Focus in the 1970s

Focus in the 1970s PDF Author: Stephen Lambe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781789520798
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
For a few short years in the 1970s, the unique music of Focus entertained the world. Build around the prodigious instrumental talents of Dutch masters Jan Akkerman (guitar) and Thijs Van Leer (keyboards and flute), the band produced three classic hit albums in quick succession, and scored two worldwide hits with 'Sylvia' and 'Hocus Pocus'. The latter piece is as ubiquitous as tunes from the 70s get, distinctive for Akkerman's famous riff and Van Leer's once-heard-never forgotten yodeling. Musical and personal tensions between the two lead to a split in 1976, the band limping on until 1978. However, the 1970s also saw seven solo albums each from these two hugely talented musicians, with Akkerman moving into jazzier territory while Van Leer had huge success with his Introspection series of light, classical flute-based albums. Stephen Lambe's enlightening book guides the reader through the band's early history year by year, dealing with all eight Focus albums song by song, while also giving the same treatment to Akkerman and Van Leer's lesser know solo work between 1970 and 1979. It makes for both an important potted history of the band and an insight into the tensions which lead to such a creative - if short lived - peak, but also acts as an essential guide to the astonishing music the two men made while at the apex of their powers.

The Hidden 1970s

The Hidden 1970s PDF Author: Dan Berger
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 081354873X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
The 1970s were a complex, multilayered, and critical part of an era of profound societal change and an essential component of the decade before-several of the most iconic events of "the sixties" occurred in the ten years that followed. The Hidden 1970s explores the distinctiveness of those years, when radicals tried to change the world as the world changed around them. Essays trace the struggles from the 1960s through the 1970s, providing insight into the ways that radical social movements shaped American political culture in the 1970s and the many ways they continue to do so today.

Rock Me on the Water

Rock Me on the Water PDF Author: Ronald Brownstein
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062899236
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
In this exceptional cultural history, Atlantic Senior Editor Ronald Brownstein—“one of America's best political journalists (The Economist)—tells the kaleidoscopic story of one monumental year that marked the city of Los Angeles’ creative peak, a glittering moment when popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. Los Angeles in 1974 exerted more influence over popular culture than any other city in America. Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television studios around Sunset Boulevard, living in Brentwood and Beverly Hills or amid the flickering lights of the Hollywood Hills, a cluster of transformative talents produced an explosion in popular culture which reflected the demographic, social, and cultural realities of a changing America. At a time when Richard Nixon won two presidential elections with a message of backlash against the social changes unleashed by the sixties, popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. The early 1970s in Los Angeles was the time and the place where conservatives definitively lost the battle to control popular culture. Rock Me on the Water traces the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative, magical year. Ronald Brownstein reveals how 1974 represented a confrontation between a massive younger generation intent on change, and a political order rooted in the status quo. Today, we are again witnessing a generational cultural divide. Brownstein shows how the voices resistant to change may win the political battle for a time, but they cannot hold back the future.

A History of 1970s Experimental Film

A History of 1970s Experimental Film PDF Author: P. Gaal-Holmes
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137369388
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This comprehensive historical account demonstrates the rich diversity in 1970s British experimental filmmaking, acting as a form of reclamation for films and filmmakers marginalized within established histories. An indispensable book for practitioners, historians and critics alike, it provides new interpretations of this rich and diverse history.

Alice Cooper in the 1970s

Alice Cooper in the 1970s PDF Author: Chris Sutton
Publisher: Sonicbond Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789521939
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
The 1970s was the decade that saw the arrival of Alice Cooper as a major force in the rock firmament. Chris Sutton explores the story of Alice Cooper the band and also Alice the solo performer from their early years through to the end of the decade. A roller-coaster ride of classic albums and singles, the songs recorded in the 1970s still dominate his live sets to this day. The book features all new interview material from key figures including Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith from the original band, Prakash John from the solo years, and Ernie Cefalu, whose company Pacific Eye and Ear designed the sleeve packaging. Several other musicians, concert promoters and even the band's first roadie have also contributed their thoughts. All of the albums and singles from Don't Blow Your Mind, until From The Inside are examined in detail, along with related archive releases and songs that didn't make the final cut. In the course of putting the book together much new information came to light that will be of huge interest to hardened collectors and new fans alike, making this book is an essential guide to Alice Cooper in the decade that the band helped to define. Chris Sutton has been a fan of Alice Cooper since 1972 and the band’s famous debut appearance on Top Of The Pops. The reunion of the band for their UK tour in 2017 stands as one of his happiest memories. He manages Smethwick Heritage Centre Museum and has written several publications for them. He has also written several plays. Alice Cooper in the 1970s is his first venture into music writing, with others to follow. He lives in Great Malvern, UK.

American Culture in the 1970s

American Culture in the 1970s PDF Author: Will Kaufman
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748631534
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The 1970s was one of the most culturally vibrant periods in American history. This book discusses the dominant cultural forms of the 1970s - fiction and poetry; television and drama; film and visual culture; popular music and style; public space and spectacle - and the decade's most influential practitioners and texts: from Toni Morrison to All in the Family, from Diane Arbus to Bruce Springsteen, from M.A.S.H. to Taxi Driver and from disco divas to Vietnam protesters. In response to those who consider the seventies the time of disco, polyester and narcissism, this book rewrites the critical engagement with one of America's most misunderstood decades.Key Features*Focused case studies featuring key texts and influential writers, artists, directors and musicians*Chronology of 1970s American Culture*Bibliographies for each chapter and a general bibliography on 1970s Culture*14 black-and-white illustrations

The Global 1970s

The Global 1970s PDF Author: Duco Hellema
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429874715
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
No other decade evokes such contradictory images as the 1970s: reform and emancipation on the one hand, crisis and malaise on the other. In The Global 1970s: Radicalism, Reform, and Crisis, Duco Hellema portrays the 1970s as a period of global transition. Across the world, the early and mid-1970s were still years of political mobilization with everything seemingly an object of public controversy and conflict, including economic development, education, and family matters. Social movements called for the reduction of social inequalities, for participation, and the emancipation of various groups at the same time as the rise of ambitious and reform-oriented governments. Ten years later, a different world was emerging with the call for state-controlled social and economic changes in decline and new economic policies centred on liberation and deregulation taking their place. This book examines a range of explanations for this radical transformation, highlighting how economic problems, such as the oil crisis, political battles and dramatic confrontations resulted in a free-market-oriented conservatism by the end of the period. Divided into nine broadly chronological chapters and taking a global approach that allows the reader to see the familiar themes of the decade examined on an international scale, The Global 1970s is essential reading for all students and scholars of twentieth-century global history.

Stayin' Alive

Stayin' Alive PDF Author: Jefferson R. Cowie
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459604237
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
An epic account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the '70s, Stayin' Alive is a wide-ranging cultural and political history that presents the decade in a whole new light. Jefferson Cowie's edgy and incisive book - part political intrigue, part labor history, with large doses of American music, film, and TV lore - makes new sense of the '70s as a crucial and poorly understood transition from the optimism of New Deal America to the widening economic inequalities and dampened expectations of the present. Stayin' Alive takes us from the factory floors of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit to the Washington of Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Cowie connects politics to culture, showing how the big screen and the jukebox can help us understand how America turned away from the radicalism of the '60s and toward the patriotic promise of Ronald Reagan. He also makes unexpected connections between the secrets of the Nixon White House and the failings of the George McGovern campaign, between radicalism and the blue-collar backlash, and between the earthy twang of Merle Haggard's country music and the falsetto highs of Saturday Night Fever. Cowie captures nothing less than the defining characteristics of a new era. Stayin' Alive is a book that will forever define a misunderstood decade.

The 1970s

The 1970s PDF Author: Thomas Borstelmann
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691141568
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
A compelling framework for understanding the importance of the 1970s for America and the world The 1970s looks at an iconic decade when the cultural left and economic right came to the fore in American society and the world at large. While many have seen the 1970s as simply a period of failures epitomized by Watergate, inflation, the oil crisis, global unrest, and disillusionment with military efforts in Vietnam, Thomas Borstelmann creates a new framework for understanding the period and its legacy. He demonstrates how the 1970s increased social inclusiveness and, at the same time, encouraged commitments to the free market and wariness of government. As a result, American culture and much of the rest of the world became more—and less—equal. Borstelmann explores how the 1970s forged the contours of contemporary America. Military, political, and economic crises undercut citizens' confidence in government. Free market enthusiasm led to lower taxes, a volunteer army, individual 401(k) retirement plans, free agency in sports, deregulated airlines, and expansions in gambling and pornography. At the same time, the movement for civil rights grew, promoting changes for women, gays, immigrants, and the disabled. And developments were not limited to the United States. Many countries gave up colonial and racial hierarchies to develop a new formal commitment to human rights, while economic deregulation spread to other parts of the world, from Chile and the United Kingdom to China. Placing a tempestuous political culture within a global perspective, The 1970s shows that the decade wrought irrevocable transformations upon American society and the broader world that continue to resonate today.

Sex, Drugs, and Fashion in 1970s Madrid

Sex, Drugs, and Fashion in 1970s Madrid PDF Author: Francisco Fernandez de Alba
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 148751333X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
During the last decade of Franco’s repressive rule, the Spanish outlook on sex, drugs, and fashion shifted dramatically, creating a favourable cultural environment for the return of democracy. Exploring changes in urban planning, narratives of sexual and gender identity, recreational drug use, and fashion design during the seventies, Sex, Drugs, and Fashion in 1970s Madrid argues that it was during this decade that the material and emotional conditions for the groundbreaking transition to democracy first began to develop. Thanks in part to a mass media saturated with international trends, citizens of Madrid began to adopt practices, behaviours, and attitudes that would ultimately render Franco’s military dictatorship obsolete. This cultural history examines these modest but irreversible changes in the way people lived and thought about their lives during the last decade of the regime’s creed. Not a revolution necessarily, but transformational nevertheless, these changes in collective sensibility eased the political transition to democracy and the emergence of the 1980s’ cultural movement la Movida.

The Little Book of the 1970s

The Little Book of the 1970s PDF Author: Stuart Hylton
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750963220
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
The Little Book of the 1970s is a fast-paced and entertaining account of life in Britain during an extraordinary decade, as we moved from the swinging sixties to the punk-rock seventies. Here are dramas, tragedies, scandals and characters galore, all packaged in an easily readable 'dip-in' format. Witness how major national and international events impacted on the population at home, the progress made by technology and the fads and fancies of fashion and novelty. Those who lived through the decade (and are therefore experts on the subject) should find plenty to remind, surprise, amuse and inform them, while a younger generation will see how different the world of the 1970s was to the one that we inhabit today.