onceuponatimeinthe70s

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

These Days

Mark Arbuckle: August 2025 When I first began writing this piece I fully intended it to be a comprehensive summary on the music of the exceptional Jackson Browne….. Not surprisingly the more research I did the bigger the task became.  After studying his 60 year musical career and the huge amount of material he has written. Plus the extensive list of collaborations he’s been involved in. I had…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

First Job Interviews

Russ Stewart: July 2025 They offered me the office, offered me the shopThey said I’d better take anything they’d gotDo you wanna make tea at the BBC?Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?“Career Opportunities” – The Clash 1977I successfully used my time at university to postpone a working career.  Not through laziness, rather a consequence of not having the foggiest notion of what career…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Still On The Line

John Allan of Bridgetown, Western Australia – July 2025 When I was about fifteen or sixteen I used to babysit for my neighbour Mr. H orHamish as he preferred to be called. He was a widower after his wife tragically lost her short battle with breast cancer in her mid thirties. He had two kids under ten. Hamish didn’t go out much but when he did he would ask me to look after them for a few hours.…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Yee Haw

Paul Fitzpatrick: June 2025 I read this week that tickets for Beyonce’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ tour are no longer selling like the proverbial hotcakes. Whilst Beyonce’s PR team are blaming resellers and touts for scooping up thousands of tickets and reselling them for exorbitant prices, industry insiders are speculating that it’s a backlash towards Bey’s new Country-Pop direction…. with claims that…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Hot Fun in the Summertime

Paul Fitzpatrick: June 2025 There’s a song by Joni Mitchell about growing up and the passage of time called “The Circle Game’.  In the song Mitchell homes in on a boy’s journey to adulthood – when he’s 10 he yearns for a future that’s just out of reach.“words like when you’re older must appease him”.The boy turns 16, attaining all the freedoms he wished for but people keep telling him to slow…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Blue Eyed Soul.

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

I'm Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band

Paul Fitzpatrick: April 2025 Rain, sleet or snow, I rarely miss my early morning dog walk, a daily meander through bluebell woods and a picturesque parkland golf course. Just Cooper and I, the wonders of nature, and whatever playlist I’m singing along to. I don’t want to blow my own trumpet or anything, but it never ceases to amaze me just what an amazing singer I become on this daily jaunt. If…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Loves Me Like a Rock

Paul Fitzpatrick: February 2025 I lost my mum a few weeks ago.It’s tough to lose someone you love, especially when they’ve been there since you first opened your eyes, but I console myself with the fact that she had a happy life, lived to 95 and passed peacefully.Something I suspect most of us would settle for. I learned that you don’t get a lot of time to make decisions when someone passes…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

No Nude Bathing Please - We’re From Bearsden

By Alan Fairley: January 2025 ‘A Mini Woodstock – Right on your Doorstep’That was the headline that residents of the well-heeled Glasgow suburb of Bearsden woke up to as the local newspaper dropped through their letter boxes one morning in the autumn of 1970. The article was publicising the plans for an all day music festival, featuring a number of largely unheralded local bands, to be held in…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Snakebites & Love Bites

Paul Fitzpatrick: December 2024 I’ve always felt there are four stages to the Christmas journey.Stage 1 is reindeers, elfs, letters to Santa and how does the big lad get down the chimney?Stage 2 is ‘we know Santa’s a hoax but we’re still getting gifts & holidays, so we’re over it’Stage 3 is ‘I’m getting too old for this, it’s a capitalist racket and the primary cause of ulcers’Stage 4 is seeing…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Finger Flickin' Good.

(Pic by Subbuteoworld.co.uk) It’s December – the one month of the year when children the world over fret their behaviour throughout the preceding eleven may have tested the patience of their parents. Hasty and repentant prayers will be offered up, not to the baby Jesus or his heavenly Father, but to the jolly, red-suited Big Daddy – Father Christmas! Promises to keep their rooms tidy, be more…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

All I Want For Xmas.....

Paul Fitzpatrick: December 2024 Is a bloody Johnny Seven gun!Yep, six decades on I have a recurring dream of waking up and finding that magnificent howitzer under the Xmas tree. I’m not sure why as kids we were so obsessed with guns, weapons and general warfare in the era of ‘Give Peace a Chance’, perhaps it was a way of bonding with parents & grandparents who’d all experienced the war in some…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

B3 or not B3.

Hello and welcome to the Yorkshire hillside for another episode in the compelling series as (not) seen on TV, ‘Interesting Electronic Keyboards of the Sixties and Seventies’ or as I like to call it ‘Round The Wold in Eighty-One Keys’ (eat your heart out Michael Palin !) Look, I know you’re all aware of the format by now but bear with me. I’ll keep the history and techie stuff to a minimum or you…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Mello-Drama.

Our generation remembers when Rock ‘n’ Roll was a singer backed by a guitar, bass and drums. Maybe a piano or organ on occasion and rarely a compact two or three player horn section or a couple of backing vocalists. By the late psychedelic sixties bands wanted a bit more. Something a bit more exotic and lush to fill out their sound. Enter the Mellotron. The Mellotron was a cross between a…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

Back In 5.

I can’t quite remember when I first became aware of the odd musical time signature 5/4 . Probably when I was a precocious young recorder player and was given the opportunity to learn the flute. Free musical education ! It really did happen in those halcyon days of the late sixties. 5/4 time is simply five beats to the bar instead of the more common four. Most people would only be aware of the…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

When Black Friday Comes

Paul Fitzpatrick: London 2024 Like me I assume you are currently being bombarded with ‘Black Friday’ offers…. in your mailbox, via tv, radio, podcasts and on every high street across the land, there is literally no escape. The term ‘Black Friday’ was originally coined to describe a financial crisis in 1869 that caused a stock market crash in America. Basically a couple of greedy guys (a banker…

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

The Story Behind the Song - Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)

By Alan Fairley: 2024 Here’s a bit of trivia for you. What’s the connection between recently reinstated US President Donald Trump and the Jimi Hendrix song Hey Joe? Answer – they’re both half Scottish. It’s a well documented fact that Mary Anne McLeod-Trump, a native of the village of Tong on the Isle of Lewis, gave birth to her second son, Donald, the future president, in June 1946, sixteen…