Song of the Moment: Three Dog Night – “Joy to the World”
In February 1971, Three Dog Night released “Joy to the World” as a single from the album, Naturally.
http://aeschtunes.com/2026/04/17/song-of-the-moment-three-dog-night-joy-to-the-world/
#Music, #ThreeDogNight, #70s, #70sMusic, #1970s, #1970sMusic, #RockMusic, #AeschTunes
MARTIN MULL
Sex And Violins
1978 U.S. pressing
A deeply sentimental favorite.
I was in desperate need of a few laughs today, so this was a no brainer, seeing that it has never once failed to make me smile or laugh.
Not only is this shit FUNNY, but there’s great songcraft going on here, with some vibes that are reminiscent of Randy Newman and early Tom Waits.
Martin Mull was a comedic genius, a great actor, and criminally underrated.
His Johnny Carson appearances were fucking GREAT, and everything Martin was in was made better for having him in it.
It was a sad day for me when he died.
#vinyl #vinylrecords #vinylcommunity #vinylcollection #retro #vintage #art #music #comedy #martinmull #1970s #70s #70smusic
"This new rendition,seemed to expand the narrative and, not just fly with it, but make it soar. I can still remember that feeling after the instrumental break, which takes the track to a whole new level.."
Read on...
https://wp.me/pdWkHZ-3GY
"This new rendition,seemed to expand the narrative and, not just fly with it, but make it soar. I can still remember that feeling after the instrumental break, which takes the track to a whole new level.." Read on...
The Bee Gees’ perfect harmonies on Johnny Carson in 1973 left him completely speechless
Miriam Makeba Zaire 74
https://amf.didiermary.fr/miriam-makeba-zaire-74/
Yes, she was part of the event, performing the famous Click Song (Qongqothwane). [...]
#70smusic #Congo #LiveMusic #MiriamMakeba #SoulPower #SouthAfrica #OldAfricanMusic
"To me it rolled with an honesty, a confidence, a playfulness, and a big assurance that everything was all OK in life".
Read on...
https://wp.me/pdWkHZ-3Gp
#70sMusic #DavidEssex #GonnaMakeYouAStar #ClassicPop #UKCharts1974 #MusicMemories #70sPop #BritishMusic #thearchiveofmylife #mymusicalroad
William Onyeabor Sings “Atomic Bomb”
Listen to this track by equal parts innovative and enigmatic Nigerian electro-funk and synthpop musician William Onyebabor. It’s “Atomic Bomb”, the title track to his 1978 record of the same name and his second release. The album was one of eight records that Onyeabor recorded and released independently between 1977 and 1985. His success as a musician, record producer, and impresario was regional in the Nigerian town of Enugu until he branched off into more conventional business interests away from music by the end of the 1980s.
At that point, just as he’d once founded a state of the art 64-track recording studio and record pressing plant, he opened a very successful flour mill instead. He provided very few references to his music career thereafter. In fact for most of his career as a local businessman and award-winning regional industrialist, he refused to discuss it. This made him something of a mysterious figure despite his local popularity when he was an active recording artist. When the expansive Who is William Onyeabor? compilation album came out on the Luaka Bop label in 2013, he felt no need to involve himself in promoting it or to address the question its title raised.
Onyeabor’s music is as mysterious as the man himself. It didn’t seem to have any ties to emerging scenes or styles at the time he recorded it. As with most of his music, on “Atomic Bomb”, Onyeabor’s synthesizers provide the central textures more so than most Nigerian pop music of the era. Whatever his music is and wherever it came from, it sounds as if it emerged fully formed outside of anything happening in Nigeria or anywhere else at the time. By the time he died in 2017 at the age of 70, Onyeabor’s music included admirers like David Byrne and Damon Albarn. In fact, it was more popular than it had ever been when he made it.
Onyeabor didn’t make avant garde music. There are some compelling and recognizable stylistic threads to follow as you listen to “Atomic Bomb” that catch the ear. The funk influence is certainly in place, favouring a straightforward groove and rhythmic punctuations instead of relying on intricate chord changes. Yet it’s also highly melodic. There’s a hint of a reggae pulse and dub influences on this cut, too. But it’s in lockstep to the Africanized Kraftwerk feel prominent in many of his other songs. Within that unconventional mix, the song never really resolves itself on any one identifiable style.
Lyrically, “Atomic Bomb” is spare but emotionally potent. It’s presented by way of a contrast between Onyeabor’s lead vocal and his chorus of backing vocalists. There’s further contrast still. The song evokes themes of distressing inner turmoil. Yet Onyeabor presents them in a soothing and contented-sounding delivery. Within that contrast, the song suggests the collective anxieties around global conflicts that would become mainstream in Western pop music in only a few years. Prince’s “1999” and even Modern English’s “I Melt With You” weren’t too far afield from what Onyeabor is getting at in this song that came out half a decade before.
If there is a distinct anti-war sentiment in “Atomic Bomb”, Onyeabor comes by it honestly. As a young man, he was a soldier and a witness to violence and warfare in Biafra at the end of the 1960s. By the 1970s, the effects of the cold war ramped up in West Africa in the same way it would in the West by the following decade. Those same fears people in Europe and North America experienced around nuclear Armageddon were very much in the air in Onyeabor’s community.
Importantly though, “Atomic Bomb” isn’t a song of despair. Its subject matter is grim. But the way the music is delivered sounds like it was made to soothe rather than to inflame further fears or to provoke anger. Onyeabor’s voice is a gentle texture as his narrator confesses the anxiety that’s building up inside him. At the same time, he suggests the geopolitical source of his fears which were commonly understood by his audience. In singing these simple lines, a listener facing their own anxieties becomes a much less solitary thing as they hear them.
In this, “Atomic Bomb” isn’t a prophetic warning or any kind of political statement on the state of the world primarily. It’s an expression of understanding and of deep empathy concerned with feelings (‘how do you feel?’) not ideologies. It’s also an artistic expression of the troubled times in which it was written and recorded, and one that’s just as potent and well-observed as any song about nuclear war that would follow it.
“Atomic Bomb” is another example of how music that deals in frightening themes can be delivered to affect something completely opposite. In this song, there is a kind of ministerial intent behind its sentiments. It also shows that honest expressions of anxiety and fear don’t have to be in the context of despair. Shared vulnerability can help create bridges between people as a way to validate feelings and get them out into the open. In times of political tension, candid expressions from artists to audiences and from person to person can create cohesion and solidarity. In this, vulnerability and emotional honesty is a more powerful tool than bravado ever is.
Maybe too, this emphasis on care, understanding, and of community cohesion helps to answer the question of Who is William Onyeabor? He was a musician who saw his work as a means of projecting global positivity even if his initial sphere of artistic influence was very local. He recorded his material as if he was speaking to everyone everywhere, perhaps anticipating that one day he would actually do that. In a rare appearance on Western media, this is what he told radio host Lauren Laverne:
“I only create music that helps the world.”
Since William Onyeabor’s passing in 2017, a great deal more biographical background on this singular figure in West African music has come to light. For more on the life of this fascinating and innovative artist and also on this song, check out this BBC William Onyeabor article from 2024.
For even more background on William Onyeabor, check out this 31-minute short film about him with a title named after another one of his songs, Fantastic Man.
Enjoy!
#70sMusic #AfricanMusic #electroPop #WilliamOnyeabor #WorldMusic
"Sweet Sensation were Manchester's answer to the ever-growing Philly sound sweeping the music world at the time".
Read on...
https://wp.me/pdWkHZ-3FN
#70sMusic #SweetSensation #SadSweetDreamer #ClassicSoul #UKCharts1974 #MusicMemories #NorthernSoul #70sPop #thearchiveofmylife #mymusicalroad
André-Marie Tala – Hot Koki
https://amf.didiermary.fr/andre-marie-tala-hot-koki/
Connaissez-vous la petite histoire autour de la chanson “Hot Koki” ?
André-Marie Tala est connu pour ses “Bend Skin Beats,” une évolution urbaine du Mangambeu, rythme et danse camerounaise qui a ses origines dans les traditions Bamileké dans l’ouest du Cameroun.
André-Marie Tala, musicien Camerounais, perd sa mère à 4 ans, son père 12 […]
Born this date in 1950 was David Cassidy, teen heartthrob, singer, Partridge Family's Keith Partridge. 10 things you might not know about him.
https://topicaltens.blogspot.com/2026/04/12-april-david-cassidy.html
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