1973 in Music

One paragraph on the back of a TWA napkin On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, Roberta Flack hears a song through the in-flight music program and pulls out scratch paper to transcribe it. She plays the recording eight or ten times, sketching the melody and chords on hand-drawn staves. The song was written about a Don McLean concert. Flack rearranges the chord structure, shifts to a 2/4 feel, and takes it slightly faster than the original. Killing Me Softly with His Song holds number one for five weeks and wins Record of the Year.

Voices from the staff kitchen at Abbey Road The recording sessions use an unusual method for the spoken-word passages scattered across the album. The engineer interviews Abbey Road staff and visitors with questions like 'When was the last time you were violent?' and 'Are you afraid of dying?' Their unscripted answers, recorded in hallways and break rooms, are spliced between tracks. The album debuts on the Billboard 200 at number 95, reaches number one within six weeks, and then never really leaves the chart. It will remain there, on and off, for more than 900 weeks.

25 cents for girls, 50 cents for boys On August 11, a teenager in the Bronx throws a back-to-school party in the recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue to earn money for new clothes. Her older brother, eighteen years old, provides the music. He has noticed that crowds react most to the drum breaks in records, so he uses two turntables and two copies of the same record, switching back and forth to extend the break indefinitely. He calls the technique the Merry-Go-Round. The dancers who respond to these extended breaks become known as b-boys and b-girls. Nobody has a name for what just happened, but the address will eventually be designated a historic site.

A 19-year-old plays every instrument and bankrolls an empire A teenage multi-instrumentalist records a 49-minute piece at a country manor in Oxfordshire, overdubbing guitar, bass, organ, glockenspiel, piano, and tubular bells by himself. The opening is in 15/8 time. No established label will touch it, so a young entrepreneur uses it to launch his own. The album becomes a sensation after its opening theme appears in a horror film that December. The profits fund the growth of what will become the world's largest independent record label.

Three days after the album ships, the car hits a flatbed truck A 23-year-old who wrote, produced, and played nearly every instrument on his new album is riding in the passenger seat outside Salisbury, North Carolina, listening to the record on headphones. The car rear-ends a flatbed truck. He suffers a fractured skull and a cerebral contusion, and spends four days in a coma. The album wins Album of the Year at the Grammys. He does not perform again for five months, but he recovers fully and returns to a creative peak that will last the rest of the decade.

The outlaw renegotiates his contract A country singer who spent years fighting Nashville's polished production style finally wins creative control in his new recording deal. He fills his album almost entirely with songs by a songwriter he met at a Texas festival, cuts the tracks with his touring band instead of studio musicians, and co-produces with a friend who runs an independent studio. The result strips country back to electric guitar, bass, drums, and a voice that sounds like it has been up for three days. Nashville calls it outlaw country. The term sticks.

Robbed at knifepoint in Lagos Two members of a three-person band quit days before a planned recording trip to Nigeria. The remaining member flies to Lagos with his wife and one bandmate. The studio has a single 8-track machine and a faulty mixing desk. They are robbed at knifepoint and lose a bag of lyrics and demo tapes. He plays bass, drums, percussion, and lead guitar himself. The album, finished back in London, becomes the biggest commercial success of his post-group career.

600,000 people for three bands On July 28, a festival at a raceway in upstate New York draws an estimated 600,000 people, fifty percent more than Woodstock drew four years earlier and 150 miles to the east. Only three acts play. A thunderstorm halts the second set. The crowd is knee-deep in mud by the time the headliners close with a three-hour performance previewing their new album. The promoters had expected 150,000. About half of the audience gets in for free.

The last show we'll ever do On July 3, a singer tells his audience at a London concert hall that this particular show will remain with them the longest because it is the last show the band will ever do. Most of the band does not know until that moment. The singer's manager has failed to book American arenas, and the singer himself fears the character he has been playing onstage is consuming his real personality. A documentary crew captures the entire performance. The persona dies. The artist does not.

Petroleum, panic, and thinner pressings In October, an oil embargo triples the price of petroleum. Vinyl records are made from a petroleum-based compound. The cost of pressing a single LP jumps overnight. Labels respond by making records thinner and lighter, down to 80 grams. Some switch to recycled vinyl, which introduces impurities and audible surface noise. Small labels face bankruptcy. A black market in vinyl stock emerges. The physical medium that carries all this music nearly chokes on its own supply chain.

The first jazz album to go platinum A pianist who spent six years playing avant-garde jazz to small audiences dissolves his experimental sextet and assembles a new band around a bassist and a percussionist who play funk. They record four extended tracks at two studios in San Francisco. One is a reworking of a hit the pianist first recorded eleven years earlier, now transformed by a clavinet groove and a beer-bottle blown like a flute. The album reaches the pop top 15 and becomes the first jazz record ever certified platinum.

Running between the control room and the microphone A producer-guitarist builds a studio inside his friend's apartment, runs back and forth between the control room and the instruments to set his own levels, and records a 56-minute album largely by himself. To fit it on a single LP, the groove spacings are narrowed until the sound quality dips. Musicians learn their parts by ear on the spot. The result careens from soul ballads to synthesizer freakouts to Philly-style orchestrations within a single side.