My Favorite Artists Of All Time! Pt.1: Growing Up in the Seventies

I'll be writing a little bit about the artists that have meant the most to me throughout my life, at first I was gonna just blog about a favorite artist at random, but then I thought it might be fun to list them in the actual order that I first fell in love with them! So if we're going back to the beginnings of a life full of musical appreciation, we've got to start back in the 1970's, where I first fell in love with records, though back then it was more about 45's than LPs, so though I'll later focus more on Favorite Albums, for the 70's we're going back to when the Single was the mighty media of choice!

  Ever since I first heard the epic single "Band On The Run" as a wee lad back in 1973, Paul McCartney (or, rather, Paul McCartney and Wings. as the unit was called then) has been one of my very favorite artists,  every subsequent single released was met with awe and affection, from the other Band On the Run singles like Jet to the singles from albums "Venus and Mars". "At The Speed Of Sound", "London Town" and "Back To The Egg", me and my siblings bought them all!

 Paul McCartney and Wings gave me my first experience of having a "Favorite" artist, where you knew you were going to buy his newest 45 even if you hadn't heard one second of it! Simply the fact that it was PAUL MCCARTNEY was reason enough to get it, and I have to say that I've NEVER been disappointed! When I got older I would eventually venture into his amazing LP catalog, but as a young kid on a limited budget, collecting his singles was really the way to go!

They say music is the soundtrack of your life, and as far as these McCartney songs go, they're absolutely spot-on! Even listening to them now the songs remind me of specific moments in my life:

Band On The Run reminds me of my father's Workplace (and playing Kikaida with friends)...

Listen What The Man Said reminds me of swimming at Alal Moana beach Park (truthfully, many songs from the 70's do, since there was always a radio blastin' the tunes at the picnics...)

Silly Love Songs reminds me of crabbing with my Dad and little brother down at Waipahu Canal (is that place still even there, I wonder?)

Let Em In reminds me of catching butterflies at Liliokalani Elementary in Kaimuki... etc, etc! SO many memories...

 Funny that all the time growing up, it didn't matter to me that this guy was part of the world renown supergroup the Beatles, and in fact all that registered to me was that this Beatles group was just the group he had been in BEFORE creating Wings!! LOLOL

Another group that Me and my siblings really loved growing up was the Bee Gees, I guess MOST kids in the 70's did, or at least had a couple of their singles, right? But this was yet another group that whenever a new single came out, SOMEBODY in the family would come home with the 45 that week! As for me, the first song I really loved from them was "Nights On Broadway" and "Jive Talking", then when "You Should be Dancing" came out, I think that's when we realized we liked everything those Gibb Brothers were doing! In fact, the Bee Gees were one of the few groups (along with the aforementioned Paul McCartney) where we'd listen to the B sides as well, and I remember one of our favorite tracks was the B-side to You Should Be Dancing called "Subway", man we just loved this song!!!

Back in the earlier 70's the eclectic Jeff Lynne Group ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA was more my brother's favorite group than mine, he was the one who brought home their earlier singles like "Evil Woman", "Living Thing" and "Strange Magic", but when they released the pop-perfect "Sweet Talkin' Woman" , that's when the fandom switched over to me, I became SUCH a fan of their singles  after that, with songs like "Turn To Stone". Shine a Little Love" and "Last Train To London", heck even down to their later wackier projects like the XANADU releases and beyond! In fact, this is the ONE group that my childhood friends still associate with ME whenever they hear a song from them on the radio, I was THAT into them!