Legend 1971

After 1970's Old Socks, New Shoes…New Socks, Old Shoes landed them a spot on the charts briefly for the single "Hard Times" the Crusaders decided on an entirely new approach by making a very small change: they dropped the word "Jazz" from their moniker for 1971's Pass the Plate, the group's final offering on Chisa. Pass the Plate is notable for many things. For starters, a member of the band wrote every composition on it and yet it's a thoroughly modern recording. It begins with trombonist Wayne Henderson's 15- plus-minute title suite that contains no less than five separate parts (the Crusaders were no strangers to the pop music of the era; here they did their own nearly side-long take on what the Beatles accomplished on side two of Abbey Road)…

T. Rex were an English rock band, formed in 1967 by singer-songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan. The band was initially called Tyrannosaurus Rex, and released four psychedelic folk albums under this name. In 1969, Bolan began to shift from the band's early acoustic sound to an electric one. The following year, he shortened their name to T. Rex. The 1970 release of the single "Ride a White Swan" marked the culmination of this development, and the group soon became a commercial success as part of the emerging glam rock scene. From 1970 until 1973, T. Rex encountered a popularity in the UK comparable to that of the Beatles, with a run of eleven singles in the UK top ten. One of the most prominent acts in British popular culture, they scored four UK number one hits, "Hot Love", "Get It On", "Telegram Sam" and "Metal Guru". The band's 1971 album Electric Warrior received critical acclaim as a pioneering glam rock album.

Not to be confused with the platinum-selling glam metal miscreants active in the late 1980s, the original Skid Row blazed a much overlooked trail some 20 years prior, as one of Ireland's earliest contributors to the hard rock field. Skid Row began to coalesce in Dublin, Ireland in October 1967, around vocalist Philip Lynott, bassist Brendan "Brush" Shiels, drummer Noel Bridgeman, and guitarist Bernard Cheevers, who would be replaced the following January by a 16-year-old prodigy hailing from Belfast, north of the border, named Gary Moore. The quartet threw itself into playing pubs and working men's clubs so as to develop their chops and repertoire, eventually recording a 1969 single for Irish label Songs Records entitled "New Places, Old Faces."

Although this nugget clocks in at only a hair over half-an-hour, it reveals the Groundhogs at what was arguably the crest of the Brit blues power trio's creative peak. The band featured the strong sonic personalities of Tony T.S. McPhee (guitar/vocals), Peter Cruickshank (bass) and Ken Pustelnik. Their straight-ahead heavy rock was more than a simple extension of 12-bar blues as their penchant for incendiary improvisation and strong original material rate among their assets. Live at Leeds '71 was recorded on April 13, 1971 as they opened up a series of U.K. concerts for the Rolling Stones. According to urban legend, this live set was documented and pressed in a very limited edition at the behest of Mick Jagger, and as a professional courtesy of sorts…