With thunderstorms bearing down on the region tonight, I am reminded that in about hour it will be the 37th anniversary of the great New York City blackout of 1977. The summer of 1977 has so many vivid memories for me. Reggie Jackson and the Yankees, David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam serial killer, disco at its zenith (Brick House, Dancing Queen), the greatest Grateful Dead tour ever (this one I discovered in retrospect), Star Wars, Smokey & the Bandit, and The Spy Who Loved Me, Al Stewart’s The Year of the Cat, Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, and The Steve Miller Band’s Fly Like an Eagle. That’s just scratching the surface. Pink Floyd’s Animals came out, and so did the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks. There was Steely Dan’s Aja and Bob Marley’s Exodus and David Bowie’s Heroes and Low. Elvis Costello released his debut album. The Ramones had Rocket to Russia and the Talking Heads had Talking Heads: 77. There was Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty and Eric Clapton’s Slowhand. Meat Loaf had a hit with Paradise By the Dashboard Light with a cameo by Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto.
I turned eight at the very end of the summer and the Yankees won the championship a few weeks later. It was a glorious, weird, scary and delightful time. I wish I could live it over and over.
A large tree fell on my neighbor’s house in the last storm. It did some damage but not a lot. We have so many of those old trees here in the Hudson Valley.
I hope that everybody stays safe tonight.
great memories indeed. I was sixteen that summer, had a car and a summer job, and spent my money on the movies and music you mention here. Only the most mainstream of that music though; i also wasn’t yet aware of the Grateful Dead.
and I rooted for the Dodgers. FTFY.
I was a year into my back-to-the-land DFH experience and had no idea the blizzard of ’78 was only 7 months away. It was a lot of hard physical work, punctuated by lots of mini Rainbow Gatherings with others of like mind.
Eric Clapton’s Slow Hand
Cocaine and Layla
I only remember from direct memory about 3 of the things on that list. The rural/urban divide is still significant today, but back in the 70s the difference between living in a major city and off a dirt road in the woods somewhere was almost like living on different planets.
I was living near Karlsruhe Germany on an US Army Kaserne, did Nov 75 to Nov 78 there. Living in Europe for three years radically changed my perspective on the USA.
Recall the 1965 NYC blackout — and approximately where I was and definitely what I was doing when I heard about it on the radio. Have no recollection of the 1977 blackout, but we tend to pay more attention to and remember better the first incident that seems novel.
’77 was probably the year I sold my old car to a Dead roadie.
Definitely recall the 65 event more, thx in large part to the extensive coverage in LIFE magazine.
That was, iirc, the first major widespread blackout in the US, covering most of the northeast incl NYC. Oddly, it began at the start of rush hour on a workday, and wasnt over until the beginning of the morning rush hour.
Did they ever discover the cause or just theorize about what might have been the source?
Another odd fact I recall: earlier in the day before the blackout began, it was announced that columnist and popular tv show panelist (Whats MY Line?) Dorothy Kilgallen had been found dead in her NYC home. Some of her friends initially thought the blackout was the city’s bold way of paying tribute to her.
Yes, the 1965 blackout was widespread like the 2003 blackout. They figured out how the ’65 blackout had happened — large interconnected grid and one blip leads to surges and trips that cascade through the grid. 2003 shouldn’t have happened, but they managed to blame a software glitch and some overgrown trees for the blips that led to the surges and trips. (One SoCal outage was blamed on a tree falling in WA.)
Never heard the Kilgallen story before — she must have had some great friends.
Death to the Yankees.
I remember that summer. I was 2 years into grad school in NC. At that point, I had not met my wife. I don’t remember much to distinguish that summer from other summers in NC – occasional beach trips, trying to keep up with reading, etc.
I was at shea stadium. Jerry Koosman was pitching. The announcer thought it was a stadium thing. Apparently they weren’t looking out over a darkened city from the cheap seats. Power was back on when we got back over the Hudson.
No one hit line drive homers harder than Reggie, or admired them more stylishly. The Yankees bought a championship, those jerks. Easy to hate them in the early Steinbrenner Era.
Son of Sam didn’t introduce the non-stop media phenomenon to little me (that happened during the Patty Hearst kidnapping), but it was the first time I remember thinking that a guy (and it’s ALWAYS a guy) could bring murder to a community at any moment. Later, the media got even more crazed, and the serial murderers appeared to become even more random.
Saw “Smokey and the Bandit” five times. Knew I couldn’t be Burt Reynolds, but I still wanted Sally Field. Liked the idea that adulthood could be full of goofy, juvenile pleasures.
Other than Steve Miller and Al Stevens (great sax!), I discovered all this music later. I was deep into my ELO thing at the time, and was still a year or two away from my Queen thing.
Dancing Queen is the greatest pop single of all time.
The summer of 1978 was the one which carried some distinct memories. Went down to Southern California and spent a couple of weeks with a friend of my mom’s from school. She had three absolutely gorgeous, blonde, tanned daughters, and even deep into my teen years, I had no idea how to seduce them. It was hard to deal with them as people, my fear was so great. But I must have done a decent impersonation of a good person; we had a lot of fun.
The Top 40 expressed, and connected with, my romantic angst. Hollywood Nights/Bob Seger. Reminiscing/Little River Band. Three Times A Lady/The Commodores. The “Grease” soundtrack, and the movie, and Olivia Newton-John.
Something good was right around the corner, I hoped.
Probably because I’m older than you I remember 1977 a little differently music-wise – you seem to be blurring 77 and 78. While Slowhand, Bat Out of Hell, and Running on Empty were all released in 1977 they got their radio play during 1978. Bat Out of Hell was released in September and was very slow to take off – the other two were in December.
The two key albums getting massive radio play in 1977 that you didn’t mention were Rumors and Hotel California.
“Disco at its zenith” is interesting, and also probably is because you’re blurring 77 and 78. I wouldn’t have put Dancing Queen as disco – the beat wasn’t strong enough. Disco required a strong “thump thump” to qualify. Brick House certainly fits the bill, but most people put 1978-9 as the peak of disco, from Saturday Night Fever (released late 1977) to a whole host of 1978 and 1979 disco(-ish) songs from rock artists such as “Miss You”, “Do you think I’m Sexy”, “Straight On”, “I Was Made for Loving You”, etc.
Sigh. A real kidney stone of an era (bonus points to anyone who identifies that quote).