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Splatt Gallery's History of Michigan Music Posters
Volume Twelve - 1976 - Page Fourteen
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Our annual round-up of Michigan-related albums, here is the class of 1976. It was a year of landmark albums by Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band and Parliament.
Parliament-Funkadelic began their myriad of spin-off solo albums with the debut releases by Bootsy’s Rubber Band and Fuzzy Haskins, future P-Funk vocalist Junie Morrison, ex-Ohio Players, released his third solo album on Westbound Records. Funkadelic released both their final album for Westbound and their first for Warner Bros.
The year also saw the end-of-the-line, final albums from Grand Funk Railroad, Commander Cody & his Lost Planet Airmen, Ruth Copeland and Iggy & the Stooges.
A compilation album of eleven Michigan singer-songwriters, called “Stone Soup” released on the Streetwax label in 1976. Poster artist Dennis Loren contributes a track called “Let Go”, accompanying himself on autoharp, assisted by guitarists Mike Waddell, Bill Long and Ted Lucas. Loren also designed the album cover artwork.
We cannot find videos of these songs, but linked below is a fascinating interview with Loren that is filled with some great stories:
http://blues.gr/m/blogpost?id=1982923%3ABlogPost%3A177492
A full-page RCA Records ad for the third, and final, album by Ruth Copeland called “Take Me to Baltimore”, released in 1976. No longer on the Invictus label, with the backing of her Parliament-Funkadelic friends, she was assisted on this album by Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates. And the title track is co-written by herself and Dick Wagner.
Ruth Copeland - Take Me to Baltimore (1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eBOEJGtFfM
Album cover art work for Ruth Copeland’s album “Take Me to Baltimore”.
It took over 30 years for the 1976 single “Politicians In My Eyes” by a band called Death to gain some recognition. The recording came from a 1975 session at United Sound Studios in Detroit, Michigan that was funded by a pretty heavy hitter, Columbia Records president Clive Davis. Davis, however, insisted that the band change their name and when they refused, Davis pulled out of the project, having recorded seven of a planned twelve tracks.
The band self-released the single "Politicians in My Eyes" b/w "Keep on Knocking," on their label Tryangle Records, with a pressing of only 500 copies in 1976. The record circulated among collectors, with some copies selling for as much as $800. In 2009, the Chicago indie label Drag City released all seven songs from the 1975 United Sound sessions as the album “...For the Whole World to See”. A follow-up album of earlier demos was released on Drag City in 2011 as the album “Spiritual/Mental/Physical”, and in the following year, the documentary film “A Band Called Death” was released.
Death - Politicians in My Eyes (1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwehxN2ipCU
A Band Called Death (movie) (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_btNuWoUN30
The cover illustration for the flyer from CKLW Radio in Windsor, Ontario, Canada with their year-end picks for the top singles and albums of 1976. The #1 single was “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” by Lou Rawls, followed by “Silly Love Songs” by Wings at #2.
Michigan-related artists with singles on the list were Alice Cooper with “I Never Cry” at #22, the Spinners with “The Rubberband Man” at #24, Diana Ross with “Love Hangover” at #25, Parliament with “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk)” at #38, Aretha Franklin with “Something He Can Feel” at #50, Stevie Wonder with “I Wish” at #68, and Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band with “Night Moves” at #76.
Michigan-related artists fared better on the “Big 8” albums list, with “Live Bullet” by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band at #1, Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” at #3, and Alice Cooper’s “Alice Cooper Goes to Hell” tied at #8 with “Night Moves” by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band.
Our ten favorite Michigan concert posters of 1976:
The Show – Pontiac Stadium – July 4 – artist Quality Theatrical Productions
Blue Oyster Cult – Cobo Arena, Detroit – September 11 – artist J.W. Kelly
Jethro Tull – Pontiac Stadium – July 25 – artist Gary Grimshaw
Motor City Music – Showcase Theatre, Detroit – Sept 26 – artists Dennis Loren & Leni Sinclair
Bob Seger – Pontiac Stadium – June 26 – artist unknown
James Brown – Showcase Theatre, Detroit – December 25-30 – artist unknown
Commander Cody – Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor April 2 (cancelled) – artist Chris Frayne
Alice Cooper - Michigan State Fairgrounds – July 4 (cancelled) – artist J.W. Kelly
Ted Nugent – Cobo Arena, Detroit – October 15 – artist J.W. Kelly
Sonic’s Rendezvous – Chances Are, Ann Arbor – March 15 – artists Marty Agosta & John Benson
By a rough count, we have documented barely 100 posters for the year 1976, the least of any year since 1966. Of those, about 40 were by “an unknown artist”, some of those are shown above.
The artist with the most posters in 1976 was Destroy All Monsters, ironically the group with the fewest performances. The next most prolific artists were Jeff Yerkey, Crow Quill, and J.W. Kelly.
Volume Twelve - 1976 - The End
Return to main History page - HERE
An ad for Tribe Records & Magazine near the end of the label’s five-year existence which resulted in about a dozen albums that would wait twenty years to be rediscovered and reissued.
The final six issues of Tribe magazine, for the complete set of the 1976 issues.
Just one of the lavish reissues of the recordings and publications from the Tribe Records label.
