Precious and Few
Pop Music of the Early '70s
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Precious and Few is a lively and nostalgic look back at the forgotten era of pop that gave us "Hooked on a Feeling", "Dancing in the Moonlight", "I Am Woman", "Seasons in the Sun", and more. The early 1970s brought a "Convoy" of popular rock music--everything from cheesy to the classic. The authors of Precious and Few, Don Breithaupt and Jeff Breithaupt, true-blue '70s fanatics, have put together this irresistibly readable book to transport readers back to a time when people wore smiley-face buttons, went to singles bars, and heartily sang along with Mac Davis. Illustrations throughout.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Breithaupt brothers are brave. Long before the craze for '70s nostalgia reared its ugly head, these part-time musicologists were up in Canada spinning 45 after 45 at wild '70s dance parties, hoping to redeem the reputation of the era's pop music. Critics have tended to dismiss nearly everything heard on the radio between the break-up of the Beatles and the Bee Gees' Saturday Night Fever movie soundtrack. The Breithaupts aren't critics, they're fans of the music would-be taste makers love to ignore: the Osmonds, Neil Sedaka, Linda Ronstadt, the Bay City Rollers. They give equal time to such true pop genuises as Al Green and Van Morrison, but the Breithaupts are bigger fans of big hits. Their appendix chronicles Grammy nominees and winners from 1971-1975, as if those awards evaluate anything beyond the obvious. Their singles-only aesthetic probably works well when choosing music for nostalgic dance parties, but there's no ignoring the import (and popularity) of album-oriented radio in the early '70s. The era's most lasting contribution was more than a collection of hit singles.
