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'70s Holiday Gift Ideas

These recently released CD's and books are sure to please any
Seventies music fan on your shopping list this holiday season.

BILLY JOEL - Live At Yankee Stadium (Legacy Recordings, $32.49) Billy Joel's legendary June 1990 concert at Yankee Stadium stands as one of the greatest concert films of all time. Shot in 16mm color film, the original concert has now been meticulously re-mixed and re-edited. The set list consists of re-edited versions of songs from the original film including "Piano Man," "We Didn't Start The Fire," "New York State Of Mind," "Shout" and more -- all live from the ionic stadium in The Bronx. The 2-CD contains 22 performances from Billy Joel's historic two-day run at "The House That Ruth Built." The newly edited version includes a never-before-released performance of "Uptown Girl," "Only The Good Die Young," "Allentown" and more, along with interviews from Billy and behind-the-scenes footage from the event's production.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Only The Strong Survive (Columbia Records, $13.98) Only The Strong Survive is the new album from Bruce Springsteen, and his first new studio album since 2020's Letter To You. The album is a collection of soul music gems, that celebrate the legendary songbooks of Gamble and Huff, Motown, Stax and many more. Only The Strong Survive features vocals from Springsteen and instrumentation primarily from his longtime producer Ron Aniello. The album also features guest vocals from Sam Moore, as well as contributions from The E Street Horns, full string arrangements by Rob Mathes and backing vocals from Soozie Tyrell, Lisa Lowell, Michelle Moore, Curtis King Jr., Fonzi Thornton and Dennis Collins.

THE BEATLES - Revolver Special Edition (Capitol, $108.99) This Special Edition of The Beatles' Revolver features a new mix by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, plus the original mono mix, a 4-track EP, 28 session takes and home demos, a 100-page book with a foreword by Paul McCartney, an essay by Questlove, detailed track notes, photos and ephemera including handwritten lyrics, tape boxes and extracts from Klaus Voormann's graphic novel on the making of the cover art. On 5 CDs in a 12.56" x 12.36" slipcase.

TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS - Live at the Fillmore, 1997 (Warner Records, $47.99) Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers famously played 20 nights at the legendary Fillmore venue in San Francisco in 1997. Six of the shows were professionally recorded and this release features many of the high points of the residency. The small venue allowed the band to vary their sets each night; they included re-arranged and distinctive versions of their hits, deep cuts, and many cover versions -- paying tribute to the artists that Tom and the band had been influenced by. The 4 CD deluxe edition includes 58 tracks, 35 of which are covers -- over 4 hours of music. The 4 CDs are packaged in a box with a 32-page booklet (with previously unseen photographs), 3 custom guitar picks, a replica All Access laminate, and an embroidered patch ("The Fillmore House Band" - a term that was bestowed on The Heartbreakers during the shows at the Fillmore).

ALICE COOPER - Killer Audiophile 50th Anniversary Edition (Friday Music, $39.98) 180gm vinyl LP audiophile pressing. 1971 was a banner year for rising superstar Alice Cooper and his band with their mega smash hit album Killer. As a fourth album in his longstanding career with Warner Bros. Records, Killer was an amazing masterwork which many of his fans point to as one of their favorite Alice Cooper albums of choice. It's easy to hear why -- Killer was Alice's first top twenty album to rock the charts, and also was one of the first albums in the band's arsenal to uniquely blend his theatrical stage show persona with prog-rock and heavy metal workouts which have since become classic rock anthems. Thanks to smash singles like "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover", Killer quickly developed into an exciting listening experience for the fans and radio stations around the globe.

PINK FLOYD - Animals (2018 Remix) (Legacy Recordings, $11.96) Pink Floyd's iconic 1977 album has been remixed for the first time by James Guthrie. Animals is a concept album, focusing on the social-political conditions of mid-1970s Britain, and was a change from the style of the band's earlier work. The album was developed from a collection of unrelated songs into a concept which describes the apparent social and moral decay of society, likening the human condition to that of animals. Taking inspiration from George Orwell's Animal Farm, the album depicts the different classes of people as animals with pigs being at the top of the social chain, dropping down to the sheep as the mindless herd following what they are told, with dogs as the business bosses getting fat on the money and power they hold over the other. Although it's been a long time since 1977, the narrative of the album still resonates today as our social and economic situation mirrors that of the time. Includes 28-page booklet.

NEIL YOUNG - Harvest - 50th Anniversary Edition (Reprise, $53.99) This 5-disc box set includes the documentary called Harvest Time, featuring a previously unreleased live recording of Young performing "Heart Of Gold" for the BBC. Harvest Time also features footage from Young's "Harvest Barn" sessions in Northern California along with recording sessions in Nashville and London. Also includes three studio outtakes and the 8-song BBC solo set recorded on Feb. 23, 1971. The outtakes included in the reissue are "Bad Fog Of Loneliness," "Journey Through The Past" and "Dance Dance Dance."

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL - At the Royal Albert Hall (Craft Recordings, $12.69) This album marks the debut release of the highly-anticipated recording of Creedence Clearwater Revival live at London's prestigious Royal Albert Hall. More than 50 years after the legendary 1970 show, the original multitrack tapes have been meticulously restored and mixed by Grammy-winning producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell. The hits-packed setlist includes such classics as "Fortunate Son," "Proud Mary," "Bad Moon Rising," "Born on the Bayou" and more.

LESLEY-ANN JONES - The Stone Age: Sixty Years of The Rolling Stones (Pegasus Books, $24.97) Acclaimed rock and roll journalist Lesley-Ann Jones evokes the legacy of The Rolling Stones -- iconic, granitic, commercially unstoppable as a collective; and fascinating, contradictory, and occasionally disturbing as individuals. Her new history tracks this contradictory, disturbing, granitic and unstoppable band through hope, glory and exile, into the juggernaut years and beyond into rock's ongoing reckoning... where the Stones seem more at odds than ever with the values and heritage against which they have always rebelled. Good, bad, and often ugly, here are the Rolling Stones as never seen before.

SIMON MORRISON - Mirror In The Sky: The Life and Music of Stevie Nicks (University of California Press, $21.84) Reflective and expansive, Mirror in the Sky situates Stevie Nicks as one of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century. This biography from distinguished music historian Simon Morrison examines Nicks as a singer and songwriter before and beyond her career with Fleetwood Mac, from the Arizona landscape of her childhood to the strobe-lit "Night of 1000 Stevies" celebrations. Draws from oral histories and surprising archival discoveries to connect Nicks's story to those of California's above- and underground music industries, innovations in recording technology, and gendered restrictions.

Rock Of Ages

The most influential pop songs of all time -- according to His Bobness.

By Dillon Dodson in Parade

BOB DYLAN
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG
NON-FICTION

ne of the greatest songwriters of all time has written The Philosophy of Modern Song (Nov. 1, Simon & Schuster), a meditation from Bob Dylan on 66 songs that changed social landscapes in music. "Music naggingly adheres itself in countless pinpoints of memory and emotion," the 81-year-old singer-songwriter writes in his first book of new writing since 2004's Chronicles: Volume One, and his first since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. "People can keep trying to turn music into a science, but in science, one and one will always be two. Music, like all art, tells us that one plus one, in the best circumstances, equals three." Here are a few of Dylan's picks of the most influential songs of our time.

"Tutti Frutti" (1955), Little Richard

Written by Richard alongside Dorothy LaBostrie, it's often recognized as a song that changed the world. With Richard's iconic upbeat blues-boogie style, it arguably created rock 'n' roll as we know it today. "He took speaking in tongues right out of the canvas tent and put in on the mainstream radio," writes Dylan. "He's saying that something is happening. The world's gonna fall apart. 'Tutti Frutti' is sounding the alarm."

"London Calling" (1979), The Clash

"London Calling" referenced the BBC's updates during WWII. But the Clash used the phrase to call out police brutality, global warming, the Cold War and "phony Beatlemania." "Punk rock is the music of frustration and anger, but the Clash are different," Dylan says. "Theirs is the music of desperation. A lot of their songs are overblown, overwritten, well-intentioned. But not this one. All hell is breaking loose, but the guy is still living by the river, which gives him hope."

"Volare (Nel blu, dipinto di blu)" (1958), Domenico Modugno

Bobby Rydell had a hit with this Italian tune, but it was Modugno's original version that won the first-ever Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1959. Dylan: "Volare, it means, Let's fly away into the cielo infinto ['infinite sky']. The entire world can disappear, but I'm in my own head."  

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