STAGE WEST: "The '70s! The Golden Age of the Album" at Lamb's Players Theatre

Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a highlight of "The '70s! The Golden Age of the Album." Photo courtesy of Lamb's Players Theatre.

            I don’t know how many songs are performed, in part or in their entirety, in Lamb’s Players Theatre’s “The ‘70s! The Golden Age of the Album.” I didn’t count them because I was immersed in memories from long ago.
            Like when I spun records as a DJ on my college radio station. Like when I would browse the racks at Tower Records sometimes just to be blown away by the album cover art. Like when my friends and I would party with vinyl on summer nights.
            This show created by Kerry Meads and Vanda Eggington is indeed a musical trip down Memory Lane, 1970s edition. It celebrates the soundtrack of that decade and in particular songs that were part of a sea change in the music business, when the emphasis morphed from making hit singles to creating album tracks that would get airplay on fledgling FM rock radio.
            This is Meads’ and Eggington’s fourth go-round at this sort of revue for Lamb’s, having teamed up in the past on the ‘60s-flavored “Boomers,” “American Rhythm” covering the Great American Songbook and most recently the tribute to female artists of the 1960s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”
            I enjoyed “The 70s!” the most of the bunch mainly because I feel more emotional attachment to the music and the artists of the era who made it. This is just a partial list: Neil Young, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen. They’re all present in this 140-minute-long theatrical concert directed by Meads.
            Sure, there are conspicuous omissions, like the Allman Brothers and the Stones and The Who and Santana and Steely Dan; and the arrival of punk rock (the Ramones maybe?) and hip-hop (perhaps the Sugarhill Gang?) are ignored. But everyone who attends will have some quarrel with a favorite singer-songwriter or band that's left out. Certainly Meads and Eggington have done the best they can without creating a show that’s five hours’ long.
            “The ‘70s!” wouldn’t be as entertaining as it is were it not for a crack ensemble of musicians covering all those gems from the era. Lamb’s has got on guitar Steve Gouveia (always great to see and hear him onstage) and Garry Hall (his Jimmy Page solo on “Stairway to Heaven” is a beaut); David Rumley on drums; Angela Chatelain Avila on violin; and the guy they call the “Rockfather,” Rik Ogden, on multiple instruments. Playing bass and demonstrating that her young age is no impediment to rocking out on songs recorded long, long before her birth is 21-year-old Avery Nelson. Also in the cast and contributing instrumentally and/or vocally: Sydney Joiner, Russ Mitchell, Nathan Nonhof, Natasha Reece, Caleb Schanzenbach, Scott Glenn Roberts, Logan Stevens, Leonard Patton, Joy Yandell-Hall and Ben Van Diepen.
            You need that many people to re-create the incredibly diverse genres of the decade: confessional, singer-songwriter-driven pop, rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, disco, art rock – it seemed like everything from the sugary Carpenters to the exultant Earth, Wind & Fire to Belushi and Aykroyd as the Blues Brothers.
            As I said earlier, a few of the songs covered are performed start to finish, but most are versions trimmed for expediency. The performances that demonstrate the most theatricality are of songs that tell a cohesive story, such as The Eagles’ “Hotel California” and Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son.”
            Choreography by Christine Wiser Hall is mobilizes and enhances the storytelling aspect of “The ‘70s.” If there’s one thing that the decade can and should be ridiculed for is its fashion sense, or lack thereof. Did people really dress like that? OMG, did I? But the styles are well-conceived by costume designer Jemima Dutra, and they’re actually welcome in the show’s elaborate disco sequence. (Kudos to Wisner Hall here, too, for transporting us back to “Disco Inferno” time.)
            I was especially gratified to see and hear Marvin Gaye honored for his landmark “What’s Going On” album. If there was a conscience to the ‘70s expressed musically it was his.
            Yes, for fans there’s a predictable Fleetwood Mac “set” in the show and a fine “Bohemian Rhapsody” cover and plenty for Eagles fans.
            A nifty enhancement for the audience is the projection on a screen of the album covers from which each ‘70s song is performed. I miss those incredible covers, some of them veritable works of art.
            I miss FM radio the way it used to be, too – not corporate owned, not canned, not voiced by cookie-cutter DJs (if there’s a live DJ at all these days). Now album-oriented-radio, and radio in general, has been marginalized or even neutered by the digital delivery of music. I mean ask yourself: When was the last time you listened to music on the radio, and not in your car?
            This show also makes the case that musically the 1970s may not have been crowned revolutionary as was the 1960s but it was in its own right pretty freaking incredible with a diversity of genres, songwriting and artistry that deserves celebration in a production like this one at Lamb’s.
            I don’t listen to “classic rock” radio because I can’t abide hearing “Carry On My Wayward Son” (alas, it’s in this show) or “All Right Now” or “China Grove” anymore. But being immersed in among the most engaging and best-produced music of the 1970s, as I was at Lamb’s, is an altogether more personal experience. If the decade stirs in you any similar sort of feeling, you’ll discover what I’m talking about.
            “The ‘70s! The Golden Age of the Album” runs through Sept. 14 at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado.