RADIOMAX 2 – Monday 5am: Top 50 Hits of 1974 with Ron Kovacs

Top 50 Hits of 1974 on RadioMaxMusic 2 – Classic Countdown Channel.

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Friday 6pm: History of Rock and Roll with Bill Drake

This installment features the years 1968 through 1975.

Saturday 3pm: Max 20th Century – 1974 (Part VII) Top 50 Albums

We finish our focus on 1974 with the Top 50 albums of the year.

Monday 6pm: MaxMusic 20th Century – 1974 (Part V)

May 4
An all-female Japanese team summits Manaslu in Nepal, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000 metres (26,000 ft) peak.
The Expo ’74 world’s fair opens in Spokane, Washington.
May 6 – Willy Brandt West Germany’s chancellor resigns; replaced by Helmut Schmidt.
May 17 – Dublin and Monaghan bombings: The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), explode four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. The attacks kill 33 civilians and wound almost 300, the highest number of casualties in any single day during “The Troubles”.
A massive, two-hour shootout between the Los Angeles Police Department and members of the Symbionese Liberation Army leaves six SLA members, including SLA leader Donald DeFreeze, dead.
May 18
Australian federal election, 1974: Gough Whitlam’s Labor Government is re-elected with a reduced majority, defeating the Liberal/Country Coalition led by Billy Snedden. Whitlam consequently becomes the first Labor Prime Minister to be re-elected in his own right. The Democratic Labor Party meanwhile lost all five of their Senate seats, effectively wiping them out as a political force.
Nuclear test: Under Project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon, becoming the 6th nation to do so.
The Warsaw radio mast is completed, the second tallest structure ever built (it collapses on August 8, 1991).
May 19 – The Philadelphia Flyers defeat the Boston Bruins to become the first team from the 1967 NHL expansion class to win the Stanley Cup in the North American National Hockey League.
May 30 – NASA’s ATS-6 satellite is launched.
June
June 4 – The Cleveland Indians stage an ill-advised Ten Cent Beer Night for a game against the Texas Rangers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Cleveland forfeits after alcohol-fueled mayhem and violence spreads from the stands onto the field.
June 13 – The 1974 FIFA World Cup begins in West Germany.
June 17 – A bomb explodes in Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the British Houses of Parliament. The hall’s annex, housing offices and a canteen, is destroyed by the bombing, attributed by police to the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army.
June 26 – The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time, to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.
June 29
Isabel Perón is sworn in as the first female President of Argentina, replacing her sick husband Juan Perón, who dies 2 days later.
America Sings attraction opens to the public for the first time at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
July
July 7 – West Germany beats the Netherlands 2–1 to win the 1974 FIFA World Cup. The West German football team are awarded the new FIFA World Cup Trophy.
July 8 – Two weeks after the attraction’s opening, an 18-year-old employee is crushed to her death while working on America Sings at Disneyland. This is the first casualty to occur to an employee at a Disney Park.
July 15
The Greek military junta sponsors a coup d’état in Cyprus, replacing President Makarios III with Nikos Sampson.
News anchor Christine Chubbuck commits suicide during a live broadcast on WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida.
July 16 – Elmer Wayne Henley is sentenced to life imprisonment for assisting Dean Corll in murdering 28 Texas boys from 1970 to 1973.
July 19 – Railcar explosion in Decatur, Illinois. A tanker car collides with a Norfolk & Western boxcar. Seven people are killed, 349 are injured and $18 million in property damage.
July 20 – The Turkish invasion of Cyprus occurs.
July 23 – The Greek military junta is replaced by a civilian government, the metapolitefsi.

Monday 6pm: MaxMusic 20th Century – 1974 (Part I)

January–April
January 1 – John Dankworth is named CBE in the New Year’s Honours List.
January 3 – Bob Dylan and The Band kick off their 40-date concert tour at Chicago Stadium. It is Dylan’s first time on the road since 1966.
January 17
Joni Mitchell releases her monumental album Court and Spark, supported by the single “Help Me” reaching the highest moment of commercial success.
Dino Martin, singer and son of Dean Martin, is arrested on suspicion of possession and sale of two machine guns.
February 10 – record producer Phil Spector is badly injured in a car accident. Details of the accident are kept secret.
February 12 – New York’s rock club, The Bottom Line, opens in Greenwich Village. The first headlining act is Dr. John.
February 14 – The Captain & Tennille are married in Virginia City, Nevada.
February 16 – Two years of litigation between Grand Funk and former manager Terry Knight are finally resolved. The band gets the rights to its name but Knight wins a cash settlement.
February 18
Yes sells out the first of two nights at Madison Square Garden, without a bit of advertising for the show.
Kiss releases their self-titled debut album.
February 19 – The first American Music Awards are broadcast on ABC, two weeks before the Grammys.
February 20 – Cher files for divorce from her husband of 10 years, Sonny Bono.
February 22 – The English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Raymond Leppard performs the world premiere of Three Regions from Terrain by Douglas Young.
February 27 – The Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn, conducted by Jörg Faerber, makes its English debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.
March 1 – Rush release their self titled debut album.
March 4
Ivan Stepanov and His Balalaikas make their London debut at the Wigmore Hall.
Baritone Hermann Prey cuts short a vocal recital in the Royal Festival Hall, London, due to vocal fatigue.
March 10 – Hans Vonk makes his London debut in the Royal Festival Hall, conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme of Berlioz and Schubert, as well as the Violin Concerto by Roberto Gerhard, with Erich Gruenberg as soloist.
March 12 – John Lennon is involved in an altercation with a photographer outside The Troubadour in Los Angeles, California. Lennon and friend Harry Nilsson have been heckling comedian Tommy Smothers and are forced to leave the club.
March 16 – Country music’s Grand Ole Opry moves to a new location at the Opryland USA theme park in Nashville, Tennessee
March 30 – The Ramones play their first concert at the Performance Studio in New York.
April 5 – Van Halen play their first gig on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood at Gazzarri’s.
April 6
200,000 music fans attend The California Jam rock festival. Artists performing at the event include Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Black Oak Arkansas, and the Eagles.
Swedish group ABBA wins the 19th Eurovision Song Contest in The Dome, Brighton, England, with the song “Waterloo”, kickstarting their stellar international career. The 1967 Eurovision winner, Sandie Shaw, attends.
April 14 – Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones, a concert movie filmed during the band’s 1972 North American Tour, premieres at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York.
April 16 – Queen play their first North American concert, opening for Mott the Hoople in Denver, Colorado.
April 25
Sotheby’s Galleries in London sell a violin made in 1733 by Cremonese master Giuseppe Guarneri, formerly belonging to violinist Elaine Weldon, for the equivalent of $140,000, the second-highest price ever paid for a violin.
Pam Morrison, Jim Morrison’s widow, is found dead in her Hollywood apartment from an apparent heroin overdose. – Wikipedia

Monday 10pm: LP Lounge with Willie B

This installment of the LP Lounge feature two CD4 (Quad) LP’s from the Doobie Brothers.

What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits is the fourth studio album by American rock band The Doobie Brothers. The album was released on February 1, 1974, by Warner Bros. Records.

Tom Johnston’s “Another Park, Another Sunday” was chosen to be the album’s first single. “It’s about losing a girl,” stated Johnston. “I wrote the chords and played it on acoustic, and then Ted Templeman had some ideas for it, like running the guitars through Leslie speakers.” The song did moderately well on the charts, peaking at #32.

The second single released was “Eyes of Silver”, another Johnston penned tune. According to him, “Wordwise, that one really isn’t that spectacular. I wrote them at the last minute.” That song didn’t have much success on the charts either. Grasping for chart action, Warner Brothers re-released the band’s first single, “Nobody”. This release was soon overshadowed when radio stations discovered “Black Water”. Other stations joined in and the song was officially released as a single that went on to sell over a million copies and became the Doobie Brothers’ first #1 hit. “Black Water” had been featured as the B-side of “Another Park, Another Sunday” eight months earlier.

Stampede is the fifth studio album by American rock band The Doobie Brothers. The album was released on April 25, 1975, by Warner Bros. Records. It was the final album by the band before Michael McDonald replaced Tom Johnston as lead vocalist and primary songwriter. The album has been certified gold by the RIAA.

Stampede showed the band diversifying elements of their sound more than ever before, combining elements of their old sound as well as country-rock, funk and folk music. Many guest musicians contributed on the album including Maria Muldaur, Ry Cooder and Curtis Mayfield.

The first and most successful single released from this album was “Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)” on April 23, 1975, a classic Motown tune written by the legendary songwriting trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Tom Johnston had wanted to record the song for several years. “I thought that would be a killer track to cover,” he said. “It’s probably one of my favorite songs of all time. I thought our version came out great.”

The next single, released on July 8, 1975, was “Sweet Maxine” which was more akin to the Doobie Brothers’ earlier hits style-wise. “Pat wrote the music to this and I wrote the words, ” Johnston recalled. “And Billy Payne had a lot to do with the sound of the song, because of his incredible keyboard playing.” The track stalled at #40 on the Billboard charts.

The third and final single was Patrick Simmons’ “I Cheat the Hangman”, released November 12, 1975. It is a somber outlaw ballad that was inspired by the story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce. “It’s about a ghost returning to his home after the Civil War and not realizing he’s dead,” said Simmons about the song. The album version of the song is a progressive rock-style composition ending in a twisted collage of strings, horns and synthesizers made to sound like ghostly wails. “We’d cut the track, and we kicked around how to develop the ending-I thought about synthesizers and guitar solos. Ted [Templeman] got to thinking about it, and he ran it past [arranger] Nick DeCaro for some orchestration ideas. ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ by Mussorgsky really inspired the wildness of the strings, and Nick came up with the chorale thing at the end.” The ambitious “I Cheat the Hangman” only managed to reach #60 on the music charts.

“Neal’s Fandango” was inspired by the Santa Cruz mountains and was an homage to Neal Cassady, Merry Prankster bus driver and former Jack Kerouac sidekick in On The Road. It was occasionally played on San Francisco Bay Area classic rock station KFOX “K-FOX” (that means KUFX) because of the Doobie Brothers’ South Bay roots. – Wikipedia

Saturday 3pm: Classic Countdown with Ron Kovacs

Join Ron Kovacs 3pm ET for the Top 40 Hits from August 24, 1974.