1975

not the band, but the year in music

Hi all. Happy New Year (again).

Let me say something straight up: the 70s were music’s wildest (musical) decade. My colleague Dan at XPN says that regularly during his weekday hour long Highs In the 70s show, and every time I hear him say that I drift back to one year in particular - 1975 - the year I graduated high school (yo, Northeast Vikings rule).

Now, you could argue any other year from that decade was great (‘74, ‘78, ‘79, maybe?) but when you’re a senior in high school, looking at the world through the eyes of having every freedom ahead of you you ever wanted, the 12th grade mark, for some, is often a doorway into endless possibilities (music and life). It was for me.

Here’s the thing: When I was a senior in high school I was friends with different groups of my peers that had their own little musical genre tribes. There were the Deadheads (who I hung with), the Zeppelinheads, the Jazz fusionistas, the R&B kids who turned me on to deep tracks from Minnie Ripperton and Parliament, the Joni (Mitchell) and James (Taylor) and Janis (Ian) romantics.

I had a pal named Reggie G who turned me on to Allen Toussaint and I’ll tell you even 50 years later many of the music fans I know still don’t know who Toussaint is or why he’s so important. My friend Josh turned me on to pre-”Dust In The Wind” Kansas; “Song For America” was my prog-rock jam at the time. My friend Ricky, a year older than me, intro’d me to ‘72-’74 Zappa and when I asked girls that I was trying to go on dates with if they liked Zappa they’d stop looking at me in the hallway. Sadly, Ricky died of a heroin overdose in ‘79, the year I graduated from college.

Queen was massive in' ‘75. So were the Allmans, the Elements (Earth, Wind & Fire), and Bobby D and The Band. The Mac was everywhere, so was Wings.

Elton released my favorite album of his in ‘75, and The Boss single-handedly changed my life. I fell in love with Steely Dan in ‘75, and consumed plenty of Who, Average White Band, Little Feat and Bee Gees. Robert Palmer was not yet a huge star, but he made a great album w/ members of The Meters and Little Feat. The Sound of Philly was in full effect, I heard that Bowie was making a record here, WMMR turned me on to Leon Redbone, Return To Forever, and of course, Zappa. Plenty of my friends were into Sabbath but I didn’t catch the bug until later in life.

I bought Weather Report’s Tale Spinnin’ at Korvette’s Department Store cause the album cover looked cool. Same for Roxy’s Siren and Keith Jarret’s Koln Concert. I didn’t know that “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” by Jeff Beck from Blow By Blow was written by Stevie Wonder until a few years after BBB was released. The summer of ‘75 was book-ended with “One Of These Nights” by The Eagles and “Born To Run” by The Boss.

In 1975 Patti Smith became my Queen. I owe all that to my best friend at the time, Lynne. I played Patti’s Horses that year almost as much as I played Born To Run, Physical Graffiti, Katy Lied and Bob Marley Live!

And at least one 10cc song was huge.

In ‘75 I was friends with the classic rock kids. I was a (mostly) classic rock kid. Except it wasn’t called classic rock back then, because it wasn’t “classic” yet. It was more just like “new” rock music that had yet to be labelled and packaged and sold like fucking Taco Bell and chewing gum and cultural ideology.

But I digress.

So in 1975 when I was a senior in high school, while I had a wide ranging love of many styles of music, most of the music I listened to when I was hanging out w/ my friends was sort of like the soundtrack to Dazed and Confused. Which didn’t suck. In fact, it fucking rocked.

Last month, mid-December, I got an invitation in the mail to my class’s 50th high anniversary school reunion. It got me thinking about the years that have passed and the music I fell in love with back then, that I still carry with me. Now that we’ve rolled into 2025, I decided to make a list of albums and songs that were a part of my life then, and to some degree or another still are.

Music discovery for me back in high school - especially in 1975 - was just as powerful then as it is for me now. Happy 50th Anniversary to these amazing records and songs.

Tramps like us…they don’t call it classic rock for nothing.

Dig in.