Hard Meat 1970

Hard Meat was a British progressive rock group active between 1969 and 1971. It was formed by the Birmingham-born brothers Michael Dolan (1947 - 2 August 2014) (guitar, lead vocals) and Steve Dolan (1948 - 22 May 2000) (bass, vocals), with drummer Mick (variously Mike) Carless. The trio's debut single was a cover of the Beatles' "Rain" b/w "Burning Up Years" on the Island label in 1969. This was followed by two albums released by Warner Bros in 1970: Hard Meat and Through a Window. Their second single (culled from the latter album) was "The Ballad of Marmalade Emma and Teddy Grimes," based on the life of two well-known Colchester tramps. Despite tours of Europe and the USA neither album saw chart success, and the group disbanded shortly afterwards.

Picking our list of the Top 100 '70s Rock Albums was no easy task, if only because that period boasted such sheer diversity. The decade saw rock branch into a series of intriguing new subgenres, beginning, at the dawn of the '70s, with heavy metal. Singer-songwriters came into their own; country-rock flourished. The era ended with the revitalizing energy of punk and New Wave. No list would be complete without climbing onto every one of those limbs. Here are the Top 100 '70s Rock Albums, presented chronologically from the start of the decade.

John Peel favourites and Dandelion Records proto-metallers Stack Waddy burned brightly and briefly during a recording career that barely lasted two years in the early 1970s. Leaving behind two albums of pounding, blues and psych infused heavy rock, some BBC appearances and a handful of outtakes, the Manchester four-piece imprinted themselves firmly enough on the memories of anybody who saw them to remain cult favourites today. Drawn together here are all of Stack Waddy’s Dandelion Records recordings - the ‘Stack Waddy’ and ‘Bugger Off!’ albums alongside a John Peel compered BBC In Concert performance and the aforementioned outtakes. Raw, bloody and never far from a beer or two, the band tear through Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, The Kinks, Zappa, Beefheart and even Sinatra, as well as their own excellent material.