A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta's Gay Revolution

Author: Martin Padgett
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324007133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
An electric and intimate story of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism. Coursing with a pumped-up beat, gay Atlanta was the South's mecca—a beacon for gays and lesbians growing up in its homophobic towns and cities. There, the Sweet Gum Head was the club for achieving drag stardom. Martin Padgett evokes the fantabulous disco decade by going deep into the lives of two men who shaped and were shaped by this city: John Greenwell, an Alabama runaway who found himself and his avocation performing as the exquisite Rachel Wells; and Bill Smith, who took to the streets and city hall to change antigay laws. Against this optimism for visibility and rights, gay people lived with daily police harassment and drug dealing and murder in their discos and drag clubs. Conducting interviews with many of the major figures and reading through deteriorating gay archives, Padgett expertly re-creates Atlanta from a time when a vibrant, new queer culture of drag and pride came into being.

The Sweet in the 1970s

Author: Darren Johnson
Publisher: Sonicbond Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789520924
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
The Sweet's look, sound and attitude became an instantly recognisable hallmark of the early 1970s glam rock era. But the band did not start the 1970s as a glam band and certainly didn't finish as one. This book charts the band's journey through the decade that made them a household name: from their initial rise as purveyors of manufactured bubblegum pop to their metamorphosis into harder-edged glam rock icons. The Sweet in the 1970s takes a look at both their successes and their struggles in their quest to be recognised as a serious rock act in the latter part of the decade, once the sparkle and glitter of glam had begun to pale. The decade saw them score fifteen UK Top 40 singles, release seven studio albums and tour several continents. Unlike many bands of the era, personnel changes were few. The Sweet began the 1970s with the arrival of new guitarist Andy Scott and ended the decade with the departure of frontman Brian Connolly, followed by an ultimately ill-fated attempt to continue as a three-piece. This book is an unashamed celebration of the music of the Sweet and charts the lasting impact they had on many of the bands that followed them. After acquiring a second-hand copy of Sweet's Give Us A Wink album from Action Records in Preston as a teenager in the early 1980s, Darren has been a dedicated fan of the band. A former politician, he has written for a number of UK national newspapers, but after stepping away from politics, he has been able to devote more time to his first love: music. A keen follower of both rock and folk, he maintains a popular music blog Darren's Music Blog and has reviewed albums and gigs for a variety of publications. He lives in Hastings, East Sussex, UK.

A 1970s Childhood

Author: Derek Tait
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752463446
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
Do you remember glam rock, flares, cheesecloth shirts, and chopper bikes? Then it sounds like you were lucky enough to grow up during the 1970s. Who could forget all the glam rock bands of that era, like Slade, Wizard, Mud, and Sweet, or singers like Alvin Stardust, Marc Bolan, and David Bowie? What about those wonderful TV shows like Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, Kung Fu, and Happy Days? Fashion included platform shoes (we all had a pair), flared trousers, brightly patterned shirts with huge collars, and colorful kipper ties. And everyone remembers preparing for power cuts and that long, hot summer of 1976? So dust off your space hopper and join us on this fascinating journey through a childhood during the seventies, with hilarious illustrations and a nostalgic trip down memory lane for all those who grew up in this memorable decade.

Slade in the 1970s

Author: Darren Johnson
Publisher: Sonicbond Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789523117
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 121

Book Description
Slade were one of the biggest British bands of the 1970s. One of the early pioneers of glam rock, they enjoyed an incredible run of six number-one singles, five top-ten albums and a succession of sell-out tours. However, after a failed attempt at an American breakthrough in the mid-1970s, Slade returned to Britain and faced dwindling record sales, smaller concert halls and a music press that had lost interest in them. By the end of the decade, they were playing residencies in cabaret clubs and recorded a cover of a children’s novelty song. But then came a last-minute invitation to play the 1980 Reading Festival, setting in motion one of the most remarkable comebacks in rock history. It’s now 50 years since Slade’s 1973 annus mirabilis that saw ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’, ‘Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me’ and ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ all enter the UK charts at number one, and this book celebrates the music of this legendary band. From their beginnings in the mid-1960s through each year of the decade that gave them their biggest successes, every album and single is examined, as well as coverage of their raucous live shows and colourful media profile. A former politician, Darren spent many years writing about current affairs but after stepping away from politics he was able to devote time to his first love: music. His first book, The Sweet in the 1970s, was published by Sonicbond in 2021, followed by Suzi Quatro in the 1970s in 2022. Now he turns his attention to the first band he truly fell in love with: Slade. A keen follower of both rock and folk, he maintains a popular music blog – Darren’s Music Blog – and has reviewed albums and gigs for a variety of publications. He lives in Hastings, East Sussex.

1970s Childhood

Author: Liza Hollinghurst
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1784423297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 65

Book Description
A 1970s childhood was, for many, a life of happy-go-lucky freedom set against a soundtrack of pop music played on a transistor radio dangling from the handlebars of a Raleigh Chopper. It was a playground battlefield of Sindy versus Action Man or a dexterous display of how to handle Clackers without painfully rapping them across the knuckles. After-school television meant a choice of 'Blue Peter' or 'Magpie', while chewing on an Aztec chocolate bar and flicking through Shoot or Jackie magazine. Yet it was also a decade of strikes, the three-day week and the Winter of Discontent which passed most children by unless a power cut meant no television. This fully illustrated book is a celebration of that childhood, its highs, lows and scraped knees, that will readily bring back the forgotten memories of a generation that grew up without mobile phones, the internet and 24-hour shopping.

70s Dinner Party

Author: Anna Pallai
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473546656
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
'Spaghetti in aspic, anyone? Revel in astonishing dishes from yesteryear: Stuffed Cocktail Grapes, Savoury Sausage Salad, a spunky Shrimp-Salmon Mould and so much more. Anna Pallai was brought up on 1970s stalwarts of stuffed peppers, meatloaf and platters of slightly greying hardboiled eggs. When she rediscovered her mother's grease-stained 70s cookbooks, she knew she needed to share them with the world, and so the hit Twitter account @70s_Party was born. Harking back to a simpler pre-Instagram, pre-clean-eating era, when the only concern for your dinner party was whether your aspic would set in time, this is a joyful celebration of food that can give you gout just by looking at it. Covering all the essentials, from starters through to desserts, dinner party etiquette (just how does one start to eat a swan fashioned from a hardboiled egg?) and the dreaded 'foreign' food, there's no potato-fashioned-as-a-stone left unturned.

Lights Out

Author: Martin Popoff
Publisher: Wymer UK
ISBN: 9781908724571
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Book Description
The first book ever on this classic British rock band UFO takes you through the Schenker era in great detail; album-by-album, song by song along with touring anecdotes and of course, tales revolving around the wild and excessive behaviour that was very much a part of the band.

Alice Cooper in the 1970s

Author: Chris Sutton
Publisher: Sonicbond Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789521939
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
The 1970s was the decade that saw the arrival of Alice Cooper as a major force in the rock firmament. Chris Sutton explores the story of Alice Cooper the band and also Alice the solo performer from their early years through to the end of the decade. A roller-coaster ride of classic albums and singles, the songs recorded in the 1970s still dominate his live sets to this day. The book features all new interview material from key figures including Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith from the original band, Prakash John from the solo years, and Ernie Cefalu, whose company Pacific Eye and Ear designed the sleeve packaging. Several other musicians, concert promoters and even the band's first roadie have also contributed their thoughts. All of the albums and singles from Don't Blow Your Mind, until From The Inside are examined in detail, along with related archive releases and songs that didn't make the final cut. In the course of putting the book together much new information came to light that will be of huge interest to hardened collectors and new fans alike, making this book is an essential guide to Alice Cooper in the decade that the band helped to define. Chris Sutton has been a fan of Alice Cooper since 1972 and the band’s famous debut appearance on Top Of The Pops. The reunion of the band for their UK tour in 2017 stands as one of his happiest memories. He manages Smethwick Heritage Centre Museum and has written several publications for them. He has also written several plays. Alice Cooper in the 1970s is his first venture into music writing, with others to follow. He lives in Great Malvern, UK.

The Bee Gees in the 70s

Author: Andrew Mon Hughes
Publisher: Sonicbond Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789521971
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
The Bee Gees’ music and image have long been synonymous with the 1970s, and the career trajectory of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb in those ten years meanders between dizzying highs and devastating lows. In 1970, the band was bitterly split after succumbing to the pressures and excesses of their first wave of international fame in the latter part of the 1960s, but by 1979 they were one of the most successful music acts on the planet. In between, the brothers crafted timeless works that defied genre, transcended societal boundaries, and permeated generations of listeners. The Bee Gees would go on to sell over 200 million records, making them among the best-selling music artists of all time; they would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Australian Recording Industry’s Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and receive lifetime achievement awards from the British Phonographic Industry, the American Music Awards, World Music Awards and the Grammys. According to Billboard magazine, the Bee Gees are one of the top three most successful bands in their charts’ history. In the 1970s, The Bee Gees established themselves as innovative and versatile artists, and their songs scored a turbulent decade of global cultural change and discovery.

Their Life's Work

Author: Gary M. Pomerantz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451691629
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
Drawn from personal interviews with the players themselves, a chronicle of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers, who won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years.