The New Big 75

This is a large songbook featuring the music of Eric Clapton; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; John Denver; Bob Dylan; Donna Fargo; Elton John; Gordon Lightfoot; Loggins & Messina; Joni Mitchell, America, Donna Fargo,The 1970s saw the emergence of hard rock as one of the most prominent subgenres of rock music. Bands like Alice Cooper and Deep Purple were highly popular by 1972. By the second half of the decade, several bands had achieved stardom, namely, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith and Kiss. Arena rock grew in popularity through progressive bands like Styx and hard rock bands like Boston. Heavy metal music (though not recognized as a separate genre from hard rock) gained a cult following in the 1970s, led by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, with their styles later influencing other bands like Judas Priest and Motörhead, which eventually started the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the 1980s. Psychedelic rock declined in popularity after the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and the breakup of The Beatles.Soft rock was prominently featured on many Top 40 and contemporary hit radio stations throughout the 1970s. Soft rock often used acoustic instruments and placed emphasis on melody and harmonies. Major soft rock artists of the 1970s included Carole King, James Taylor, Billy Joel, Chicago, America and Fleetwood Mac, whose Rumours (1977) was the best selling album of the decade.Bob Dylan's 1975-1976 Rolling Thunder Revue reunited him with a number of folk-rock acts from his early days of performing, most notably Joan Baez. A large number of country-pop and soft rock songs fit into the singer-songwriter classification - that is, songs written and recorded by the same person. Some of the most successful singer-songwriter artists were Jackson Browne, Eric Carmen, Jim Croce, John Denver, Steve Goodman, Arlo Guthrie, Joel, Dave Mason, Don McLean, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Taylor and Neil Young.Some artists had previously been primarily songwriters