Not sure if my first try at posting this got through or not.  My
connection timed out as I tried to send this:

My two cents on the Badfinger posting by Bob Lefetz that Bruce shared
with us.

> The BEATLES were no longer doing THE BEATLES!  And the scene had moved on. 
> Now it was about prog-rock, art rock, there was a CLEAR DEMARCATION between 
> the sixties and the seventies.

Yep, Gunhill Road, Abba, Polly Brown, Jim Croce, Elton John, Player,
Jay Ferguson, Dan Hill, Davig Gates, David Geddes, Seals & Crofts,
Cliff Richard, Robert John, Orleans, Gino Vannelli, Ambrosia, Maria
Muldaur, Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods, Paper Lace, Dave Loggins,
Loggins & Messina, Andy Kim, First Class, Reunion, Looking Glass,
Daniel Boone, Gary Glitter, David Bowie, Lobo, Gallery, Gilbert
O'Sullivan, Kenny Nolan, Andrew Gold, 10cc, Albert Hammond, Hurricane
Smith, Edward Bear, Stealers Wheel, The DeFranco Family, The Patridge
Family, The Poppy Family, Starland Vocal Band, Starbuck, England Dan
& John Ford Coley, Hamilton Joe Frank & Reynolds, Jigsaw, Bay City
Rollers, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Harry Chapin, Janis
Ian, yes indeed, I certainly miss those good old days of PROG radio.

> There's no way Badfinger ever believed "Perfection" would be a hit single. 
> Hell, singles don't start off with acoustic guitars. 

That's right damnit!  I don't want to hear none of that Fire & Rain,
Anticipation, You're So Vain, Stuck In The Middle With You,
Photographs And Memories, Time In A Bottle, Cats In The Cradle, I Got
A Name, I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song, At Seventeen, Day
After Day, or none of that acoustic guitar starting off a song crap.

> Yes, all the action was over at the FM band.  Where the album tracks lived. The key was 
> to get airplay THERE so fans would buy your entire statement, play the complete album 
> over and over again, seeing what you had to say.

Yeah, wouldn't want to top those singles charts with anything selling
millions of copies like the crap on AM radio.

It's an interesting article/message/post, and it has some interesting
points that are well argued.  But to say that pop music, especially
singles that start off with acoustic guitars, didn't sell, and that
only PROG was selling in the 70s, and only FM radio mattered is total
BS.  FM was big with AOR, not just PROG.  AM was still mostly music,
and still mostly pop and still mostly driving the top 40 singles
charts.  PROG was big in the 70s, but certainly wasn't the only music
selling as the top 40 charts had very little PROG related material in
them.  

I think most people lose sight of what they lived through because of
the narrow focus they had at the time.  They remember what they were
into, the remember what they hated, and everything in between is a
sort of vague gray that they don't recall very well.  Obviously Bob
was into PROG and FM radio at the time, but that's not all there was
in the world.  Heck, we even had Vietnam back then! :-)


----
Dave Bradley
web-accessed mail (most likely checking this from work)