7 of the 70s: 11/28/13 (1971)...

Hey gang, it's 70s throwback time, and today I'm back to 1971, the year Led Zeppelin released their iconic fourth album with "Stairway To Heaven" in November...(as usual I've included links to buy anything on MP3 or CD)...

The Raiders - "Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian)"
from the album Indian Reservation (1971)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1
Songwriter: John D Loudermilk

Three hundred and fifty years after the first Thanksgiving, relations between the Native Americans and the Europeans have been through quite a bit, which this recount of the "Trail Of Tears" that displaced millions of people from their homes in the South.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Joan Baez - "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
from the album Blessed Are... (1971)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3
Songwriter: Robbie Robertson

When Baez recorded her hit cover of the classic Civil War thematic by the Band, she never saw the original lyrics, and words were changed up in her version that sort of updated the song to Antebellum times....

Tom Clay - "What The World Needs Now/Abraham, Martin and John"
from the album Tom Clay's What The World Needs Now Is Love (1971)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8
Songwriters: Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Dick Holler

This Detroit DJ "mashed-up" two classic songs with interviews and news footage from the tumultuous times at hand.

John Lennon - "Power To The People"
from the album Shaved Fish (1975)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11
Songwriter: John Lennon

Lennon would come to disdain this call to arms for the proletariat, buying into the new hipster-right movement that produces vermin like Dennis Miller.

George Harrison - "Bangla-Desh"
from the album The Best Of George Harrison (1976)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23
Songwriter: George Harrison


In actuality, for all of Lennon's philosophical musings, it was Harrison that truly set out to change the world, with this song chronicling the plight of a land most Americans never heard of, as the pinnacle of his charitable work, and a template that all rock charity work ("We Are The World", Band Aid, etc.) would draw from.

The Chi-Lites - "(For God's Sake) Give More Power To The People"
from the album (For God's Sake) Give More Power To The People (1971)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #26
Songwriter: Eugene Record


This soulful song of protest was reused in the 1995 film Panther...

Graham Nash - "Chicago"
from the album Songs For Beginners (1971)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #35
Songwriter: Graham Nash

This song looked back on the goings on in 1968, where the Democratic Convention with torn by violence by the city squashing anti-war protestors from exercising their rights - something the current powers that be would never try with the equally vocal and batshit crazier Tea Party. 

That's it for this week's 70s trip...I'll be back later with eight more from 1981...