Free Republic

A look back at the news and commercials circa 1979, with a special focus on the national news. https://youtu.be/uxvEigiI14I

ROUND 5 OF THE '70S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS COMMENCES! Votes due: Sunday, Feb 18 @ 6:00 pm Eastern. The Great 8! It's getting easier! Just 4 pairs of songs! Vote for your favorite of each pair shown. No reply, no vote. (You may abstain from any pairs, but please be clear about that.) Any ties will be broken with a run-off which will end (hopefully) the following Monday.

ROUND 4 OF THE '70S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS COMMENCES! Votes due: Sunday, Feb 11 @ 6:00 pm Eastern. SWEET 16! 16 songs, 8 pairs, 8 winners! Vote for your favorite in each pair shown. No reply, no vote. (You may abstain from any pairs but please be clear.) Any ties will be broken with a run-off which will end the following Monday. Format: Billboard rank/seed - year - title - act

ROUND 3 OF THE '70S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS COMMENCES! Votes due: Sunday, Feb 4 @ 6:00 pm Eastern. 32 songs, 16 pairs, 16 winners! Vote for your favorite in each pair shown. No reply, no vote. (You may abstain from any pairs.) Any ties will be broken with a run-off which will end the following Monday. Format: Billboard rank/seed - year - song title - act

ROUND 2 of the greatest hits of the '70s begins! Due date: Sunday, Jan 28 @6:00 pm (Eastern) This Round takes the top 6 songs of each year of the '70s per BILLBOARD, and pairs them in brackets along with the best 4 #7s as voted in Round 1.

OK, FREEPERS, LET'S START THIS CONTEST FOR THE GREATEST SONG OF THE '70S. The baseline for the contest is the top 7 hits of each year of the '70s, as compiled by BILLBOARD. This is not based on personal preferences, biases, prejudices, or counter-culture fringe-element reactivity. The rules in general will be to vote for everything shown. NO equivocating, ties, or omissions. Votes will ONLY be counted if the "ballot" is COMPLETE. *ROUND 1* We begin by taking the #7 songs of each year and paring them from 10 songs to 4 (to set up brackets of 64 for the...

Who wants to participate in a music play-off bracket-type poll for best songs of the '70s? 3 years ago I ran a "tournament" to pick the best songs of the '80s, based first on Billboard rankings, so only the best of the best are included! You can view how this played out here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3249477/posts That's what I want to do for the '70s. (Wouldn't mind doing it for other decades, either!)

One model with a mullet and mustache throws a 'Blue Steel' pose as he models a velour dressing gown while another similar-looking chap stands confidently in a snazzy pair of bell-bottom trousers. These are snapshots from a range of 1970s adverts showing the most popular men's fashions of the day. High-waist pants, skimpy briefs, synthetic fabrics and psychedelic patterns seem to be in vogue - looks more suited to the fancy dress parties of today.

Creator of the Pet Rock, Gary Dahl, Dies at Age 78 Gary Dahl's invention of the pet rock made him a millionaire after it went on sale in 1975. Gary Dahl, the creator of the Pet Rock—”one of the most ridiculously successful marketing schemes ever,” Newsweek once said—died at age 78 on March 23. Dahl first came up with the concept as joke while working as a freelance copywriter, but the idea of a minimal-effort “pet” and its clever packaging resonated with the times—and quickly made him a millionaire after the rocks went on sale for $3.95 apiece in 1975,...

I had a thought a while back and decided to post it: There is a side of me that feels like I time travelled back to the 1970's. Let's face it, like then, we have a horrible economy, an inept President, gas (and energy in general) prices are high, we have a weakened military, Islamic radicals causing trouble, the Russians are invading their neighbors and we have Jerry "Governor Moonbeam" Brown as governor of California.

Faces -sometimes known as The Faces- were an English rock band formed in by residual members of the legendary Small Faces when Steve Marriott left that group to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton et. al. in 1969..  The name derived from English 'mod' slang of the era, where 'happening' or socially-known people within the mod scene were known as 'faces'- along with the fact that all five band members were somewhat vertically-challenged. After the highly-successful Small Faces broke-up, the remaining band members - Ronnie Lane (bass guitar), Ian McLagan (keyboards) and Kenney Jones (drums) - were joined by two (taller) blokes,...

Cleveland's own Eric Carmen (and friends)... Allmusic Magazine had described them as featuring 'exquisitely crafted melodies and achingly gorgeous harmonies...'  The Raspberries drew influence from the British Invasion era -especially The Beatles, other Merseybeat acts, The Who, The Hollies, and The Small Faces... along their 'mod' fashion sense. Of course later Eric Carmen went on to massive success as a solo balladeer, but the original band has reunited for gigs as recently as 2005- some material from the tour was realeased as Live from the Sunset Strip in 2007.  Below you'll find an amusing appearance on The Mike Douglas...

Gilbert O'Sullivan (dob Dec 1, 1946) is an Irish singer/songwriter best known in the United States for his eternal hit 'Alone Again (Naturally)' (1972 US, #1 hit) as well as 'Clair' (1972, US #2). His voice has become instantly recognizable to many due to the widespread fame brought by these two timeless ballads, both of which were written by O'Sullivan himself... He also enjoyed a hot chart-topper in the UK with 'Get Down' (1973, video below), although this wonderful little ditty never did make it on our side of the pond. Another one you'll recall in all likelihood would...

I dunno how many of you are familiar with The Move, the Birmingham, England based band that  composed and recorded the original version of 'California Man' in 1972.  The single did well in the UK, yet flopped stateside, hitting only #93 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  Interestingly, the B-side actually got more airplay in the US, and it's one you should know: 'Do Ya'... but just a month after that release, The Move's Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne, and famed drummer Bev Bevan had 'moved' on to a new project, the (what came to be) world-renowned Electric Light Orchestra -or ELO- where...

While I'm perfectly aware that The Guess Who are the same bunch of leftist hosers from the Great White North that wrote the very anti-American 'American Woman', I'm going to forgive them for now because I love this tune so much, and they showed American icon 'Wolfman Jack' respect... Kinda hard for me to hate The Guess Who since I'm a lifelong BTO fan/seen 'em live: after all, two Guess Who members went on to found the band that evolved into Bachmann Turner Overdrive by 1973... The Guess Who: Clap for the Wolfman (1971) [YouTube] Video/more at Reaganite Republican...

Roxy Music were an English art-rock group formed by art school graduate Bryan Ferry (vocals and keyboards), electronic music pioneer Brian Eno (synthesizer and 'treatments'), and others in 1971... A mere 12 months later, the band had attained huge popular -and critical- success in the UK and Europe that lasted right-on-through the 1970s and into early 80s, beginning with the Top-10 debut album Roxy Music in 1972.  Roxy Music was an astonishingly talented and innovative group, both in sound and trailblazing 'glam' stage show.  The band was highly influential, a significant source of inspiration to much of the English punk scene and a model for...

I do recall feeding quarters into the jukebox everyday to hear this song at the arcade that summer of '74, couldn't get enough of it... nor her. After ten Grammy Awards, I guess I wasn't the only one who saw something there- Written by Stevie Wonder for Chicago's Rufus feat. Chaka Khan, 'Tell Me Something Good' went all the way to #3 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and was one of the very first tunes to utilize the 'talk box' Peter Frampton made so famous soon afterward. Photos don't really do this woman justice, just check-out the stage...

When I was a kid growing up in the late 70s, I used to comb through discount rack and often came-across various LPs by British boogie-rockers Status Quo in those bargain-bins and thinking 'Who the hell is this... and why are their records always being dumped by the dozens...?' None of my friends where into the band, they didn't get US airplay, and I never did buy them, perhaps spooked by the glut of unloved product out there. Most Americans would be likely know the band best for 1967's US/UK psychedelic-rock hit 'Pictures of Matchstick Men'- a song which in fact was their...

When monster smash hit Charlie's Angels first hit the tube in Fall of '76, I sure didn't have to think long when anybody asked who my favorite was: Jaclyn Smith - the young actress that played "Kelly Garrett" on the show- was to me always the  most heavenly Angel, hands down... This was for reasons I was largely unable to convey to those with Farrah posters in their bedrooms, back in the days when that one with the red bathing suit was all but ubiquitious.  But the somehow Jaclyn Smith just had a sexy vibe, bit more real/natural-look than Farrah (smile/hair), imho- plus I guess I...

This one's for you, readhead lovers... Marilu Henner as 'Elaine Nardo' on Taxi (1975-1983): Man, I absolutely loved this show, seen every episode 3x by now... Trivia: Marilu Henner is an accomplished dancer that started classes at age two. She played "Marty" in the original Chicago stage production of "Grease"(1971), before it moved onto Broadway and Hollywood fame. She also possesses a rare ability called hyperthymesia: a form of super-memory that allows her to recall specific autobiographical events from every single day of her life, even from an early age... She's got a fitness website these days, Marilu.com Show 'em your stuff  Elaine... (cue 1:40):...