Discos are where it’s happening. With an estimated 10,000 in the U.S. today – compared with about 1,500 just two years ago – discos have become one of the biggest entertainment phenomena of the ’70s.
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When Paul Simon accepted last year’s Grammy Award for best album, he thanked Stevie Wonder for not making an album in 1975. But the competition is heating up: after two years without a new album, Stevie Wonder is releasing a double LP, “Songs in the Key of Life.” Last week, Wonder transported 76 members of the press to a farm in New England to hear the record before it is issued this week. Among those invited was NEWSWEEK’S Maureen Orth.
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Original Publication: August 30, 1976 Six years ago, a former Long Island, N.Y. debutante named Mary McFadden was running a school for native artists deep in the African bush and…
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Original publication: Newsweek, August 2, 1976 Maureen Orth with Janet Huck in Los Angeles Last October, 10-year-old Darrin Barri asked his father for a record of the theme from “S.W.A.T.,”…
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In 1976, pop stars are being pursued by some politicians the way
corporate executives and fat cats used to be. Under the new campaign laws, individuals are limited to donations of $1,000, but thanks to a loophole in the legislation, entertainers can donate their services for whatever they can bring in at the gate.
After his first American concert in ten years, Paul McCartney was flushed and triumphant. It had been six years since the breakup of the Beatles, and the audience in Fort Worth, Texas, had just given the former Beatle and his band, Wings, a screaming ovation. Paul McCartney had proved that he could make it on his own.
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