The 1-2-3 of 70's Bands

[jimk]

I had a hard time coming up with only three favorite bands. I could have listed

• Hot Tuna
  Allman Bros.
  Manassassasasasssas
  CS&N
  Seldom Scene (a bluegrass band)
  Newgrass Revival (Sam Bush fiddle & mandolin)

...and that's just off the top of my head.

JimK

[cjj]

First off, you're actually thinking I can even remember the '70's???


Yeah, I think I'd have a hard time narrowing it down to just 3, on either side. There were just so many good bands and so many bad ones too. And a lot of the bad ones actually had some good material, as well as good ones with a few ****** songs too. Mostly, I'd have to say, on my least favorite list would be just about anything disco. But I have to say, even the Bee Gees had a couple of tunes I liked...

[BCGUY]

Favorites:
The Jam
Joy Division
The Clash

Least Favorite:
KC and the Sunshine Band
Captain and Tennille
Bay City Rollers

[allmodcons]

Top Three:
The Jam
The Clash
Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Bottom Three:
Styx
Kiss
REO Speedwagon

[captsandwich]

Faves:
The Specials
The Clash
The Sex Pistols

Least faves:
Hard to pick three because there are entire genres that I despise.

[royclough]

Favs

Bread
Marvin, Welch & Farrar
Searchers (60s,70s,80s,90, all the same to me)

Worst
Osmonds
Any Punk band
Bay City Rollers

[iamthebassman]

Faves
1. The Elton John Band
2. The Jam
3. The Band

Least Faves
1. REO Speedwagon
2. Styx
3. Journey

Reminds me of a story....I was in a Punk band in Texas during the late 70s, we had a show in Corpus Christi and were at a local radio station for an interview to promote that night's show. During the live interview I started noticing all the gold records on the walls; REO, Styx, Journey, Van Halen; really horrible stuff, and I started going off on the DJ, asking why she plays such horrid music, this garbage is so outdated, had she even heard the Sex Pistols? She was stunned. Corpus Christi was, probably still is, a backwards little town, completely isolated from anything of cultural significance. It's all about smoking pot and surfing. Anyway, the gig that night was packed! The whole town turned out to boo/injure/kill us. It was a fantastic show, someone even got backstage afterwards and punched our singer in the face, luckily our huge roadie took care of the guy, and we had to have a police escort from the building to our van, and from the parking lot to the freeway out of town. The venue, "The Ritz", an old converted theatre banned us from ever playing there again. They had banned two other acts previously; Patti Smith, who'd played there a couple months before us. and Elvis Presley, who'd played there in the early Sixties.

[xpitt]

Faves
Reminds me of a story....I was in a Punk band in Texas during the late 70s, we had a show in Corpus Christi and were at a local radio station for an interview to promote that night's show. During the live interview I started noticing all the gold records on the walls; REO, Styx, Journey, Van Halen; really horrible stuff, and I started going off on the DJ, asking why she plays such horrid music, this garbage is so outdated, had she even heard the Sex Pistols? She was stunned. Corpus Christi was, probably still is, a backwards little town, completely isolated from anything of cultural significance. It's all about smoking pot and surfing. Anyway, the gig that night was packed! The whole town turned out to boo/injure/kill us. It was a fantastic show, someone even got backstage afterwards and punched our singer in the face, luckily our huge roadie took care of the guy, and we had to have a police escort from the building to our van, and from the parking lot to the freeway out of town. The venue, "The Ritz", an old converted theatre banned us from ever playing there again. They had banned two other acts previously; Patti Smith, who'd played there a couple months before us. and Elvis Presley, who'd played there in the early Sixties.

That sounds like a really successful gig for a punk band !
My favourites in the 70's : Little Feat, Loggins & Messina, Eagles and Emmylou Harris' "Hot Band"and some more, I read "Renaissance" up there - nice band with classical influences, I saw them way back then on one of the Reading Jazz and Blues Festivals in England.
The ones I didn't like I have forgotten...

[scotty]

The jam
The clash
The Vapors


not for me
Kiss
Ozzy
anyone with a pointed guitar and album artwork from hell.

[antipodean]

Easy....

Top 3:
1. King Crimson
2. The Ramones
3. The Talking Heads

If we were talking acts, rather than bands, Mr Bowie would slot in at No 1, and Mr John would get an honourable mention at the very least....

and scraping the very bottom of an extremely deep barrel full of malodorous muck:

1. REO Speedwagon
2. Brotherhood of Man
3. Bay City Rollers

Oh, the horror!

[8mileshigher]

An interesting and enjoyable thread !
It was comical that several people listed similar (repeating) names on their Dis-Like lists....
I guess like-minds are thinking alike ....

But it seems that several people mentioned how its more challenging to narrow down their list of favorites... really tough to filter it down to just three choices....

[kenposurf]

Dire Straits
ZZ Top
and.....

[beatlefreak]

Hard to pick just three that I liked best, there were a lot of them, but I'll go with:

Pink Floyd
Badfinger
Manfred Mann's Earth Band

because I liked their output all through the seventies. It's even harder to pick three that I liked least, because there were so many that were absolutely atrocious. I'll have to get back to you on that one.

[fireglo]

• Paul McCartney and Wings
  Boston
  Fleetwood Mac

Least favorites are too numerous to mention.

[hamilton_square]

Being British, I’d like to wave my 1970s Union Jack for …



1 : 10 cc … and arguably the most eclectic and versatile of 70s British groups. The range and differing styles of songs they wrote and recorded continuously kept the record buying public guessing, for no two hit records were ever the same.



2 : Be-Bop Deluxe … built round Yorkshire born virtuoso guitarist and vocalist, Bill Nelson. The group stayed together for just as long as Bill Nelson remained interested in making hit records. For he quickly fell out of love with the record industry and slipped into relative obscurity, pursuing more self-indulgent avant-garde musical approaches that appealed to only a tiny minority of loyal fans.



3 : Dr Feelgood … raucous ‘in yer face’ Essex based R&B quartet who were often affectionately referred as “Hiroshima in a pint glass". While Dr Feelgood still perform to this day, albeit with none of the original founding members, the 70s line up that featured harmonica playing vocalist, Lee Brilleaux and an often demented looking and always dressed in black, John “Wilko” Wilkinson on lead guitar were the quintessential Dr Feelgood. Put them in a recording studio and they were ordinary, put them on a stage and they came alive. In them days nobody ever sat down at a Dr Feelgood concert.

While hate is too strong a word, I was never a fan of 70s British ‘Glam-Rock’. So I guess you could say I never had much time for the likes of Bowie, Bolan, Glitter and the like.