Was it something in the air, something in the water? Cosmically inspired by the stars and the moon? Or maybe the devil was finally claiming his own as rock music in all its variants was unassailably ascendant.
A more temporal reason why 1975 was such a rich year for music is that by the middle 1970s, audio engineers had mastered the arts of recording on multiple channels and cutting and editing tape. Even more crucially, the profit motive still existed in music. Back when people bought vinyl LPs by the binful, it was still possible for musicians (and by extension record labels) to get rich making music. All those factors played a part in an explosion 50 years ago of popular music that has never quite been equaled.
With that in mind, here's an annotated list of 15 stars of 1975's profusion, with a healthy list of equally important albums to follow. Although the lists focus on rock and pop, by 1975 jazz had cross-pollinated with the more popular forms of music in so many ways that including several jazz titles seems appropriate.
Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks (Columbia)
With the release of both this album and The Band's The Basement Tapes, 1975 was a banner year for Bob Dylan musically. His personal life, though, was in shambles. Blood on the Tracks is almost certainly inspired by Dylan's disintegrating marriage to his wife of 10 years, Sara Lownds. He's fed speculation on that point over the years by denying and confirming its veracity. Whatever the inspiration, the lyrics of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" confirm that he at least had relationships on his mind. "Situations have ended sad/Relationships have all been bad/Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud/But there's no way I can compare/All them scenes to this affair/You're gonna make me lonesome when you go." The album's opening quintet of originals—"Tangled Up in Blue," "Simple Twist of Fate," "You're a Big Girl Now," "Idiot Wind," and "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go"—may be the strongest album side of his career. "Shelter from the Storm," which closes the album, is a Dylan classic in the same league as "Blowin' in the Wind."
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (Columbia)
Born to Run permanently changed the rules of the rock game. Suddenly those Black Sabbath and Lynyrd Skynyrd records didn't sound the same. The musical and emotional passions inherent in Born to Run still gush from the grooves, beginning with the opening notes of "Thunder Road" and continuing to the anguished urban torrent of "Jungleland." In between, there's the brassy R&B snap of "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out," the urgent, possessed title track, and the album's most ignored track, "She's the One," which still ranks as one of Springsteen's greatest love songs. The best thing of all is that instead of the too-many-words tangle his fans and detractors had become accustomed to, he's now a model of hard-hitting poetics: "Outside the street's on fire/in a real death waltz/between what's flesh and what's fantasy/And the poets down here/don't write nothing at all/they just stand back and let it all be/And in the quick of the night/they reach for their moment/and try to make an honest stand/But they wind up wounded/not even dead/tonight in Jungleland." The original sound was listenable but flawed. The 1980 half-speed mastered LP version, the 2005 digital remastering, and the 1999 Classic Records vinyl reissue all have slightly improved sound.
The Eagles: One of These Nights (Asylum)
Whether they were a wonderful southern California country-rock band or a pack of low-rent opportunists who expropriated Gram Parsons's revolutionary blend of rock and country, the Eagles became superstars with One of These Nights. The last album recorded with the country-leaning Bernie Leadon, he and his bandmates—Randy Meisner, Glenn Frey, and singing drummer Don Henley—had much audible talent. The catchy trio of "One of These Nights," "Take It to the Limit," and "Lyin' Eyes" deserved their success as singles; those tracks were overplayed nearly to death thanks to AOR and Top 40 radio, but that's hardly the band's fault. One quality melody on the album—"Hollywood Waltz"—managed to stay semi-obscure and so remains eminently listenable. Bill Szymczyk's shimmering, expansive production was obsessively detailed, and the work of five different engineers made this an early (pre–Hotel California) audiophile favorite among the band's sonically attuned fans. Guest musicians include David Bromberg on fiddle, Albhy Galuten on synth, and Jim Ed Norman on piano. The embossed cover added to the mystique. A new Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc One-Step has the best sound yet.
Earth, Wind & Fire: That's The Way of the World (Columbia)
EW&F leader-singer-songwriter Maurice White was a straight-up genius. The Memphis native, who was a childhood friend of Booker T. Jones and David Porter, worked as a drummer at Chess Records in Chicago, playing on records by Etta James, Chuck Berry, and Fontella Bass among others. After a move to Los Angeles, White formed EW&F, which released five increasingly accomplished albums before producing this masterpiece, which shot to #1 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape and Top Soul LPs charts, buoyed by the #1 Hot Soul Single and Hot 100 single, "Shining Star." A blend of genres including jazz, funk, soul, and traditional African sounds, the eight tracks on the album make for a short but sweet listen. While the sound of the Maurice White–produced album (George Massenburg was the recording and mix engineer) will always be a point of contention—it was too hot and in-your-face for some listeners—its two ballads, the title track, and the Philip Bailey showcase "Reasons" are unforgettable. "Yearnin' Learnin'" proves the band was also adept at hard funk. The album is available in audiophile vinyl pressings from Mobile Fidelity, Speakers Corner, and Impex.
David Bowie: Young Americans (RCA Victor)
Truly consequential artists have an instinct for timing and reinvention. In the summer of 1974, David Bowie, who'd outgrown Ziggy and his glam-rock personas, stepped into the famed Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, where so many great Gamble and Huff productions had been recorded, and began his surprising turn toward R&B. The influence of the resulting blue-eyed soul session has spread far and wide. James Brown based one of his songs on the riff from "Fame," and George Clinton later namechecked Bowie in the Parliament song "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)." Young Americans has been cited as an influence on hip-hop. After the Philly sessions, the album, which producer Tony Visconti has said is "85%" whole takes, recorded live with all the musicians, including Bowie's vocals, was finished at the Record Plant and Electric Lady in New York City. The forces Bowie assembled to make the album were also impressive. John Lennon sang on "Fame" and a cover of The Beatles' "Across the Universe." Bass guitar star Willie Weeks (credited as Willy Weeks) held down the bottom end. Backing singers Ava Cherry, Robin Clark, and Luther Vandross were large contributors to the album's final sound. This is blue-eyed soul on a deeper level.
Emmylou Harris: Pieces of the Sky (Reprise)
Although 1970's Gliding Bird on the tiny Jubilee label was her debut, Pieces of the Sky put Emmylou Harris on the musical map. It is also the first in a run of albums produced and recorded by Canadian Brian Ahern. Primarily recorded in a home she was renting in Coldwater Canyon above L.A. with the Enactron Truck, Ahern's mobile studio in a lead-lined semi-trailer truck, the album is the model for the mix of songs and moods that would make her next nine albums, all produced by Ahern and Harris, who married in 1977, such a rewarding body of work. The band is anchored by key members of Elvis Presley's TCB band: drummer Ron Tutt, pianist Glen D. Hardin, and guitarist James Burton. Also contributing were fiddlers Byron Berline and Ricky Skaggs, pedal steel player Ben Keith, multi-instrumentalist Bernie Leadon from The Eagles, and vocalist Linda Ronstadt. From the sweeping strings of her achingly sad rendition of Billy Sherrill's "Too Far Gone" through the rare Harris original "Boulder to Birmingham" (written for Gram Parsons), to Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors" and Lennon and McCartney's "For No One," this remains her most enduring treasure, despite the many career highlights to come.
Brian Eno: Another Green World (Island)
A multimedia moving target and everchanging font of creativity, British synth player Brian Eno has worn many musical faces. Once a part of both Roxy Music and King Crimson, Eno may be best known as the producer of albums by Talking Heads, U2, and David Bowie, among many others. Yet this, his third solo album, may be his most lasting achievement. Another Green World combines many of Eno's interests, beginning with angular pop tunes and ambient instrumentalisms. With John Cale, Phil Collins, and frequent collaborator Robert Fripp making appearances, it's hardly surprising that experimentalism is the order of the day. Falling under the amorphous category of art rock, the elements of noise, synths, and a host of creatively named instruments were the chosen vehicles for expression. The guitars in particular have fanciful nicknames, like "castanet guitar" and "snake guitar," though Eno's own contributions on "Golden Hours" are on "choppy organs" and "spasmodic percussion."
Keith Jarrett: Köln Concert (ECM)
By far the biggest-selling album of all time from Manfred Eicher's ECM label, The Köln Concert cast a spell on music fans who usually found jazz too complicated and emotionless. On that score alone, it is an epoch-shattering release. Recorded on a less-than-stellar piano by the then 30-year-old veteran of the bands of Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis, the entire album, but especially the three-part Part II exposition, are an astonishing explosion of improvisational piano. The ideas flow at an incredible pace. Jarrett's brain-to-fingers connection is instantaneous. With Eicher in charge, the impeccable depth and detail of the sound of this recording is archetypal of everything released on the ECM imprint. Jarrett's audible sighs and exhortations of joy add a perfect emphasis to the proceedings. 1975 saw three other essential ECM releases: Jan Garbarek's Belonging, John Abercrombie's Timeless, and Ralph Towner's Solstice.
Bob Marley and the Wailers: Live! (Island)
As the album that broke Marley and the Wailers in the US and catapulted them to super-stardom worldwide, Live! is one of the most energetic, best-played and -arranged live albums in the history of pop music. Recorded in July 1975 at London's Lyceum Theatre using the Rolling Stones' mobile unit, the sound was more than listenable, despite flashes of the usual balance and depth issues that come with live recordings, and it is even better in recent remasterings. Alongside Marley's always-better-than-expected singing, the Wailers at that moment were a mighty unit, supplemented here by lead guitarist Al Anderson. And there's never been a better backing vocal group than the I-Threes: Rita Marley and Judy Mowatt (at the time Marcia Griffiths was pregnant and missed the tour). The fast tempos, a source of controversy among those who prefer their reggae at a more meditative pace, benefit the tunes and enhance the messages of truth and justice. Toots & The Maytals' Funky Kingston is a close runner-up for 1975's reggae Record of the Year.
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here (Columbia)
While Dark Side of the Moon will always be the stoner landmark, Wish You Were Here is an altogether deeper affair. Reportedly spurred on by less-than-favorable predictions, the band, which was clearly on a roll, dug deep. They had a potent inspiration: former member and PF founder Syd Barrett, who by 1975 had become a recluse. The nine-part "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," which opens and closes the album, pays tribute to him, directly addressing his condition. "Remember when you were young/You shone like the sun/Shine on you crazy diamond/Now there's a look in your eyes/Like black holes in the sky ... ." Undisguised barbs were thrown toward the record industry. The title track is an appealing near-pop tune, and synthesizers are prominent in the mix. This album has been remastered and reissued many times, including in its most comprehensive form so far: 2011's Wish You Were Here—Immersion Boxed Set on Capitol Records.
Sun Ra: Pathways to Unknown Worlds (Saturn; ABC/Impulse)
The word "prolific" doesn't even begin to capture it: Depending on how you count reissues and repackagings, the ever-growing universe of Sun Ra recordings easily numbers in the hundreds. Recorded in 1973 and rereleased by ABC/Impulse in 1975, these three tracks are Ra and his Astro Infinity Arkestra in full flower. The magic of Ra is that while it is certainly free jazz, and its tangle of horn and percussion improvisations may sound confusingly random, a certain arc and internal logic emerges after repeated listens. This is not easy music, and that of course is the point. Open-minded listeners are drawn in by its fearless experimentalism and constant reaching for new sonic experiences. Alongside electric piano and organ, Ra adds the new Moog synthesizer to his arsenal of sounds. Ra's band of equally intrepid collaborators includes tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, drummer Clifford Jarvis, and alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, who leads the current edition of the Arkestra at age 101.
Willie Nelson: Red Headed Stranger (Columbia)
There's cosmic truth in the fact that both of Willie Nelson's biggest album hits are outliers, wild pitches, eccentric anomalies. While his later masterwork Stardust was as smooth as satin, Red Headed Stranger is, to use a term correctly, "funky." Years after writing many notable songs that became hits for others, including "Crazy" for Patsy Cline, Nelson became a superstar and reached an entirely new audience with this unlikely concept album. Loosely based on a hard-to-follow tale of a killer on the run, Nelson's 18th album was recorded quickly and simply. Hated by the suits at Columbia Records, including the usually infallible Bruce Lundvall, then president of Columbia Records (and later of Blue Note Records), the album was released as is, and defying all predictions became a hit, for all the reasons naysayers were sure it would fail. At the album's center are two knockout covers, "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and "Red Headed Stranger," which become classics thank to Nelson's impassioned vocals. Strange when it was released and even stranger now contrasted with the mundane adult-rock spiral of country music today, Red Headed Stranger is a monument to Nelson's assured instincts and the very definition of an unlikely triumph.
Betty Davis: Nasty Gal (Island)
Too wild for husband Miles Davis, who accused her of having an affair with Jimi Hendrix, Betty Davis, née Mabry, was a fashion model and aspiring musician who had a huge influence on Davis's tastes in fashion and music. After their divorce, she made a pair of albums that attracted the attention of Chris Blackwell and his Island Records label. This hard-funk collection has the makings of a hit, but it was not to be. Deemed too raw and randy, Davis, who stalked the stage in high-heeled boots during live shows and was more of a shouter than a singer, addressed her critics in "Dedicated to the Press": "Oh, isn't she a shame/Oh, ah, mmm, what a trashy dame." Fifty years after its release, this remains one of the nastiest funk records of all time. Davis's touring band Funk House, anchored by bassist Larry Johnson, drummer Nickey Neal, and keyboardist Fred Mills, geneates massive and unrelenting grooves. And while Davis's vocal instinct was always to shriek for emphasis, she unveils a sweet singing voice in "You and I," a ballad written with Miles and arranged by Gil Evans.
Neil Young: Tonight's the Night (Reprise)
Sadness is catnip to songwriters, and here Young wrestles with his grief over a pair of drug casualties who fell near him—Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. This shambolic set also ponders the mixed feelings Young had about the fame that resulted from Harvest. Shelved, tinkered with, and rerecorded, TTN was resurrected by Rick Danko's praise one night at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont. While its creator has said this album is about "death and dope," its spirituality is deceptively ragged but ultimately calculated and real. The upbeat "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown" breaks the mood. Ben Keith's pedal steel leads the hippie country of "Roll Another Number (for the Road)," where Young asserts, "I feel able to get under any load" and recounts the CSNY trip to Woodstock. "New Mama" is a hymn, while by "Tired Eyes," Young is openly wondering about his fallen friends. "Well, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more/I mean was he a heavy doper or/Was he just a loser?"
Allen Toussaint: Southern Nights (Reprise)
While performers who left town—Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, Jon Batiste—have long been the popular face of New Orleans music, behind the scenes the real power lay with a handful of writing and arranging geniuses including Wardell Quezergue, Dave Bartholomew, and Allen Toussaint. Here on his third solo record, Toussaint mixes soul, R&B, and New Orleans rhythms with classic southern subjects. A collaboration between Toussaint and producer Marshall Sehorn, the album's best-known tune, "Southern Nights," first appears as a between-song snatch with his voice processed to sound underwater, an effect one reviewer called "swamp water." The entire track appears later on in the album, with the same processed vocal sound. It's completely different from the later, better-known Glen Campbell hit. The other can't-miss tune here is "What Do You Want the Girl to Do?" where Toussaint's supple vocal rides over a spacious arrangement of a tune later covered by Bonnie Raitt and Boz Scaggs. "When the Party's Over" is Toussaint at his smoothest, while the ballad "Cruel Way to Go Down" almost closes the album on a down note before a brass flourish adds a hopeful coda.
Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks (Columbia)With the release of both this album and The Band's The Basement Tapes, 1975 was a banner year for Bob Dylan musically. His personal life, though, was in shambles. Blood on the Tracks is almost certainly inspired by Dylan's disintegrating marriage to his wife of 10 years, Sara Lownds. He's fed speculation on that point over the years by denying and confirming its veracity. Whatever the inspiration, the lyrics of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" confirm that he at least had relationships on his mind. "Situations have ended sad/Relationships have all been bad/Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud/But there's no way I can compare/All them scenes to this affair/You're gonna make me lonesome when you go." The album's opening quintet of originals—"Tangled Up in Blue," "Simple Twist of Fate," "You're a Big Girl Now," "Idiot Wind," and "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go"—may be the strongest album side of his career. "Shelter from the Storm," which closes the album, is a Dylan classic in the same league as "Blowin' in the Wind."
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (Columbia)Born to Run permanently changed the rules of the rock game. Suddenly those Black Sabbath and Lynyrd Skynyrd records didn't sound the same. The musical and emotional passions inherent in Born to Run still gush from the grooves, beginning with the opening notes of "Thunder Road" and continuing to the anguished urban torrent of "Jungleland." In between, there's the brassy R&B snap of "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out," the urgent, possessed title track, and the album's most ignored track, "She's the One," which still ranks as one of Springsteen's greatest love songs. The best thing of all is that instead of the too-many-words tangle his fans and detractors had become accustomed to, he's now a model of hard-hitting poetics: "Outside the street's on fire/in a real death waltz/between what's flesh and what's fantasy/And the poets down here/don't write nothing at all/they just stand back and let it all be/And in the quick of the night/they reach for their moment/and try to make an honest stand/But they wind up wounded/not even dead/tonight in Jungleland." The original sound was listenable but flawed. The 1980 half-speed mastered LP version, the 2005 digital remastering, and the 1999 Classic Records vinyl reissue all have slightly improved sound.
The Eagles: One of These Nights (Asylum)Whether they were a wonderful southern California country-rock band or a pack of low-rent opportunists who expropriated Gram Parsons's revolutionary blend of rock and country, the Eagles became superstars with One of These Nights. The last album recorded with the country-leaning Bernie Leadon, he and his bandmates—Randy Meisner, Glenn Frey, and singing drummer Don Henley—had much audible talent. The catchy trio of "One of These Nights," "Take It to the Limit," and "Lyin' Eyes" deserved their success as singles; those tracks were overplayed nearly to death thanks to AOR and Top 40 radio, but that's hardly the band's fault. One quality melody on the album—"Hollywood Waltz"—managed to stay semi-obscure and so remains eminently listenable. Bill Szymczyk's shimmering, expansive production was obsessively detailed, and the work of five different engineers made this an early (pre–Hotel California) audiophile favorite among the band's sonically attuned fans. Guest musicians include David Bromberg on fiddle, Albhy Galuten on synth, and Jim Ed Norman on piano. The embossed cover added to the mystique. A new Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc One-Step has the best sound yet.
Earth, Wind & Fire: That's The Way of the World (Columbia)EW&F leader-singer-songwriter Maurice White was a straight-up genius. The Memphis native, who was a childhood friend of Booker T. Jones and David Porter, worked as a drummer at Chess Records in Chicago, playing on records by Etta James, Chuck Berry, and Fontella Bass among others. After a move to Los Angeles, White formed EW&F, which released five increasingly accomplished albums before producing this masterpiece, which shot to #1 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape and Top Soul LPs charts, buoyed by the #1 Hot Soul Single and Hot 100 single, "Shining Star." A blend of genres including jazz, funk, soul, and traditional African sounds, the eight tracks on the album make for a short but sweet listen. While the sound of the Maurice White–produced album (George Massenburg was the recording and mix engineer) will always be a point of contention—it was too hot and in-your-face for some listeners—its two ballads, the title track, and the Philip Bailey showcase "Reasons" are unforgettable. "Yearnin' Learnin'" proves the band was also adept at hard funk. The album is available in audiophile vinyl pressings from Mobile Fidelity, Speakers Corner, and Impex.
David Bowie: Young Americans (RCA Victor)Truly consequential artists have an instinct for timing and reinvention. In the summer of 1974, David Bowie, who'd outgrown Ziggy and his glam-rock personas, stepped into the famed Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, where so many great Gamble and Huff productions had been recorded, and began his surprising turn toward R&B. The influence of the resulting blue-eyed soul session has spread far and wide. James Brown based one of his songs on the riff from "Fame," and George Clinton later namechecked Bowie in the Parliament song "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)." Young Americans has been cited as an influence on hip-hop. After the Philly sessions, the album, which producer Tony Visconti has said is "85%" whole takes, recorded live with all the musicians, including Bowie's vocals, was finished at the Record Plant and Electric Lady in New York City. The forces Bowie assembled to make the album were also impressive. John Lennon sang on "Fame" and a cover of The Beatles' "Across the Universe." Bass guitar star Willie Weeks (credited as Willy Weeks) held down the bottom end. Backing singers Ava Cherry, Robin Clark, and Luther Vandross were large contributors to the album's final sound. This is blue-eyed soul on a deeper level.
Emmylou Harris: Pieces of the Sky (Reprise)Although 1970's Gliding Bird on the tiny Jubilee label was her debut, Pieces of the Sky put Emmylou Harris on the musical map. It is also the first in a run of albums produced and recorded by Canadian Brian Ahern. Primarily recorded in a home she was renting in Coldwater Canyon above L.A. with the Enactron Truck, Ahern's mobile studio in a lead-lined semi-trailer truck, the album is the model for the mix of songs and moods that would make her next nine albums, all produced by Ahern and Harris, who married in 1977, such a rewarding body of work. The band is anchored by key members of Elvis Presley's TCB band: drummer Ron Tutt, pianist Glen D. Hardin, and guitarist James Burton. Also contributing were fiddlers Byron Berline and Ricky Skaggs, pedal steel player Ben Keith, multi-instrumentalist Bernie Leadon from The Eagles, and vocalist Linda Ronstadt. From the sweeping strings of her achingly sad rendition of Billy Sherrill's "Too Far Gone" through the rare Harris original "Boulder to Birmingham" (written for Gram Parsons), to Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors" and Lennon and McCartney's "For No One," this remains her most enduring treasure, despite the many career highlights to come.
Brian Eno: Another Green World (Island)A multimedia moving target and everchanging font of creativity, British synth player Brian Eno has worn many musical faces. Once a part of both Roxy Music and King Crimson, Eno may be best known as the producer of albums by Talking Heads, U2, and David Bowie, among many others. Yet this, his third solo album, may be his most lasting achievement. Another Green World combines many of Eno's interests, beginning with angular pop tunes and ambient instrumentalisms. With John Cale, Phil Collins, and frequent collaborator Robert Fripp making appearances, it's hardly surprising that experimentalism is the order of the day. Falling under the amorphous category of art rock, the elements of noise, synths, and a host of creatively named instruments were the chosen vehicles for expression. The guitars in particular have fanciful nicknames, like "castanet guitar" and "snake guitar," though Eno's own contributions on "Golden Hours" are on "choppy organs" and "spasmodic percussion."
Keith Jarrett: Köln Concert (ECM)By far the biggest-selling album of all time from Manfred Eicher's ECM label, The Köln Concert cast a spell on music fans who usually found jazz too complicated and emotionless. On that score alone, it is an epoch-shattering release. Recorded on a less-than-stellar piano by the then 30-year-old veteran of the bands of Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis, the entire album, but especially the three-part Part II exposition, are an astonishing explosion of improvisational piano. The ideas flow at an incredible pace. Jarrett's brain-to-fingers connection is instantaneous. With Eicher in charge, the impeccable depth and detail of the sound of this recording is archetypal of everything released on the ECM imprint. Jarrett's audible sighs and exhortations of joy add a perfect emphasis to the proceedings. 1975 saw three other essential ECM releases: Jan Garbarek's Belonging, John Abercrombie's Timeless, and Ralph Towner's Solstice.
Bob Marley and the Wailers: Live! (Island)As the album that broke Marley and the Wailers in the US and catapulted them to super-stardom worldwide, Live! is one of the most energetic, best-played and -arranged live albums in the history of pop music. Recorded in July 1975 at London's Lyceum Theatre using the Rolling Stones' mobile unit, the sound was more than listenable, despite flashes of the usual balance and depth issues that come with live recordings, and it is even better in recent remasterings. Alongside Marley's always-better-than-expected singing, the Wailers at that moment were a mighty unit, supplemented here by lead guitarist Al Anderson. And there's never been a better backing vocal group than the I-Threes: Rita Marley and Judy Mowatt (at the time Marcia Griffiths was pregnant and missed the tour). The fast tempos, a source of controversy among those who prefer their reggae at a more meditative pace, benefit the tunes and enhance the messages of truth and justice. Toots & The Maytals' Funky Kingston is a close runner-up for 1975's reggae Record of the Year.
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here (Columbia)While Dark Side of the Moon will always be the stoner landmark, Wish You Were Here is an altogether deeper affair. Reportedly spurred on by less-than-favorable predictions, the band, which was clearly on a roll, dug deep. They had a potent inspiration: former member and PF founder Syd Barrett, who by 1975 had become a recluse. The nine-part "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," which opens and closes the album, pays tribute to him, directly addressing his condition. "Remember when you were young/You shone like the sun/Shine on you crazy diamond/Now there's a look in your eyes/Like black holes in the sky ... ." Undisguised barbs were thrown toward the record industry. The title track is an appealing near-pop tune, and synthesizers are prominent in the mix. This album has been remastered and reissued many times, including in its most comprehensive form so far: 2011's Wish You Were Here—Immersion Boxed Set on Capitol Records.
Sun Ra: Pathways to Unknown Worlds (Saturn; ABC/Impulse)The word "prolific" doesn't even begin to capture it: Depending on how you count reissues and repackagings, the ever-growing universe of Sun Ra recordings easily numbers in the hundreds. Recorded in 1973 and rereleased by ABC/Impulse in 1975, these three tracks are Ra and his Astro Infinity Arkestra in full flower. The magic of Ra is that while it is certainly free jazz, and its tangle of horn and percussion improvisations may sound confusingly random, a certain arc and internal logic emerges after repeated listens. This is not easy music, and that of course is the point. Open-minded listeners are drawn in by its fearless experimentalism and constant reaching for new sonic experiences. Alongside electric piano and organ, Ra adds the new Moog synthesizer to his arsenal of sounds. Ra's band of equally intrepid collaborators includes tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, drummer Clifford Jarvis, and alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, who leads the current edition of the Arkestra at age 101.
Willie Nelson: Red Headed Stranger (Columbia)There's cosmic truth in the fact that both of Willie Nelson's biggest album hits are outliers, wild pitches, eccentric anomalies. While his later masterwork Stardust was as smooth as satin, Red Headed Stranger is, to use a term correctly, "funky." Years after writing many notable songs that became hits for others, including "Crazy" for Patsy Cline, Nelson became a superstar and reached an entirely new audience with this unlikely concept album. Loosely based on a hard-to-follow tale of a killer on the run, Nelson's 18th album was recorded quickly and simply. Hated by the suits at Columbia Records, including the usually infallible Bruce Lundvall, then president of Columbia Records (and later of Blue Note Records), the album was released as is, and defying all predictions became a hit, for all the reasons naysayers were sure it would fail. At the album's center are two knockout covers, "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and "Red Headed Stranger," which become classics thank to Nelson's impassioned vocals. Strange when it was released and even stranger now contrasted with the mundane adult-rock spiral of country music today, Red Headed Stranger is a monument to Nelson's assured instincts and the very definition of an unlikely triumph.
Betty Davis: Nasty Gal (Island)Too wild for husband Miles Davis, who accused her of having an affair with Jimi Hendrix, Betty Davis, née Mabry, was a fashion model and aspiring musician who had a huge influence on Davis's tastes in fashion and music. After their divorce, she made a pair of albums that attracted the attention of Chris Blackwell and his Island Records label. This hard-funk collection has the makings of a hit, but it was not to be. Deemed too raw and randy, Davis, who stalked the stage in high-heeled boots during live shows and was more of a shouter than a singer, addressed her critics in "Dedicated to the Press": "Oh, isn't she a shame/Oh, ah, mmm, what a trashy dame." Fifty years after its release, this remains one of the nastiest funk records of all time. Davis's touring band Funk House, anchored by bassist Larry Johnson, drummer Nickey Neal, and keyboardist Fred Mills, geneates massive and unrelenting grooves. And while Davis's vocal instinct was always to shriek for emphasis, she unveils a sweet singing voice in "You and I," a ballad written with Miles and arranged by Gil Evans.
Neil Young: Tonight's the Night (Reprise)Sadness is catnip to songwriters, and here Young wrestles with his grief over a pair of drug casualties who fell near him—Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. This shambolic set also ponders the mixed feelings Young had about the fame that resulted from Harvest. Shelved, tinkered with, and rerecorded, TTN was resurrected by Rick Danko's praise one night at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont. While its creator has said this album is about "death and dope," its spirituality is deceptively ragged but ultimately calculated and real. The upbeat "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown" breaks the mood. Ben Keith's pedal steel leads the hippie country of "Roll Another Number (for the Road)," where Young asserts, "I feel able to get under any load" and recounts the CSNY trip to Woodstock. "New Mama" is a hymn, while by "Tired Eyes," Young is openly wondering about his fallen friends. "Well, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more/I mean was he a heavy doper or/Was he just a loser?"
Allen Toussaint: Southern Nights (Reprise)While performers who left town—Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, Jon Batiste—have long been the popular face of New Orleans music, behind the scenes the real power lay with a handful of writing and arranging geniuses including Wardell Quezergue, Dave Bartholomew, and Allen Toussaint. Here on his third solo record, Toussaint mixes soul, R&B, and New Orleans rhythms with classic southern subjects. A collaboration between Toussaint and producer Marshall Sehorn, the album's best-known tune, "Southern Nights," first appears as a between-song snatch with his voice processed to sound underwater, an effect one reviewer called "swamp water." The entire track appears later on in the album, with the same processed vocal sound. It's completely different from the later, better-known Glen Campbell hit. The other can't-miss tune here is "What Do You Want the Girl to Do?" where Toussaint's supple vocal rides over a spacious arrangement of a tune later covered by Bonnie Raitt and Boz Scaggs. "When the Party's Over" is Toussaint at his smoothest, while the ballad "Cruel Way to Go Down" almost closes the album on a down note before a brass flourish adds a hopeful coda.
