It's kind of spooky how 80% of all albums you've mentioned so far have been reviewed in my journal and those that haven't it's because they are 'non heavy' as such, but if I were doing a journal about prog rock they'd be included. In fact the only band mentioned so far that I was never really into is Pink Floyd, even though for some reason I have most of their albums:laughing:

As for ZZ Top I pretty much love everything about that album and it was at this time I think, they were meant to be putting on some of their best ever live shows.

I was getting heavily into guitar playing at that time. Trying to tackle Yes, Zeppelin, Genesis, etc. was daunting to say the least.

This is the album that gave me hope. I could jam to this mofo and sound pretty competent.

Along with Rock Candy by Montrose I also played Waitin' for the Bus at my first ever gig.

I actually checked out Montrose on your journal, and yeah, they're pretty awesome.

Yes, US, I know you covered them too, but you covered so much **** it's daunting to tackle it all.

I covered Montrose's first and third albums.

Love all the choices so far, could mirror my own early years very easily. The fact that my band plays songs from all these albums and people still love it (and not just the Grey haired pony tail guys) says there is a reason these are still relevant.

I reign with my left hand, I rule with my right
I'm lord of all darkness, I'm queen of the night
I've got the power - now do the march of the black queen
My life is in your hands, I'll fo and I'll fie
I'll be a bad boy - I'll be your bad boy
I'll do the march of the black queen


Another one that I can't remember how I came across it but it took all of the first 1:12 long first track "Procession" to know that this was something extremely special. And then second track "Father to Son" and THAT VOICE! Another of those amazingly unique and original bands to come out of that era of 1969-1975.

And the songs weren't too shabby either.

I met a devil woman
She took my heart away
She said, I've had it comin' to me
But I wanted it that way
I think that any love is good lovin'
So I took what I could get
She looked at me with big brown eyes....


Meat and Potatoes Rock and Roll from the great white north. Randy's brother had a stutter which was the inspiration for the band's biggest hit. Talk about happy accidents.

My eyes convinced, eclipsed with the younger moon attained with love
It changed as almost strained amidst clear manna from above
I crucified my hate and held the word within my hand
There's you, the time, the logic, or the reasons we don't understand


Rather that post the cover shot I'm posting what you saw once you opened the jacket.

As you can tell by the albums listed so far I was into a pretty steady diet of crunchy straight ahead rock (Crimson being the sole exception). I use to hang around way back then with this really cool hippy type chick who would dress like prime era Stevie Nicks and was always talking about astrology and other weird stuff (to me anyway). Every guy I know wanted this girl so bad since she was also gorgeous. She liked me because I played rock guitar. ;)

Anyway, she knew the kind of stuff I was into and one day told me about this album and told me it was going to change my life. She gave me strict instructions on how to listen to it which she made me promise to follow before she would lend me the album.

The night of my first listen I dropped a tab of acid and then arranged my speakers so that I had one facing my pillow from the left and right sides of my bed. It was very late and the house was dead quiet - and my mom worked third shift so I didn't have to worry about waking her. I lit the red light in my room and waited until I was peaking before dropping the needle onto side one and then lying down on my bed.

I started hearing birds chirping and waterfall slowly fading in......

I got a black magic woman
Got me so blind I can't see
That she's a black magic woman
She's tryin' to make a devil out of me.



It's impossible to explain how exotic and "new" this all sounded to a 10 year old kid in 1970. For the past few decades we take the melding of different cultural music genres as the norm.

45 years ago was a whole different story.

I was in exactly the same boat as you, although I was not 10 but about 16 when I saw the album. To be honest, I'd vaguely heard about Santana but think I bought the album for the artwork and because at the time I was reading a comic called "Abraxas and the Earthman" in Epic magazine, and thought this was something to do with that. Mind you, the artwork is a little similar (see below). Imagine my horror when all these latin/salsa beats came at me and the only song I knew was, you guessed it, BMW (hey! Never realised that before!) --- I think I pretty much hated it, and don't recall going back to it at all, though I did re-review "Caravanserai" a while back and while I could appreciate it better, I still didn't like it too much as I recall.
http://i.imgur.com/XnujM.jpg