1973! Part 3!

Change was in the air! At the beginning of the year it was announced that the United States involvement in the Vietnam War would soon be coming to an end. By the end of March 1973, the last U. S. combat troops left Vietnamese soil.

At the same time, the Watergate Scandal that embroiled the Nixon administration would eventually lead to President Nixon declaring, “I am not a crook,” and then the following year admit that he should resign from office.

But not before his Vice President, Spiro Agnew, was convicted of charges in his own corruption scandal and resigned himself.

The culture that the ‘70s inherited from the ‘60s was coming to an end, too. Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In broadcast its last episode on TV in 1973. Just a year and a half before, the CBS network had cancelled many of its shows set in small town America in what came to be known as the “rural purge.” Gone were The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Hee-Haw. In their places were televisions shows that felt more grounded in reality and real issues: All in the Family, Sanford & Son, The Waltons, and Maude. Forget laughing at those bumbling Germans in Hogan’s Heroes. The television viewers of 1973 were being entertained by the folly of war itself on M*A*S*H.

While on the radios of the era, there were other changes afoot. AM stations may still have been king with their Top 40 formats, but around the country FM stations were catering to a growing audeince that craved the new format known as AOR, album oriented rock. Here was a format that didn’t cave to the demands of the three minute single. Listeners could tune in regularly and hear their favorites unedited in the full length “album versions.”