‘The records of 1971 still live in the present’: rock journalist David Hepworth -
Mark Colvin reported this story on Friday, August 19, 2016
MARK COLVIN: There are some books that are just destined to start arguments – and there are some arguments that are just fun to have.
So it is with ’1971: Never A Dull Moment’, a new book by the veteran British rock journalist David Hepworth. He says 1971, which just happened to be the year he turned 21, was the greatest year ever for the rock ‘n’ roll album.
Agree with it or not, it’s an entertaining read and a fascinating social – as well as musical – history of the period.
David Hepworth spoke to me from our London studio.
(Music: ‘Baba O’ Riley’ by The Who from ‘Who’s Next’, 1971)
DAVID HEPWORTH: Well, this grew from a column I wrote in the late ‘Word’ magazine, many years ago. And the headline of the column was: “1971 was the annus mirabilis of the rock ‘n’ roll album” – which is something that became clear to me thanks to the internet, really. You know, it’s only with the internet – and when you’ve got 40, 50 years of rock ‘n’ roll history – it’s only with the internet that you can kind of sort it. You can see the pattern. You can look over all and you can see what the years were and you can see what the key moments were. And you can see how releases clustered in certain years. And so I wrote this column.
ROGER DALTREY (sings): Out here in the fields / I fight for my meals / I get my back into my livin’…
DAVID HEPWORTH: And unlike many columns which later on you come to recant, that one I didn’t at all, you know, because everybody responded to that. They said, “Do you know, you’re right. And there’s this as well. And there’s that as well.”
MARK COLVIN: Did others come back and say, “No, no. You’re quite wrong because, you know, I turned 21 in such-and-such a year and that was a much better year”?
DAVID HEPWORTH: Well, I still get that. I got one only yesterday, actually, saying it was 1969 or whatever. And you know, my response to these people is always the same: “Fine. Go ahead. Write your own book. But you know, you might want to check your working-out against mine,” you know.
MARK COLVIN: It’s a good starting point but you’re slightly more dogmatic than that in the book. You say, “Well, other people can have their years but the big difference is that I’m right”?
DAVID HEPWORTH: Well, one of us has got to be.
(Mark laughs)
Logically, one of us has got to be. And I would say: it’s me.
(Music: ‘I Feel the Earth Move’ by Carole King from ‘Tapestry’, 1971)
CAROLE KING (sings): I feel the earth move under my feet / I feel the sky tumblin’ down / I feel my heart start to tremblin’ / Whenever you’re around / Ooh, baby…
DAVID HEPWORTH: You know, the key point, joking aside, is that the records of 1971 still live in the present in a way that the records of 1967 or 1965 or, you know, other remarkable years: those records don’t in the same way, because those records were made in a very different fashion.
You know, if you go back and listen to Country Joe’s ‘Electric Music Of The Mind And Body’, it sounds quaint now.
MARK COLVIN: But if you go back and – I mean, one of the controversial things is that you leave out all of the Beatles by saying 1971.
DAVID HEPWORTH: You leave them out as a unit, but you have them as individuals because they’d officially broken up, I suppose, on new year’s eve 1970. So you have a bit of a clean slate there.
So my point was: it’s the annus mirabilis of the rock album. There are more rock albums – and not just rock: I mean, taken in its broadest possible sense – there are more records from that year that we still listen to nowadays – and we don’t need to make adjustments to listen to nowadays – than there are from any other year.
You know, as I always say: if there had been a Mercury Music Prize in 1971, which is given to UK records, the short-list would have been Rod Stewart’s ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’, David Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’, Elton John’s ‘Madman Across The Water’, Paul McCartney’s ‘Ram’, John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sticky Fingers’, ‘Who’s Next’, Led Zeppelin IV – and need I go on? You know, there are simply…
MARK COLVIN (laughs): That’s the short-list.
DAVID HEPWORTH: And that’s a short short-list. And if you want the big American albums of 1971: Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’, Sly and the Family Stone’s ‘There’s A Riot Goin’ On’, Carole King’s ‘Tapestry’, Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ and so on and so on. There was just an immense amount of creativity in that short period of time that still lives with us today. That’s my point.
(Music: ‘Tiny Dancer’ by Elton John from ‘Madman Across The Water, 1971)
ELTON JOHN (sings): Blue jean baby / L.A. lady / Seamstress for the band / Pretty-eyed / Pirate smile / You married a music man…
DAVID HEPWORTH: There was nothing else to do, really. (Laughs) You know, I wouldn’t wish a night of 1971 television on my worst enemy. But the records of 1971, again, still live for us now. And they had the benefit at the time of having the kind of uninterrupted, unimpeded concentration of a huge generation of people. Because the only thing I wanted to spend money on when I was 21 was records.
MARK COLVIN: Will you read us a passage about just how boring it was?
DAVID HEPWORTH: Well, I start the book with, you know, just trying to describe what London was like in 1971. And this bit goes as follows:
“Three TV channels. BBC 1 Saturday night line-up with Cliff Richard, Dixon of Dock Green and Rolf Harris. Some shows in colour, others still in black and white. Henry Cooper advertising the great smell of Brut. Jimmy Saville promoting car seat belts: “Clunk click every trip.” No commercial radio. Daily Mirror sells 4.5 million copies every day. Major cities have a morning and evening newspaper. No celebrity magazines. Wartime titles Reveille and Tit-Bits still popular.”
(Music: ‘Mandolin Wind’ by Rod Stewart from ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’, 1971)
ROD STEWART (sings): When the rain came I thought you’d leave / ‘Cause I knew how much you loved the sun / But you chose to stay, stay and keep me warm / Through the darkest nights I’ll ever know / If the mandolin wind couldn’t change a thing / Then I know I love ya…
DAVID HEPWORTH (reads): “No mobiles. Seventy thousand red telephone boxes: press button B to get your money back. The only ring tone is a ringing tone. Overseas calls via the operator. Police in touch with the station via police boxes. Urgent news delivered via telegram. Train tickets checked by eye, not machine. Most people have never seen a computer in their lives.”
(Music: ‘Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)’ by Marvin Gaye from ‘What’s Going On’, 1971)
MARVIN GAYE (sings): Rockets, moon shots / Spend it on the have-nots / Money: we make it / Before we see it, you take it…
DAVID HEPWORTH (reads): Smokers everywhere: on Tube trains, in pubs, in offices, even in hospitals. No joggers, no health shops, no gyms, no leisure wear. No trainers. No mineral water, no Lycra, no fast food, no obesity. Wiry people. Biba’s most popular dress sizes are six and eight. The only people with tattoos got them in the services.”
(Music: ‘Life’s a Gas’ by T-Rex from ‘Electric Warrior’, 1971)
MARC BOLAN (sings): I could have loved you, girl, like a planet / I could have chained your heart to a star / But it really doesn’t matter at all / No, it really doesn’t matter at all / Life’s a gas…
MARK COLVIN: When I read it, it occurred to me: it’s almost like reading science fiction from the other end of the telescope. It’s an almost unimaginable world – and I lived through it.
DAVID HEPWORTH (laughs): I suppose that was one of the things that I enjoyed most about writing it, actually: is that while the music from that year still means a lot to people, the world would just be absolutely bizarre. You know, if you dropped my children – who are in their 20s and 30s now – if you dropped them back in that world, they would be bewildered and kind of frightened, really. But that was the world that that music came from.
(Music: ‘Little Green’ by Joni Mitchell from ‘Blue’, 1971)
JONI MITCHELL (sings) Born with the moon in Cancer / Choose her a name she will answer to / Call her ‘Green’ and the winters cannot fade her / Call her ‘Green’ for the children who’ve made her / Little Green, be a gypsy dancer…
MARK COLVIN: Joni Mitchell’s ‘Little Green’, ending that interview with David Hepworth.
His book is called ’1971: Never a Dull Moment’. We also heard music from The Who, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Marvin Gaye and T-Rex.