March 9, 2020 by A.S. Van Dorston

As compulsively enthusiastic as I am about consuming nearly every rock music related book that comes out, I do have trouble staying interested with stuff like much of the 33-1/3 series that fail to spin a good story. This is not a problem for David Hepworth, an experienced journalist who knows how to balance his music geekery with some juicy tales, and a little context of his own youth, and the culture and politics that lead up to the year 1971. He also, of course, makes the bold and contentious claim that 1971 was the best year for rock music ever, which goes against the most popular opinions that argue for 1967, 1977 or 1979.

Hepworth makes a strong case indeed. 1967 was top-heavy with pioneering classics from Hendrix, Velvet Underground, Aretha, Love, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, Small Faces and of course The Beatles. 1977 had career highlights from Television, The Congos, Iggy Pop, Fela Kuti, Wire, ELO, The Saints, Bob Marley, George Faith, Culture, Sex Pistols, Brian Eno, The Clash, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, and a super arty album from Bowie that some may prefer to 1971’s Hunky Dory. I’m inclined to call Hunky Dory his best album of his incredible string of 11 great albums. Whether you end up agreeing with Hepworth or not, it’s a good read, and most will learn a few things about music from that year and the culture surrounding it.

However, if I were his professor, I’d give him an incomplete, and send him back to work. It’s not like every great album absolutely needs to be represented. He covers a good amount, and lists 100 albums in the appendix. But for starters, there are two hugely important albums that he neglects to mention even in passing. He does list Funkadelic’s towering peak, Maggot Brain in the appendix. But Tim Buckley’s Starsailor is completely MIA. Whether or not you agree those albums are worthy of the top ten like they are in mine, there’s no denying their massive imprint on music from the past few decades. Hepworth does, seemingly reluctantly, throw a bone to a few other artists who’s popularity grew in subsequent years, particularly Nick Drake. He also mentions Big Star and Modern Lovers, neither of whom even released albums in 1971, but became quite popular due to reissues starting in the 1980s. He also neglected MC5. While High Time may not have the same impact as their live debut Kick Out The Jams (1969), I personally have often preferred listening to that over the years to Who’s Next, which seems to be Hepworth’s pick for one of the top three best albums of that year.

Hepworth understandably does not rank his 100 albums in the appendix so as to avoid petty, nitpicking arguments about placement. However, he misses the opportunity to make a key argument for the supremacy of 1971. It’s the fact that there was so much great music released that year, that decades later, people are still discovering amazing albums that were not widely known at the time, but arguably hold their own next to their more famous counterparts. Those include albums from Flower Travellin’ Band (psych prog and proto-metal from Japan), Blackwater Park (proggy proto-metal from Germany), Speed, Glue & Shinki (more psych prog proto-metal from Japan), Comus (spooky psychedelic folk and prog from UK), Leaf Hound (British proto-metal ex-pats in Germany), November (Swedish proto-metal), Trees (UK psychedelic folk), and all the other German kosmische bands like Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül II, Faust, Popol Vuh, Guru Guru, Epitaph, Out Of Focus, Nektar, Tangerine Dream, Brainticket and more. Hepworth mentions Can, but nothing about that amazingly rich scene. Rock indeed exploded in 1971, but Hepworth only noticed about 2/3 of the blast.

Despite that massive, frankly inexcusable hole in coverage, I did enjoy the book. Especially when he gets a little bitchy. Undercutting his own argument for the overall awesomeness of music from that year, he does point out the possibility that Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On may not be all that great.

Some writers in the broadsheets compared Gaye to Ellington. If so, it was the rather stiff, sanctimonious Ellington who was always trying to get into the concert hall rather than Ellington the genius of the dance hall. No white artist would have dared serve up anything quite as stagy as a track like “Save the Children.” Had they done so, they would have been ripped apart for their pains, probably by the same critics who hailed Gaye’s song, as his official biographer and collaborator David Ritz later did, as “a socioreligious work of astounding originality.” Vince Aletti, the man Rolling Stone used to call when the magazine wanted to cover soul, broadly approved, but even he said that the lyrics were “hardly brilliant” and pointed out that its continuity of mood, which was itself quite unusual, was in danger of being boring.

While I may not quite agree to the extent of label boss and father-in-law Berry Gordy’s assessment that it was dangerously retrograde coctail jazz, and “the worst piece of crap I ever heard,” I think it’s overall meandering noodly vibe reflects the reality that after the single “What’s Going On” was released, the rest of the album was recorded in a rush. Gaye’s desire to address his brother’s experience in Vietnam was admirable, but the result felt detached. Understandable coming from a man operating in a cloud of cocaine. He was consuming so many drugs that he had delusions of grandeur that he could seriously try out for the Detroit Lions, despite the fact that Gaye had never played a game of football in his life. Another flawed, cocaine-fueled album was Sly & the Family Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On. However, at least, in its fractured state, the music sounded as genuinely shattered as Stone must have felt, compared to the smooth lounge music of Gaye’s album.

You know what better reflected hope and despair, anger and sorrow than either of them? Maggot Brain. Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, The Temptations, Bill Withers, The Chi-Lites, Lee Moses, Donny Hathaway, Eddie Kendricks, Billy Paul, Stevie Wonder, Ann Peebles, Aretha Franklin, Laura Lee, Margie Joseph, The Undisputed Truth, and Eugene McDaniels all released better albums that year than What’s Going On. Gaye’s real masterpiece was Let’s Get It On (1973). Here he feels more genuine and comfortable, being the sex idol he’d always been groomed to be. I’d even prefer his lesser acclaimed sequel mash album I Want You (1976) to What’s Going On, along with Here, My Dear (1978), his bitter but powerful divorce album, the celebratory Midnight Love (1982), even In Our Lifetime (1981) and M.P.G. (1969). Gaye made a ton of great music, but little of it was released in 1971.

However, I can’t abide by Hepworth’s dismissal of T. Rex. Sure, there’s plenty of evidence that Marc Bolan was one of “the biggest bastards on earth.” However, that doesn’t mean Electric Warrior wasn’t a nearly perfect album.

All too many have retreated as soon as it didn’t work out, disguising their hurt pride behind a veil of Old World condescension. T. Rex were like that. They were altogether too thin a prospect to make their name on the concert stage. They needed a single market, preferably an overcrowded island overserved with media and with a fatal taste for triviality…

Apparently Bolan betrayed many of his early supporters as he fashioned himself into a glam diva. Nevertheless, to say that his spotty folk albums are better than Electric Warrior is completely bonkers, reflecting the warped view of those still carrying grudges and baggage over 40 years after the man’s death. For me, the album sits like bejeweled elephant atop the heap, in between Black Sabbath’s Master Of Reality, and David Bowie’s Hunky Dory.

Hepworth also expresses a bit of moral outrage over the blasé, misogynist lifestyles of the rock gods. Fair enough. His best tart jabs were reserved for the Stones. Talking about Mick and Bianca’s absurd wedding party, “there was the drug dealer “Spanish” Tony Sanchez, who dressed as if he wished to be taken for Keith Richards, a personality deficiency that eventually affected hundreds of thousands of young men and women.”

Beneath the veneer of the Aquarian Age, the world beyond the red rope operated according to rules that would have been familiar to Edith Wharton or Thackeray. Here young bucks competed to see who could bed the toniest, the most alluring, the most enviable girl in the rock-and-roll high school, and when they did, they wished to advertise the fact on the biggest stage. That’s why everyone was invited to Saint-Tropez. Mick felt he had won the prize and wished it to be known…

Claudia Linnear and Marsha Hunt have both claimed to be the inspiration behind “Brown Sugar.” All the women involved have in their different ways been forced to accept that they owe their fame to their association with a bunch of young men who have, almost without exception, traded them in for younger models.

The lifestyles of the drugged and beautiful can be gross indeed. But still, that sort of criticism seems a bit out of place in a book that’s supposed to be celebrating the music. I don’t necessarily disagree with Hepworth’s opinions, but I’d much rather have heard his take on the couple dozen albums from that year that he missed.

While Hepworth avoided any obviously ranked list, he did create his own fantasy Mercury short list that reflects his preferences, “Had there been a Mercury Music Prize in 1971, the short list would have included:”

David Bowie – Hunky Dory
Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells A Story
The Who – Who’s Next
Led Zeppelin – IV
John Lennon – Imagine
Paul & Linda McCartney – Ram
Elton John – Madman Across the Water
The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
Jethro Tull – Aqualung

Again, he’s dead wrong about T. Rex. Bolan was a far bigger star than Bowie in 1971 and would not have been snubbed. About his shortlist he says, “There’s nothing there that’s been forgotten, almost fifty years later.”

Except he did forget some really important albums. Or perhaps wasn’t even aware of them in the first place? It’s hard to tell which is worse, but he totally dropped the ball. I guess that’s why I still do what I do. See my 1971 list of 279 albums.

Black Sabbath – Master Of Reality (Vertigo/WB)
T. Rex – Electric Warrior (Reprise)
Funkadelic – Maggot Brain (Westbound)
Can – Tago Mago (Spoon/Mute)
David Bowie – Hunky Dory (RCA)
The Who – Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy (MCA)
Nick Drake – Bryter Layter (Island)
Flower Travellin’ Band – Satori (Atlantic/Phoenix)
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV (Atlantic)
The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones)
Sly & the Family Stone – There’s A Riot Going On (Epic)
Yes – Fragile (Atlantic)
Joni Mitchell – Blue (Reprise)
The Mahavishnu Orchestra – The Inner Mounting Flame (Columbia)
Al Green – Gets Next To You (Hi)
The Who – Who’s Next (MCA)
Traffic – The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Island)
Yes – The Yes Album (Atlantic)
The Groundhogs – Split (UA/EMI)
Blackwater Park – Dirt Box (BASF/Second Battle)
Speed, Glue & Shinki – Eve (Atlantic/Phoenix)
Comus – First Utterance (Dawn/Breathless)
Curtis Mayfield – Roots (Curtom)
Pharoah Sanders – Black Unity (Impulse)
Pharoah Sanders – Thembi (Impulse)
Bill Withers – Just As I Am (Sussex)
Leonard Cohen – Songs Of Love And Hate (Columbia)
Herbie Hancock – Mwandishi (WB)
Ornette Coleman – Science Fiction (Columbia)
Roy Harper – Stormcock (Harvest/Science Friction)
Janis Joplin – Pearl (Columbia)
Carla Bley and Paul Haines – Escalator Over The Hill (ECM)
Ash Ra Tempel – Ash Ra Tempel (Spalax)
Santana – Santana III (Columbia)
Uriah Heep – Look At Yourself (Mercury/Sanctuary)
The Temptations – Sky’s The Limit (Motown)
The Chi-Lites – (For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People (Brunswick)
Leaf Hound – Growers Of Mushroom (Decca)
MC5 – High Time (Rhino/Atlantic)
Budgie – Budgie (MCA/Roadracer)
Miles Davis – A Tribute To Jack Johnson (Columbia)
Faust – Faust (Recommended)
Van Der Graaf Generator – Pawn Hearts (Charisma/Caroline)
J.J. Cale – Naturally (Shelter)
The Doors – L.A. Woman (Elektra)
November – 2:a (Sonet Grammofon)
Lee Moses – Time And Place (Maple)
The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies (RCA/Rhino)
Mountain – Nantucket Sleighride (Columbia)
Link Wray – Link Wray (Polydor)
Trees – On The Shore (CBS)
Fela Kuti – Open & Close (Universal)
Popol Vuh – In Den Gärten Pharaos (Pilz/Ohr)
Alice Coltrane – Universal Consciousness (Impulse!)
Alice Coltrane – World Galaxy (Impulse!)
Jade Warrior – Released (Vertigo)
Larry Coryell – Barefoot Boy (Flying Dutchman)
MU – MU (United Artists)
Amon Düül II – Dance of the Lemmings (Liberty/Revisited)
Jethro Tull – Aqualung (Chrysalis)
Blues Creation – Demon & Eleven Children (Blow-Up)
Burning Spear – Creation Rebel: The Original Classic Recordings From Studio One (Studio One)
Fela Kuti – Fela’s London Scene (Makossa)
Donny Hathaway – Donny Hathaway (Atlantic)
The Beatles – Imagine Clouds Dripping (soniclovenoize)
Blue Phantom – Distortions (Spider/Kismet)
Love Live Life +1 – Love Will Make A Better You (King/Phoenix)
Gong – Camembert Electrique (Virgin/Charly)
Epitaph – Epitaph (Polydor)
Serge Gainsbourg – Histoire de Melody Nelson (Philips Fr)
Caravan – In The Land Of Grey & Pink (Deram)
Genesis – Nursery Cryme (Atlantic)
Wishbone Ash – Pilgrimage (MCA)
Gil Scott-Heron – Pieces Of A Man (Flying Dutchman)
Guru Guru – Hinten (Brain/Spalax)
Free – Free Live! (A&M/Island)
Pink Fairies – Neverneverland (Polydor)
Fela Kuti – Live With Ginger Baker (Celluloid)
Alice Cooper – Love It To Death (WB)
Dust – Dust (Akarma)
Eddie Kendricks – All By Myself (Motown)
Paul & Linda McCartney – Ram (Apple)
The Move – Message From The Country (EMI/Capital)
Stray – Suicide (Transatlantic/Castle)
Strawbs – From The Witchwood (A&M)
Alice Cooper – Killer (WB)
Sparks – Halfnelson (Bearsville)
Hawkwind – In Search Of Space (UA/One Way)
Atomic Rooster – In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster (Elektra)
Uriah Heep – Salisbury (Mercury/Sanctuary)
Wayne Shorter – Odyssey of Iska (Blue Note)
Out Of Focus – Out Of Focus (Kuckuck/Esoteric)
Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey (WB)
The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up (Capitol)
Blackfeather – At The Mountains Of Madness (Infinity/Akarma)
Pink Floyd – Meddle (Capitol)
Tangerine Dream – Alpha Centauri (Relativity)
The Who – Lifehouse (Soniclovenoise)
Judee Sill – Judee Sill (Asylum)
Gentle Giant – Acquiring The Taste (PolyGram )