My Favourite 45s of the Year: 1974 Quiz

Answer: Rupert Holmes

I accept that this is a very difficult question featuring a record that you've never heard of, but "Our National Pastime" by Rupert Holmes is an absolute gem, mainly because of its hysterically funny lyrics about a man picking up a woman at a baseball game, sung to the tune of the US National Anthem.
In the late 1960s Rupert Holmes was a jobbing composer and musician in New York, but he had the resources to record his first album "Widescreen" in 1974; "Our National Pastime" is one of the songs on this album and was released as a single, but it failed to chart. His songs were noteworthy because of their lush strings arrangements and their witty lyrics. He was "discovered" by Barbra Streisand who recorded some of his songs for use in the film "A Star Is Born". Eventually Holmes had his own major hit, "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" which in 1979 reached number one in the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 23 in the UK Singles Charts.
After that Holmes became a major Broadway writer; he was nominated for a Tony Award for his play "Say Goodnight, Gracie", and he wrote books for many musicals including "The First Wives' Club". He also wrote all 56 episodes of "Remember WENN" for American Movie Classics.
But I still remember laughing out loud at the boy-girl dialogue in "Our National Pastime"and the wonderful punchline at the very end. Veteran BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale used to host a request show on Sunday afternoons back in the early 1970s, and this song was repeatedly requested and played. Totally by chance I happened across a remaindered copy of the "Widescreen" album in the Virgin Record Shop on Oxford Street in about 1981, and I've never let it out of my sight since.

Answer: David Bowie

The first thing you notice is the riff - could it be the Rolling Stones? No, it's David Bowie singing "Rebel, Rebel", the first single taken from his "Diamond Dogs" album. Taken by the critics as a farewell to his glam rock and Ziggy Stardust days, it still raised issues of gender and life style. It went to number 64 in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number five in the UK Singles Chart.
Notable on bass guitar is Herbie Flowers, who played the bass riff on Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" in 1972 and also composed "Grandad" for Clive Dunn in 1970 - from the sublime to the ridiculous!
My memories of this record are very much tied up with my memories of A, my first girlfriend in Belfast - a redhead art student who picked me up in a cinema. Given how far behind the times Belfast was she was pretty daring - a real "hot tramp", to quote Bowie's lyrics!

Answer: Rufus

I've always had a penchant for funk and R&B, and this particular track by Rufus certainly fulfills that need. Written by Stevie Wonder and featuring the outstanding vocal talent of Chaka Khan and a "talk box" effects box on guitar, "Tell Me Something Good" was the band's first hit. It went to number three in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart but wasn't released in the UK.
Rufus - later Rufus featuring Chaka Khan - were one of the few mixed-race bands playing this kind of music. I really liked them and had nearly all their albums.

Answer: Ace

Pub Rock was very much a British genre of music, and in fact almost confined to London and South-East England. It was a return to basics by bands like Dr. Feelgood and Ducks Deluxe, shunning Prog Rock and Glam. Small record labels like Stiff and Chiswick were able to make money on records with quite small sales figures.

However during the peak period from 1972 to 1975, only one Pub Rock band had a major hit: Ace with "How Long", which went to number three in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 20 in the UK Singles Chart. It's a great pop/funk record with a funky bass intro and a blistering guitar solo.

The band were impressed with their success in the US charts so they packed up and moved to the States, but had no further chart success.

They disbanded in 1977.

Answer: Lulu

The Scottish singer Lulu had her first hit in 1964 with "Shout" and has carried on having hits ever since - she had a US number one in 1967 with "To Sir With Love", but she had to wait until 1993 for a UK number one when she and Take That combined with "Relight My Fire". Meanwhile David Bowie had written and recorded "The Man Who Sold the World" on his album of the same name back in 1970.

He offered the song to Lulu who recorded it while chain-smoking on Bowie's instructions to give the vocals a sleazy quality.

This combined with an excellent appearance on "Top of the Pops" launched the song to number three in the UK Singles Chart. What's also worth watching is Kurt Cobain's performance of this song live on an "MTV Unplugged" broadcast - very frightening!

Answer: 10cc

Having released the excellent "10cc" album in 1973, the band followed it with the even better "Sheet Music" in January 1974. As far as I was concerned the first single from this second album, "The Worst Band in the World", totally summed up 10cc's amazing creativity, songwriting and musicianship as well as being very funny! Strangely, the couplet "We never seen the van - leave it to the roadies; never met the roadies - leave them in the van" was to become very appropriate for me in a few years' time. And I loved the fade-out ending. Sadly the record completely failed to chart.

However 10cc were to go on to greater achievements in the future.

Answer: Cockney Rebel

A kind of Pub Rock cum Glam Rock band, Cockney Rebel were the brainchild of music journalist Steve Harley. I'd heard the band's first single, "Sebastian", a number of times and didn't like it, but the first time I heard "Judy Teen" I thought it was brilliant - weird and eccentric. Harley had a very strange, mannered way of singing, and the music itself was full of hooks and strange effects.

It went to number five in the UK Singles Chart but wasn't released in the US. The band went on to record other hits such as the UK number one "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)" and "Mr. Soft", and are still touring and recording.

Answer: Bad Company

There was lots of Pub Rock, Glam Rock and Prog Rock around in 1974, but this track was a good old-fashioned rocker by a rock supergroup: Bad Company. Members of Free and Mott the Hoople got together and during the second half of the 1970s produced platinum-selling album after platinum-selling album. "Can't Get Enough" was their first single, and what a belter it was - a count-in, a detonation of drums and a great riff based on an open C chord. Combined with the wonderful vocals of Paul Rodgers and a great guitar solo it was everything you could want in a rock single. I just loved it, and bought their albums for years afterwards. And they're still going! It went to number five in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 15 in the UK Singles Chart.

Answer: Syreeta

In the mid-1960s Syreeta Wright worked firstly as a receptionist and then as a secretary at the Motown offices in Detroit. She soon began to do bits of recording - back-up vocals, demos, &c. - but in 1968 she met Stevie Wonder and they married in 1970. Soon she was recording albums with Wonder producing her; the second, "Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta" yielded three singles including "Spinnin' and Spinnin'". I was charmed by it - a lovely melody in a waltz rhythm, a nice strings arrangement and her high, rather fragile voice on top.

It didn't chart in the US but it got to number 49 in the UK Singles Chart. Her next single, "Your Kiss Is Sweet", got to number 12 in the UK Singles Chart, but she had to wait until 1979 until she charted in the US with a collaboration with Billy Preston, "With You I'm Born Again" which got to number four in the Billboard Hot 100.

After that her singing career gradually faded, and she sadly died in 2004 as a result of treatment for cancer.

Answer: Genesis

Probably one of the best-known and longest-lasting Prog Rock bands, Genesis was formed by a group of schoolfriends at Charterhouse School in 1967. After a run of well-received albums but flop singles, they finally broke into the charts in 1974 with "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" getting to number 21 in the UK Singles Chart; it wasn't released in the US.
It's the strangest song: quintessentially English with added psychedelic effects - you can almost feel the summer heat haze. It's basically about a gardener happily mowing a lawn - "I know what I like and I like what I know" - with a strange vocal coda.
Genesis went through a few more years with no chart hits until the tide turned in the late 1970s when they started racking up hit after hit. How much of this success was due to Peter Gabriel leaving and Phil Collins taking over the vocalist duties is hard to say!