The Year in Music

Well, It came and Went--1976, that is--without one rock-'n'-roll version of the American Revolution. In a stunning exhibition of mass forbearance, the music industry passed up the opportunity to pair Barry White and Barry Manilow for a contrapuntal reading of The Federalist Papers (over an uplifting disco track, of course), and missed out on the inevitable big Bicentennial bucks. Which, however, shouldn't be taken as an indication that the record companies have lost their grip on the bottom line. Quite the contrary: The industry celebrated the Bicentennial in the best way it knows how--by making money.

It did it partly on the premise that since people bought Greatest Hits collections in 1975, give them twice as (continued on page 200)Year in Music(continued from page 160) many in '76, and throw in some live LPs of the same groups for good measure--they're known quantities, safer investments than unknown talent.

This preference for a sure thing isn't exactly a new development. What changed in 1976, the industry's second boom year in a row, were the dimensions of the game. Fifteen years ago, there were a dozen major labels and hundreds of regional independents. Today, two enormous conglomerates control the lion's share of the multibillion-dollar record-tape business. Six other "majors" do most of the rest, and precious few independents exist without some sort of business arrangement with the biggies.

By mid-1976, just to put things in perspective, the two biggest outfits, CBS Records (Columbia, Epic, Portrait and their associated labels) and WEA (Warner/Reprise, Elektra/Asylum, Atlantic), both announced the best first and second quarters--in over-all sales and profits--in their respective histories. Warner Communications records/music division reported second-quarter revenues of $96,000,000, with pretax profits of almost $16,000,000--and that's for a traditionally slow time of year! CBS Records group sales were up 21 percent in the first quarter, 15 percent in the second quarter and 19 percent in the third quarter of the past year over 1975 sales for those periods, which previously had been the best in their history.

What the record companies actually do with all this boodle, however, is another story entirely--or, rather, many, many stories. In the kind of ironic juxtaposition to which the industry is blissfully oblivious, the same issue of Variety that carried the story about CBS's record earnings also ran an item quoting a high CBS Records exec as saying that label managers had to get together and do something about the dangerous rise in artists' royalties that was eroding profit margins to an unhealthy degree. Elsewhere on the venality front, the Newark, New Jersey, grand jury investigating fiscal naughtiness in the biz found no cause to implicate Arista Records president Clive Davis in the highly publicized payola scandal. In the end, Davis was tagged by a Manhattan court for taxes. Kenny Gamble, president of Gamble-Huff Records, and three other executives, the grand jury's second-largest catch, were convicted of conspiracy and fined a whopping total of $5000. Ultimately, the grand jury deemed the president of Brunswick Records and a few business associates worthy of prosecution for payola; he and three others were subsequently found guilty. At year's end, Frankie Crocker, the Howard Cosell of black New York radio, was up before a Federal judge who found him guilty of charges that he'd taken payola to push records on the air and lied about it to the grand jury.

Interspersed among the antics of these high rollers and low riders, there were also some big stories from the musical elite. Stevie Wonder finally, after 26 months, took off his It's almost finished T-shirt; his album, Songs in the Key of Life, went platinum the week it came out and captured the number-one spot on two of the three major trade charts, a feat last accomplished by Elton John's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Speaking of which, Captain Fantastic had a coming out of his own, of sorts. In the course of an interview following his last tour for some time, Elton joined the ranks of rock bisexuals, but added that it gets rather lonely at the top, making and spending millions of dollars, adored by tens of thousands but lacking that one special person who makes it all worth while...we can't go on.

Elton may be looking forward to retirement, but Brian Wilson, the erratic genius behind The Beach Boys, finally had enough of his. After spending four years in his room, Brian went on tour with The Beach Boys for the first time in 11 years--and surfed for the first time in his life. His interviews were even more off the wall than Elton's, what with tales of having built a sandbox in his living room in which to put his piano (so he could wiggle his toes in the sand as he played or composed), shrinks and bodyguards who may or may not have been keeping him captive in his own home, und so weiter. Next thing you know, some smart operator will probably team Brian and Elton as a summer replacement for Mary Hartman.

The ongoing saga of Bruce Springsteen's forced retirement from recording is neither zany nor entertaining, however. He sued his manager, Mike Appel, in July, charging Appel was taking exorbitant commissions and not keeping proper records of Springsteen's income. In addition, he claimed that Appel was preventing him from recording with Born to Run coproducer Jon Landau. Appel replied with an injunction of his own and attempted to impound gate receipts from a series of concerts Bruce did in New Jersey in August.

With Springsteen temporarily sidelined, the only candidate for the 1976 Omnipresence in the Media Award was Peter Frampton. He was everywhere--radio, the press, national tours, TV. For a while, it seemed like every third concert anywhere in the country was a Frampton concert--sold out, of course. And it paid off: Frampton Comes Alive! sold more than 8,000,000 albums, produced two top singles, sold almost 2,000,000 tapes (garnering him the first platinum cassette ever awarded) and stayed at number one longer than any other album in the history of the business. The only point of comparison for the amount of rockbucks he made for his record company is The Beatles, so it was only fitting that Capitol began releasing compilations from their old LPs, as well as singles, both here and in England. This action, while satisfying and profitable (there were six Beatles singles in the English Top 20 shortly after the reissue), also contributed to pop-cultural confusion, as young teenagers stood slack-jawed in amazement listening to their parents explain how they, too, had been Beatles fans in their youth.

That one instance of cross-generational ecumenicism didn't extend to other areas of teen fandom, though, particularly the hard-rock/lumpen heavy-metal bands that dominated the concert circuit. Z Z Top, the Texas torque trio that plays louder than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, and super, as far as its fans are concerned, remains one of the biggest acts in the country in terms of touring dollars, and one of the most (justifiably) neglected by the critics. Kiss continued to dress funny, paint its faces and chew the scenery, and was rewarded by having three albums in the Top 20 for most of the year. Aerosmith, a band comparable to Kiss in its solid, journey-man music, broad-based popularity and enormous record sales, had an equally good year: vocalist Steve Tyler's often all-too-canny resemblance to Mick Jagger apparently doesn't deflect the enthusiasm of its fans, many of whom are young enough to consider The Rolling Stones as father figures. Elsewhere, Foghat defied the laws of probability by wringing yet further variations out of the same four chords, and Robin Trower still insists that any similarity between his music and that of Jimi Hendrix is purely a matter of, you know, influence--and besides, Jimi's dead and he's alive.

In the jazz world, the main emphasis was, again, on reissues, which are obviously cheap to produce, and the various permutations of jazz/rock, which meant everything from all-electric bands like Weather Report to putting older jazzmen together with slick rhythm sections. Veteran guitarist George Benson was the most spectacular beneficiary of this latter tactic: his Breezin' LP sold more than a million copies, making it not only the success story of the year but also the best-selling jazz album of all time. Jazz/rock seems to have won its battle for acceptance too completely, for in a few years the innovations it introduced have become as stale and constricting as the hard-bop clichés of a decade ago. Two of the music's originators, John McLaughlin and Chick Corea, broke up their respective bands, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever. The all-acoustic Shakti, featuring McLaughlin and four Indian musicians, has gotten rave notices for its virtuoso fusion of jazz and Indian music, while Corea, recording and performing with or without R.T.F. (apart from the group's album, all four band members released solo albums last year--you figure it out), clearly emerged as the year's popular favorite. Otherwise, the most exciting music being done in the genre is coming from former archrocker Jeff Beck and ex--R.T.F. bassist Stanley Clarke. What little first-rate jazz that appeared was concentrated on Polydor/ECM, with its fine stable of young American and European artists, and Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone, the burgeoning West Coast jazz combine.

At the other extreme of musical quality, disco, of course, is still very much with us. To those who say that disco is a legitimate extension of hip black soul music, and offer Kool & the Gang, Parliament/Funkadelic and Earth, Wind & Fire, we respond with a qualified "Yes... but" and give you, ladies and gentlemen, Disco Duck. Or perhaps you'd care to consider the item that's all the rage of Japan's 600 discos, Soul Dracula, by Hot Blood. No? Well, for those fashionably Born Again disco hustlers among us, there's The Basement in Orange, California, an L.A. suburb, which Billboard credits as being the first Gospel discothèque, featuring "prayer, spiritual counseling and Gospel music"--but no booze or smoking. And we bet they don't play James Brown's Hell too often, either, except perhaps at last call.

And 1976 will go down as the year that reggae almost made it in the U.S., due to the release here of the excellent Bob Marley & the Wailers Live! LP, the strong sales of Marley's Rastaman Vibration album and his subsequent sold-out tour. Marley's label, Island Records, gave him, and reggae, a strong push (it also put out fine albums by Toots & the mantals, the Heptones, Bunny Wailer and other Jamaican artists, as well as by the superb, roots-of-reggae Mardi Gras Indian band, the Wild Tchoupitoulas from New Orleans).

One of the most welcome phenomena of the past year was the growing revival of white-oriented R&B. Rod Stewart, who's old enough to remember the mid-Sixties days when the Stones, Van Morrison, Eric Burdon and Mitch Ryder were all shouting themselves hoarse, never strayed too far from his R&B roots and, with A Night on the Town, finally began reaping his just rewards. At the more primal level, there's the sub specie Springsteen, comprised most noticeably of the Boss's hardworking pal Southside Johnny Lyons, who, with his Asbury Jukes, brought Jersey-shore soul to the rest of the country in '76. Bob Seger, another veteran of the bar and club circuit, is a good bet, on the basis of his excellent Night Moves LP, to move beyond Mid-western cult status in the very near future. England's Graham Parker and the Rumours also have strong roots in Fifties and Sixties R&B, and Anglo-Irish Thin Lizzy helped to spread the word with last summer's hit The Boys Are Back in Town. In the more sophisticated region of soul vocalizing, Boz Scaggs (Lowdown) and Daryl Hall & John Oates (She's Gone, Sara Smile) had hits with tunes that might have been done by some of the great Motown groups of the Sixties, while Robert Palmer, on Some People Can Do What They Like, delved deeper into the black idiom that he'd employed so well on his brilliant debut album, Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley.

"To live outside the law, you must be honest" was how Bob Dylan put it, and country music's Outlaws continued to act out the contradictions of this bit of orphic wisdom with a vengeance. What began as a genuine frustration with and reaction against the schlock-with-strings formulization of country predominant in Nashville has been blown up, in large part by a widespread (and wide-eyed) media ballyhoo, into a Cosmic Cowboy Counterculture, with Austin as its Haight-Ashbury. It got so that the music of original creative artists like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson (who brought the whole thing to a head by moving to Austin in the first place) was being obscured by the constant babble about Waylon and Willie and Jerry Jeff and David Allan, ropers and dopers and long-haired rednecks drinking Lone Star beer, blah-blah-blah.

In other words, it all began sounding like another hype--which, of course, it was, but a hype with purpose. If there's one thing the record industry appreciates as much as sheer talent, it's a good publicity angle. The whole Outlaw hoopla has gotten Waylon and Willie (and dozens of lesser talents) the attention and industry support that years of writing and performing great tunes hadn't. A sampler album titled, yup, The Outlaws, featuring Willie Nelson, Tompall Glazer, Waylon Jennings and his wife, Jessi Colter, won the Country Music Association's award for Album of the Year, and Waylon and Willie took top honors as the C.M.A.'s vocal duo of the year. Even Billy Sherrill, the pre-eminent Nashville producer of "Countrypolitan" (slick country that supposedly appeals to pop, middle-of-the-road and country fans alike), has been affected by the movement toward "purer" country: His recent production of George Jones, the premier two-hankies-per-album Nashville star, dispensed with the usual strings and choral background sludge; the result, Alone Again, is Jones's best album in years. Now that the country establishment has welcomed the prodigals back to Opryland, there's only, as critic Nick Tosches observed, one further gesture necessary--"Amnesty for Jerry Lee Lewis."

Another notorious former Outlaw also surfaced in 1976. Bob Dylan and his band of burnoosed bandidos, The Rolling Thunder Revue, went on a hit-and-run tour that was cornered in Colorado long enough to be captured on video tape for a TV special that aired this past fall. The TV audience saw only the Dylan-Baez segment of the show, which also featured Roger McGuinn, Mick Ronson, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and one-shot guest artists in the various marathon concerts. For Dylan fans, that was enough, as he continued his transformation of his older folkie tunes into driving rockers, but eased up just enough on the more recent, lyrical numbers from the Desire LP. The subsequent live album, Hard Rain, only served to certify any doubts people might have had about the quality of the backup band: Loose-jointed would be putting it kindly; raggedy-assed is more like it.

Speaking of raggedy-assed, we should mention punk rock. Or punk/art rock, as it has become known in its home village of New York City. The punk part of the scene centers on CBCB & Omfug's, a Bowery bar that bears an eerie resemblance to a Jersey-shore juke joint, while the bands are not better, and often much worse, than bar bands anywhere. From what we can gather, the apotheosis of these three-chord kings into a Movement has been mostly an exercise in wish fulfillment by the bands themselves and local critics, who still insist they were right about the New York Dolls. For sheer offensiveness, the London punk rockers appear to have the Stateside gang beat by a mile. According to Variety, the limey louts go by names such as Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious and Andy Blade, and titillate the public with remarks like "Razors are to punks what flowers are to hippies." Thankfully, those charmers have yet to be heard from over here, and as a more pleasant alternative, we can consider the ladies.

Every year of the Seventies has been claimed as the Year of the Women by somebody or other, but in music, it has been increasingly true, and 1976 was no exception. It opened with the release of Kate and Anna McGarrigle's stunning debut album (Anna wrote Heart Like a Wheel, and the two sisters do it to perfection) and closed with Joni Mitchell's masterful Hejira, with most of the intervening months, so it seemed at times, devoted to the appreciation and adoration of Linda Ronstadt. All of which, we hasten to add, was eminently deserved. With two excellent albums, plus a greatest-hits collection, and at least as many hit singles, not to mention a Rolling Stone cover and photo spread that had strong, otherwise unflappable critics begging for private interviews, 1976 can safely be termed the year of La Ronstadt.

For those who weren't totally engrossed by thoughts of the erotic possibilities of the lovely Linda's mouth, though, numerous other audio female pleasures abounded. In the most literal sense, there was Donna Summer, moaning her way up the disco charts, but the year also featured solid work by Natalie Cole, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris and Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, while Phoebe Snow's second and third albums solidly established her as one of the most innovative singers working in the jazz/blues tradition today. The comebacks of Dory Previn and Melanie were feverishly applauded by the mad-housewife set, driven over the edge, perhaps, by their husbands' sudden conversion to country music around the time Dolly Parton got her own TV show. Which reminds us that both Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris are longtime admirers of Dolly (who isn't?) and, at year's end, Emmylou had appeared on a Parton album and Linda and Emmylou had starred on Dolly's TV show. Inspirational thoughts of that particular vocal combination carried us through the new year, along with the fervent hope that a year from now, we'll no longer be fantasizing about a fullblown Parton-Ronstadt-Harris collaboration album and a TV special as some of the high points of 1977.

--Mark Von Lehmden

Now we come to your part--the voting results. And before we begin, we'd like to thank those of you who bothered to vote, cut, clip, mail, etc.--and we'd like to remind you that in this part, we're only the adding machines, ma'am. If you're delighted with the results, thank someone who voted (although we will accept affection, small gifts or stock-market tips), and if the results make you shudder, remember, it's probably your fault for not voting--and that these are your fellow Americans, and we're all responsible for each other, like it or not.

Records of the Year

Best Pop/Rock LP: Frampton Comes Alive!/Peter Frampton (A & M). The slight, fair-haired former slice of Humble Pie was everywhere in 1976. He toured relentlessly, so far surviving a routine that's been known to leave the weak wrecked and drive the strong to stronger drugs--and sold more than 8,000,000 souvenir albums to his fans in the process. His album stayed locked in the Top Ten of the charts for more than 11 months, and two Top Ten singles were pulled from it, as well--quite a year for a skinny rock guitarist.

Best Rhythm-and-Blues LP: Songs in the Key of Life/Stevie Wonder (Tamla). Guess which LP knocked Frampton's out of top spot? It took him two years, but Stevie finally turned his album loose--and everybody who's heard it has been very thankful. And you probably thought we were kidding when, in his Hall of Fame write-up last year, we compared him to Mozart.

Best Country-and-Western LP: Hasten Down the Wind/Linda Ronstadt (Asylum). Our readers really love Linda, voting three of her albums into this year's C&W Top Ten--and we love Linda, too, naturally. Did even before those hotcha! pix turned up in Rolling Stone. Honest.

Best Jazz LP: Breezin'/George Benson (Warner Bros.). The master of classic jazz guitar came out singing on this one, and it's proved to be his biggest smash ever. Some of the jazz purists are sulking, but who can feel bad about a jazzman finally making some real money?

Best Pop/Rock LP

Best Rhythm-and-Blues LP

Best Country-and-Western LP

Best Jazz LP

Music Hall of Fame

The envelopes, please.

Our third runner-up, finishing one notch higher than last year, is the Peck's bad boy of rock guitar, Led Zeppelin's own Jimmy Page.

Our second runner-up--with a bullet, since he's up from 11th spot in '76--is Brooklyn's own Neil Diamond.

And this year's runner-up--also in the running for our Always-a-B-B-B-Brides-maid Award, since this is the second time in a row that he's been voted number two--is the original guitar-smashing pin-ball wizard of The Who, Peter Town-shend.... M-M-M-Maybe next time.

Number one this year, of course, also with a bullet, since he jumped in the voting from fourth place last year, is the original good guy of The Beatles, erstwhile sad sack turned singles artist and movie star, Ringo Starr.

And so, the top-20 finishers:

Readers' Poll

How does the old French epigram go? The more things stay the same, the more things stay the same? No? Well, that's the way most of this year's results came out--with a few very interesting exceptions, there wasn't much room at the top for newcomers this year, and last year's winners came back strong one more time.

In Rhythm-and-Blues, it was again Stevie Wonder's year, winning as composer and male vocalist. Phoebe Snow--up from number 17 last outing--won as female vocalist and Natalie Cole--up from number 19--was right on her heels in second place. And as an indication how most of the year's voting went, Earth, Wind & Fire and the Average White Band just switched places--E.W.&F. on top this time around, with A.W.B. right behind.

In Pop/Rock, Elton slipped a few notches, down to one award from three last year. McCartney bounced him as top male vocalist, and Stevie beat him out in the composer category (winning that one in the R&B voting as well), but Elton's still the top honkie cat on keyboards. Linda Ronstadt repeated as top female vocalist (and did so again in the C&W voting, too), but Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie was a new face that finished a strong number four. The ubiquitous Peter Frampton copped hot-licks honors on guitar, up with a bullet and a voice synthesizer from number 23 last time.

It was in the Jazz category, especially, that our readers stayed true to last year's school. With a few exceptions, everyone who won this year will now have a matched pair of awards to stick up on the mantel. In the only changes, Lou Rawls beat out Ray Charles as male vocalist; George Benson nudged out José Feliciano on guitar; Chick Corea replaced Quincy Jones as best composer; and Corea's on-again-off-again group, Return to Forever, took top honors for a jazz group over Doc Severinsen's outfit.

And in Country-and-Western, perennial nice guy and natural-high advocate John Denver slipped to number two as male vocalist, chiefly on the strength of a wreck--as sung about by Gordon Light-foot, who won and did the same to Denver in the composer's category, to boot. Roy Clark did it one more time as best picker, but he'd better watch out next time--Leo Kottke picked his way to the number-two slot, a considerable jump from his previous number-20 finish.

So here it is. This one's going out to all you list freaks.

1977 Playboy Music Poll Results

Rhythm-and-Blues

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Composer

Group

Pop/Rock

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Guitar

Keyboards

Drums

Bass

Composer

Group

Jazz

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Brass

Woodwinds

Keyboards

Vibes

Guitar

Bass

Percussion

Composer

Group

Country-and-Western

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Picker

Composer

Top Twenty Tunes

Playboy's Top Twenty.... The editors fill a jukebox with their own singles favorites from 1976.

"Some smart operator will probably team Brian and Elton as a summer replacement for 'Mary Hartman.'"