Rewind: 1974

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This post originally appeared on my music column ‘The Crossroads’ over at Dad-Blogs.com on June 18, 2009:

This is the first in a series I’m calling ‘Rewind’ where I profile music history in a specific year. The first installment is on 1974, because, well, that was one of the best years ever – I was born! If you have any year suggestions for a future ‘Rewind’, please leave a comment or email me.

In doing my research for this first edition of Rewind, I was reminded about just how amazing 1974 really was in the music world. Punk rock legends the Ramones formed in Forest Hills, Queens, KISS released their self titled debut album, Yes was the must have ticket for two unadvertised shows at Madison Square Garden and Van Halen played their first gig on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip.

The destiny of bands change as Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac, altering their sound, Peter Gabriel left Genesis, making way for the emergence of Phil Collins, and Robin Zander teamed up with Tom Peterson, Bun E. Carlos and Rick Nielson to form the latest iteration of ‘Cheap Trick’, which would also be the most successful.

Revivals and rebirths were abound as Bill Haley and the Comet’s ‘Rock Around the Clock’ returned to the Billboard Top 40 after a 20 year hiatus when it was revived by the television hit ‘Happy Days’. In a stretch to make a parallel conclusion, Journey got their first record deal with Columbia and just thirty five short years later a popular cable mob drama ended randomly to one of their greatest hits. Finally, the band Alice Cooper broke up, but lived on when lead man Vincent Furnier legally changed his name and embarked on a solo career.

Bands aside, 1974 saw some really great music come out based on a quick review of the albums released for our consumption. We were Barry White’s first, last, everything on ‘Can’t Get Enough’. Supertramp told us we were all dreamers on ‘Crime of the Century’. George Harrison teamed with his old Beatles cohort Ringo Starr, amongst others, on the album ‘Dark Horse’. KISS made ‘74 a twofer with the release of both their debut and second effort ‘Hotter Than Hell’. We also got to get a piece of Mr. Parker’s band on Steely Dan’s ‘Pretzel Logic’. While this list could go on for two more posts, I’ll wrap it up by catching a wave with the Beach Boys and ‘Endless Summer’.

All in all 1974 brought us a lot of great music, some sad goodbyes and a look to the future of music. Duke Ellington and Cass Elliot were among the more notable departures, while Nelly, Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice) and Jewel came bounding into the world.

I hope you enjoyed this Rewind of 1974 and will join us again for our next installment. We leave you now with a bit of trivia, and remember, googling isn’t cheating.

The band ‘Angel and the Snake’ was formed in 1974, but became popular under what name when they changed it in 1975?

Is there a specific year you’d like to see profiled on an upcoming Rewind? Leave a comment or drop me an email at so I can work on it for a future article. Also, if you’re new here, consider joining Dad-Blogs and grabbing the RSS feed so you can get this and all of the other awesome columns delivered fresh directly to you. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the ride!