The 1970s were an interesting time to be a young kid. I was only age 7 when the decade closed, so most of what pass for memories probably more realistically fall into the category of brief, vivid impressions, really… Digging back through the minefield of repression, I remember the omnipresence of olive green-yellow-orange-brown earth tones. Everything seemed dirtier, somehow: sun-soaked in a haze of air pollution; perma-stained a grimy nicotine-maize. The existential crises of the times played out in pop-culture as revisionist romanticism of an idyllic 1950s America (Happy Days; Grease; Sha Na Na) clashed with paranoid fears of technology and the future (Planet of the Apes; Westworld; Logan’s Run). TV played like a dizzying, compressed full history of 20th century pop-culture. Everyone’s hair was at least a little bit longer. Fashions were appallingly tacky. Dr. Seuss, Mego, Lite Brite, Wheaties, Krofft productions, M.A.S.H., Muppets, and Star Wars; John-Boy, The Brady Bunch, schmaltzy variety shows, “The agony of defeat”, Disco, Farrah hair, Kiss, and ABBA.
By the end of the decade, a multitude of ’70s popular culture touchstones would be increasingly (sometimes brutally) rejected as criminally shallow and uncool – but what did I know or care? A kaleidoscopic barrage of disparate sights and sounds were all being processed simultaneously with, as yet, unbiased eyes and ears. I was still too overwhelmed by curiosity and the newness of everything to be much of a cynic about anything.
As the “baby” of the family, my sheltered indoctrination into the world occurred in the pocket universe of my parent’s home, with influences that frequently hailed from the immediately preceding decades. The morning experience was defined by the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen, industrial size boxes of Cheerios, and J.P. McCarthy on “The Great Voice of the Great Lakes, “AM 760 WJR – once a lightly conservative mix of news, commentary, and vanilla, awkwardly cropped music. On the cusp of the cable/home video revolution, TV as a popular medium had only functionally existed for around 25 years, so the net effect of fewer outlets producing less original content over that span was that all viewers, for lack of choice, were exposed to the entire history of programming (and of film and music, by extension). Daily viewing routines covered a lot of ground: Sesame Street; The Gong Show; cartoons (Bugs Bunny; Bullwinkle); ’60s reruns (The Munsters; Lost In Space; Leave It to Beaver); Bill Kennedy at the Movies (classics) with Mom; and maybe an hour of family fare like Little House On the Prairie. Being a kid, I was always doing other things while the TV was on, of course… Drawing superheroes (on any available surface), sneaking snacks (shhhhhhh!)… Bouncing up randomly to: pop open a can of spinach; throw on a cape to act out fight scenes (“KAPOW!”); fly (run) full speed through the house (“whooshing” sounds); climb the stairs like Spidey (“thwip”); jump REALLY long distances (“buh buh buh buh na na na na“), and beam down to strange new worlds (“I’m a KID, not BRAIN surgeon!”). Looking back, the best part of threatening the structural integrity of the house with the power of serious play may have been aping the sound-effects and vocalizing the theme music. “Proper” lessons, these were not, to be sure, but through all these shows I was exposed to a world of sound and intuitively learned a lot about tone and dynamics by attempting to mimic the what I heard, developing a decent vocal range and ear for music in the process.
Around the house, I recall Mom singing Teresa Brewer and Doris Day songs while doing ALL the many things that busy house Mom’s do, Dad crooning assorted “big band” era tunes while cleaning up for bowling nights, and my older siblings spinning borrowed Beatles and Beach Boys 45’s on the family hi-fi. At one point, my eldest sister crafted a toy guitar for me from corrugated cardboard and yarn (strings) in the shape of The Monkees logo. My older brother, who liked to tape songs off of the rock & roll “oldies” station (AM 560 “Honey Radio“) would play “Surfin’ Bird” by The Trashmen on repeat just to see me fall down laughing. The semi-weekly ritual of watching countless, mostly disposable, Saturday morning cartoons – almost all of which had theme songs that remain burned into the inner recesses my brain – with the youngest of my two sisters, huddled under an afghan over the living room register for precious heat. Hours and days were spent lounging on the floor listening to Peter Pan brand 45 rpm kiddie story records and LP’s like Rocking Horse Players’ Peter and the Wolf, Lawrence Welk’s Baby Elephant Walk, Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights, K-tel’s Pure Gold, and the Goldfinger, Saturday Night Fever, Fantasia and Star Wars movie soundtracks; examining every sleeve down to the last detail of each worn corner. I can recall many occasions of being crashed out in the back seat of the blue family wagon (or was it the black Chevy?), meditatively listening as sweetly melodic songs like ELO’s “Evil Woman,” Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” Dionne Warwick’s Bacharach/David penned “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” and “Saturday In the Park” by Chicago played on the stereo. Good times.
Speaking again of the age before home video and “on demand,” holiday programming and movies were truly a treat – appearing only once a year (if at all). If missed, that was it. CBS ran Peanuts cartoons like clockwork three times a year. Classic Disney films (Mary Poppins; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) were regularly shown on NBC. Christmas time meant Rankin & Bass Claymation specials. ABC fit in a Bond film at least once a month, usually. Networks ran epic Biblical films (The Ten Commandments; The Greatest Story Ever Told) on Easter and Christmas, as they continue to do today. Nearly revered on the level religious events (…to the child mind) were hallowed Hollywood musicals like The Wizard of Oz and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Singin’ In the Rain, The Sound of Music and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers stand out in memory as well. It didn’t matter what was going on… If it was at all possible to be present somewhere while these films were being aired, my folks typically made sure of it. Additionally, if one discovered that a favored musical act was going to make an appearance, the instinct was to stop the world so as not to accidentally miss it. As I mentioned earlier, these were the “dark times” before YouTube… There were no second chances to see that sort of thing (usually). When Mom told me that Paul McCartney & Wings were going to be on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon or Blondie was doing a spot on The Mike Douglas Show, I would keep a keen eye on the clock and make sure I watched the ENTIRE show so as to ensure no mistakes were made. Of course, unless it was Frank Sinatra or some other established heavyweight, musical guests were (are) always held back until the last segment, but the excitement was just too great to take any chances…
Yes, the setting was very conventional (square), but a varied enough array of impactful visual and aural information got through, stimulating my imagination and leaving me wanting more. The building blocks for the future WALL OF TUNES were being laid…
To be continued in…
THE FORMATIVE YEARS, PART II:
THE SWINGING SCINTILLATING DISCOLICIOUS SIGHTS & SOUNDS OF THE LATE ’70S (NOW WITH “FIST FIGHTING” ACTION!)
I love your writing it’s brilliant.
Thanks Ed!!! Much appreciated, man. Took a long time to edit down… As all over the place as it the finished product still feels, it was REALLY full of tangents before.
Did I shake any memories lose? Do you have any of your own you’d care to share?
All the memories are rushing back! Some things that I almost forgot about, too. This is quite a vivid picture you paint. A great slice of history for us forty-somethings soon to be FIFTY. Aargh! That graphic you created for this post really grabbed my attention. Great job all around. Looking forward to part II.
Thank you sir! Much appreciated! Glad You enjoyed the trip down memory lane. Care to share any of your own? As long as this was, I know there was a lot that I missed… Had a lot that was set aside in editing. Hoping to unearth some more good stuff for part II.
The graphics really make it.
Thanks Kiddo!! I aim to please.
Hi, Forrest! I really enjoyed my first read of your blog! You have an excellent command of the language! Nice job! BTW I am betting that is you, the cute blonde-haired kid in the picture collage!
When you were 7 and under in the late 70’s, my sons were early teens. Kiss was there favorite. I took them to Metro airport (to the executive hanger) and they were able to see (from behind the fence standing on a snow pile) Kiss disembark from a private jet and (in full custom) wave to the couple of dozen of us there! They still remember that as a cool childhood event!
I look forward to reading more … and reminiscing! Keep up the good work!
Phil
Thanks, Phil. I’m glad you enjoyed it! I write a bit more about Kiss in the Part 2, which will be posted shortly once the graphics are completed. Make sure to check out the highlighted red text… They are “easter eggs” that link to supplementary content.
What a special moment for you and your kids to witness Kiss this way and being able to see part of Kiss’s journey behind the scenes.
You bring up a good point that, because of limited TV channels and no internet yet, we had a common set of shows and music that we were all familiar with. It’s great to have so many choices these days, but it could also mean it’s harder to have cultural cohesion among the age groups.
It was fun to be reminded of old music and television favorites!
Your picture with the various 70’s theme really stands out.
I appreciated seeing the link for Lite Brite (and all the others in red) which showed the Lite Brite patterns I worked on in my cubby hole. Nicely done Lite Brite photo of yourself.
The link for the 70’s color tones brings me back to the many restaurants and friends homes I attended. I still like those color tones today. There is a restaurant I visit that still has the orange counter top that I remember when I was young.
I was thinking about how we would wait a year and look forward as a family to watch shows like Wizard of Oz and the Sound of Music while today we can watch it anytime on DVD. Including Charlie Brown.
Shows like The Brady Bunch, Little House on the Prairie, Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie were some of my favorites.
Fashion wise, I remember walking in my neighborhood and seeing a teen wearing these plaid and very wide bell bottom pants.
You’re so lucky that you weren’t immersed in a constant barrage of country music and your family members singing along to Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings and Julio Iglesias on WKDF. I think it’s a lot of why I revile the genre so heavily to this day. My appreciation for pop, blues and rock came much later as I headed out into the world in Junior High. Much of music of the 70s, especially rock and heavy metal, was reviled for being Satan’s personal tool for communication in an attempt to win us innocents to his side primed for the “stealing of our souls”.
It’s funny. I’m not sure at what age I totally rejected country because it didn’t seem to bother me that much as a young kid watching Hee Haw with Roy Clark and Buck Owens. Maybe because they were more bluegrass than country? I don’t know. In the ’70s & early ’80s there were a lot of country artists who crossed over in to the popular mainstream like Glenn Campbell, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, Crystal Gayle, Ronnie Milsap, Juice Newton, etc. Johnny Cash was ALWAYS there. I still don’t like modern country apart from VERY few stray songs (“This Kiss” by Faith Hill sounds like it could have ben penned by Andy Partridge…), but the genre on the whole I sort of softened on a bit as I’ve expanded out and realized how influential the base form has been on many of favorite singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, etc.