Staying Fit
Photo Collage: Paul Spella; (Source: Getty Images; Alamy)
It was 50 years ago that ABBA won fame at the Eurovision Song Contest, Van Halen debuted at a Hollywood club, and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac. In a year packed with such musical milestones, 1974 also ushered in scores of illustrious albums that remain essential today — and at this year’s Grammys, Joni Mitchell, 80, was the headline performer, joining the Rolling Stones, Dolly Parton, 78, and Bob Dylan, 82, as award nominees.
They’re still making vital new music, and their old work hasn’t aged a day. Here are 10 of the best albums from half a century ago that merit fresh attention:
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Wings, ‘Band on the Run’
Paul McCartney just reissued this classic in a 50th anniversary edition (on CD or vinyl) that includes a second disc of previously unreleased “underdubbed” mixes, stripped of orchestral overdubs, as he did with the 2003 Beatles album rerelease Let It Be…Naked. In 1974, armed with fresh material, McCartney went to Lagos, Nigeria, to record the third album with his post-Fabs band Wings. Days before the band’s departure, the guitarist and drummer quit, leaving McCartney, wife Linda, singer/guitarist Denny Laine and veteran Beatles sound engineer Geoff Emerick on their own to record at an ill-equipped studio in a dodgy location. Chaos fueled creativity. Band on the Run saw a return to the confident, catchy, melodic pop and rock McCartney contributed to the Beatles. From the lively sophisticated three-movement title track to charging rockers “Jet” and “Helen Wheels” to the bluesy “Let Me Roll It,” the album vibrates with energy and hooks.
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Joni Mitchell, ‘Court and Spark’
Joni Mitchell’s bestselling album, a blueprint for generations of acolytes, departs from her previous confessional songs to explore characters. The Canadian singer/songwriter also drifts further from folk into a dexterous fusion of jazz and pop. Adventurous, complex, melodic and clever, Court and Spark won over the masses with the rocking, comic sex-worker lament “Raised on Robbery,” jazzy “Free Man in Paris” (written about her friend the star-maker machinist and record mogul David Geffen), and the airy, anxious love song “Help Me.” The album is free of fillers, with poetic lyrics and inventive arrangements from start to finish.
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Bob Dylan and The Band, ‘Before the Flood’
The double-live album, a memento from the 1974 reunion tour, finds Bob Dylan and The Band in fine form, performing with vigor and ferocity while defiantly thumbing their noses at the past by revamping beloved hits. A new sense of fury and urgency propels “All Along the Watchtower,” “It’s All Right, Ma,” “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” Most of the tracks were recorded during the tour’s final shows at the Los Angeles Forum in February 1974 (“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was captured in New York). Dylan’s first live release was widely praised, even though the ever-sardonic singer/songwriter later dismissed the tour as “sort of mindless.”
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