bamyasi; and Tangerine Dream entered their classic period (the peerless Baumann / Franke / Froese line-up) with the release of their groundbreaking album, Zeit.

These German artists would of course all go on to have a profound and lasting influence upon the pop and rock scene of the ’70s and ’80s, and on the EDM scene of the 1990s as well – particularly the Detroit Techno scene. However, it’s worth noting that the American musician, Wendy Carlos, also released two albums in ’72, Clockwork Orange and Sonic Seasonings, that would prove to be equally influential on these musically diverse scenes.

Of course, the jewel in the prog rock crown of 1972 has to be what many consider to be the finest prog rock album of all time. The band is Yes and the album is Close To The Edge. It is certainly the finest album the band ever produced and is consistently ranked as one of the greatest albums of all time. For many it represents a high watermark of the 1970’s prog era and, for me at least, Close To The Edge is quite simply the band’s meisterwerk – a truly wonderful album that mesmerised me on release and still spins regularly on my turntable, well over fifty years after its initial release.

The world of Jazz also had a damn fine year. John Coltrane released Infinity and Ornette Coleman released Skies of America (although I freely admit that, on release, I really couldn’t make head nor tail of it). Keith Jarrett released Facing You, and Chick Corea released the album that would come to define his career – Return To Forever.

However, for me, the most important jazz album of the year was McCoy Tyner’s staggeringly staggering Sahara. I remember hearing it for the first time in the company of my piano tutor (I was a talentless ham-fisted hack, but he was a chap of seemingly endless patience). We both sat in almost stunned silence as this astonishing recording played. I suspect my jaw was hanging open in disbelief for most of the time and I clearly remember my tutor, at times, throwing his hands in the air in disbelief. It convinced me that I would never be a pianist and that saxophonists can breath through their ears. It also remains, to this day, my favourite jazz album of all time.

So what other albums did I enjoy in ’72? Well, Randy Newman truly found his voice and released Sail Away. It’s a great album that began a string of releases that, if written today, would probably get you banged up in one of Two Tier Keir’s gulags. Randy Newman is, I believe, one of the finest singer-songwriter’s of the late 20th century, and Sail Away is one of my favourite albums by this gifted composer.

Elton John was of course at the height of his powers in ’72 and Honky Chateau was his big release of that year. Alongside the following year’s Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only The Piano Player, it remains one of my favourite albums from his now very extensive back catalogue.

The Allman Brothers released Eat A Peach, an album I had been eagerly anticipating since hearing their astonishing live album, At Fillmore East, which had been released the previous year – and I am very happy to say that I was not disappointed. And, of course, the ill-fated Nick Drake released his third and final album, the utterly sublime Pink Moon.

And finally, we’ll wrap things up with some guilty pleasures. My partner at the time was a big Doobie Brothers fan. Now I’ve never been a huge fan of that laid-back, soft-rock, California scene (I still remember her outrage when I burst out laughing at CSN&Y’s Almost Cut My Hair), but her constant playing of the Doobie’s album, Toulouse Street, kinda won me over.

And Talking of CNS&Y, Neil Young released Harvest in ’72, and that is still a very fine album. My partner at the time is also responsible for making me admire the Eagles and the songwriting ability of Gilbert O’Sullivan. I’m now quite happy with the former, but I probably won’t forgive her for the latter.

And, finally, I have to mention The Osmonds, who surprised us with their hugely out-of-character hit, Crazy Horses. A seriously great song and a genuine guilty pleasure with which I’m sure many here can empathise – or at least understand. And please note the live vocals on this Top of the Pops performance – a really quite unusual touch of class at a time when simply miming along to your single was pretty much de rigueur.

Anyway, I think that’s quite enough of my early ’70s ramblings for one evening, so I shall wish you all a very pleasant evening. May your pillows be tasty, your gardens inclined and your puddles well jumped. Goodnight and may your frog go with you – Not Arf!