20 terrific bands that got their start in 1974

Part of the extended Lynyrd Skynyrd musical universe, .38 Special featured Donnie Van Zant, the younger brother of Skynyrd’s ill-fated lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. Donnie teamed with several other Southern rock veterans to form this collection of wild-eyed boys. After grinding it out for years, .38 Special finally broke through at the dawn of the 1980s with such steel-girded arena rock hits as “Rockin’ Into The Night” and “If I’d Been the One.”

Pub rock, the ramshackle sound that paved the way for punk, was all the rage in Britain in 1974 because it promised a boozy good time and it was easy to do. The 101ers came along toward the end of the party and effectively bridged the beery bonhomie of pub with the raucous racket of punk thanks to one Joe Strummer, the vocalist/guitarist who left this group to form the Clash.

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein started to forge their blend of pop-art, girl group, and rock and roll in 1974. Blondie’s recent career-encompassing box set Against The Odds 1974-1982 illustrates that they already had the seeds of the sound that reshaped the face of popular music during the height of the New Wave movement during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Larry Blackmon originally called his funk group the New York City Players—a name that was shortened to the Players when they signed to Casablanca a year later. Legal action by the Ohio Players led the group to rechristen themselves Cameo and they set out working the funk circuit, earning an R&B following in the late 1970s that eventually crossed over into the pop charts with “Word Up!” in 1986.

Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson, and Bun E. Carlos had been grinding away in a variety of guises in Illinois before they brought Robin Zander aboard in 1974. The flaxen-haired vocalist transformed this group into the power-pop powerhouses Cheap Trick, a group whose hard-rocking eccentricities meant that they felt equally at home among arena rockers and New Wave kids during the 1970s and 1980s.

Jimmy Buffett created his beachy Gulf-and-Western sound with 1973’s “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean,” but he found his groove in 1974, having a hit with the gorgeous “Come Monday” and officially christening his backing group as the Coral Reefer Band. Musicians came and went but an enduring lineup coalesced in the 1990s and they’ve vowed to continue even after Buffett’s 2023 passing.

The house rockers at the epicenter of Austin’s rowdy blues scene of the 1970s and 1980s—they effectively lived at Antone’s, the city’s key blues club—trace their origins to vocalist Kim Wilson’s arrival in Texas and his team-up with guitarist Jimmie Vaughan. Their earliest records carried a nervy New Wave energy, then they capitalized on ZZ Top’s robotic blues in 1986 with their crossover hit “Tuff Enuff.”

Firefall found a home on the adult contemporary charts with their exceedingly smooth singles “You Are the Woman” and “Just Remember I Love You,” songs that only hint at the group’s country-rock origins. The band’s was formed when Rick Roberts, a veteran of the Flying Burrito Brothers, teamed with Jock Bartley, who stepped into Tommy Bolin’s shoes in Zephyr. Bartley later led the group into the 21st Century, touring regularly and recording such albums as last year’s Friends & Family.

One of the pivotal fusion bands in the 1980s, Hiroshima first developed their blend of quiet storm and smooth jazz soon after their formation in 1974. The band’s name—a nod to the Japanese city ravaged by an atomic bomb in World War II—hints at how the band accentuated its polished grooves with Eastern instrumentation.

The Summer of Love veterans retooled themselves for the 1970s by rebranding themselves from the outdated Jefferson Airplane to the futuristic Jefferson Starship. The change was motivated by a split within the ranks: Grace Slick and Paul Kantner wanted to modernize, and they were eventually joined in their journey by former Airplane colleague Marty Balin. A year after their formation, the overblown arena rock of Red Octopus turned the group into one of the biggest bands in AOR.

A Christmas standard since the 1980s, Mannheim Steamroller was devised by new-age musician Chip Davis in 1974. His series of Fresh Aire albums found him developing his blend of rock, classical, and jazz, a sound that inexplicably became the soundtrack for the season after the release of Christmas in 1984.

Willy DeVille’s garagey outfit Mink DeVille became a staple at CBGB’s shortly after the group’s formation in 1974. While they didn’t become as big as some of their peers, the band was maybe the purest rock and roll act in the early days of the CBGB’s scene, and they developed an enduring bond with unrepentant rockers of all ages.

One of the great unheralded bands of the 1970s, the Quick split the difference between British glam and American power-pop—a sound that was ideal for the wild days of punk and New Wave. Signing with Mercury, the Quick seemed poised for a breakthrough with their debut Mondo Deco, but a series of bad breaks led to the group’s dissolution; lead singer Danny Wilde later would form the Rembrandts, who would cut “I’ll Be There for You,” the theme song for Friends.

The reigning kings of American punk formed in 1974, quickly developing the buzzsaw pop that would revolutionize rock. Their rise was swift: within a year, they’d become NYC sensations, with their eponymous 1976 debut album igniting a fire that spread on both sides of the Atlantic.

An institution of Australian rock and roll, the Saints were young upstarts when they formed back in 1974. Inspired by such lacerating proto-punk bands as the Stooges—a common influence among ’70s Aussies—the Saints stumbled into punk roughly the same time as other similar-minded bands did in the U.S. and the U.K. Their legendary debut single “(I’m) Stranded” arrived in 1976, and lead singer Chris Bailey kept a revolving lineup alive until his death in 2022.

Cheap Trick weren’t the only great power pop band to form in Illinois in 1974. Brothers John and Jeff Murphy formed Shoes—the name came from a Paul McCartney quip in an early Beatles interview—with high school friend Gary Kelbe. Together they developed the punchy, hooky rock and roll showcased on Black Vinyl Shoes, a 1977 indie release that became one of the cornerstones of power pop.

Spyro Gyra first patented their lite soulful jazz fusion in 1974, woodshedding their grooves in bars throughout their hometown of Buffalo, New York. They found a larger audience once their eponymous indie debut creeped onto quiet storm and adult contemporary radio. They’d remain smooth staples for decades, continuing to tour after their record releases slowed.

Chris Difford placed an ad in a candy store asking for a collaborator to flesh out his lively lyrics. Glenn Tilbrook answered—Difford would maintain he was the only musician to respond—and the pair became one of the great partnerships in rock. After an arty beginning, they relied on their love of songcraft and clever stories, qualities that gave them one of the great songbooks of their era.

The Stranglers gained fame after the rise of punk, cutting some of the moodier, artier singles to fall under that rubric. They first surfaced, though, on England’s pub rock scene in 1974, developing a hard edge they’d retain even when they expanded their musical range and after the departure of such original members as Hugh Cornwell.

Feargal Sharkey and his fellow Undertones first formed a band to play high-octane pop music in the vein of the British Invasion. That fondness for sharp hooks, big backbeats and melodic momentum served as an ideal foundation for the Irish group’s pivot to punk in the late 1970s, when they released a self-titled debut that rivaled any other record of the era.