I Closed My Eyes, And It Slipped Away

Did the seventies have a voice?

You could nominate quite a few voices for the title, of course; Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, Paul McCartney, Barry Gibb, Eddie Kendricks, Linda Ronstadt…

…but if you were a teenager in the rural midwest, huddled in your friends’ basements, listening to their older brothers’ records on their dads’ stereos, Brad Delp of Boston was probably on the short list.

Delp – with a bit of help from Tom Scholz’ extreme production style – was the high, clear, blazingly distinctive voice of a corporate rock band that still – at least on their incandescent first album – had a heart underneath all the pure technique.

Delp was found dead yesterday, at age 55.

8 thoughts on “I Closed My Eyes, And It Slipped Away

  1. Shit!

    55? That’s waaay too young.

    As my 13-year-old son just said, “Delp was dope.”

  2. I remember there being looney charges that Boston was using occult practices and alien technology in their recordings because there was no way, NO WAY I tell you that they could have produced those qualities in standard recording techniques at the time.

    Never mind the fact that one of their members was an audio engineering student at MIT.

    R.I.P. Brad.

    As for a vote for the voice of the 70’s, my vote would be Steve Perry. My daughter says Robert Plant and my wife says Dan Fogelberg.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.