

Hepworth also details the openness of record labels to new talent and experimental recording techniques that laid the groundwork for punk, indie, and electronica.” Alongside the requisite gossip, Hepworth's magisterial overview notes the exploitation of nostalgia, the rise of the singer/songwriter, the elevation of rock stars into louche aristocrats, and the transformation of FM radio to an album-oriented rock format. “Fascinating cultural history… Vivid, irreverent prose and analytic insight distinguish the book from the legion of Boomer nostalgia titles.

#ROD STEWART NEVER A DULL MOMENT YOUTUBE ZIP#
sharp and zingy.his mix of garrulousness and dry wit makes Never a Dull Moment a zip to read." " expansive overview of the high-water mark of rock's album-oriented maturity. "A revelatory account of the bombshell 365 days that gave birth to what the author dubs 'the rock era.'" “Cleverly crafted chapters form a glittery, boisterous month-by-month calendar of the ‘annus mirabilis…the busiest, most creative, most innovative, most interesting, and longest-resounding year’ of an era that produced music we are still listening to.” From the electric blue fur coat David Bowie wore when he first arrived in America in February to Bianca’s neckline when she married Mick Jagger in Saint-Tropez in May, from the death of Jim Morrison in Paris in July to the reemergence of Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden in August, from the soft launch of Carole King’s Tapestry in California in February to the sensational arrival of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” in London in November, Hepworth’s forensic sweep takes in all the people, places and events that helped make 1971 rock’s unrepeatable year. There’s a story behind every note of that music. In this entertaining and provocative book, he argues that 1971 saw an unrepeatable surge of musical creativity, technological innovation, naked ambition and outrageous good fortune that combined to produce music that still crackles with relevance today. The new releases of that hectic year-Don McLean’s “American Pie,” Sly Stone’s “Family Affair,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” the Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” and many others-are the standards of today.ĭavid Hepworth was twenty-one in 1971, and has been writing and broadcasting about music ever since.

You might say this was the last day of the pop era.ġ971 started the following day and with it the rock era. On New Year’s Eve 1970 Paul McCartney instructed his lawyers to issue the writ at the High Court in London that effectively ended the Beatles. He never got quite this good ever again.The basis for the new hit documentary 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, now streaming on Apple TV+.Ī rollicking look at 1971, rock’s golden year, the year that saw the release of the indelible recordings of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Who, Rod Stewart, Carole King, the Rolling Stones, and others and produced more classics than any other year in rock history The covers - whether a soulful reading of Jimi Hendrix's "Angel," an empathetic version of Dylan's "Mama, You Been on My Mind," or a stunning interpretation of Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind" - are equally effective, making Never a Dull Moment a masterful record. Similarly, "Lost Paraguayos" is funny, driving folk-rock, and it's hard not to be swept away when the Stonesy hard rocker "Italian Girls" soars into a mandolin-driven coda. "You Wear It Well" is a "Maggie May" rewrite on the surface, but it develops into a touching song about being emotionally inarticulate. It's possible to hear Stewart go for superstardom with the hard-rocking kick and fat electric guitars of the album, but the songs still cut to the core.
#ROD STEWART NEVER A DULL MOMENT YOUTUBE SERIES#
Opening with the touching, autobiographical rocker "True Blue," which finds Rod Stewart trying to come to grips with his newfound stardom but concluding that he'd "rather be back home," the record is the last of Stewart's series of epic fusions of hard rock and folk.

Essentially a harder-rocking reprise of Every Picture Tells a Story, Never a Dull Moment never quite reaches the heights of its predecessor, but it's a wonderful, multi-faceted record in its own right.
