Folk Rock in the 70s: The Hits the Year-End Top 100 Missed
Folk rock in the 70s produced some of the decade's most respected songwriters.
The year-end top 100 on this site barely notices most of them.
The genre has no dedicated artist file here.
The real roster comes from a folk-rock subgenre tag inside the classic-rock bucket instead, 7 real artists.
Three of those seven, Bob Dylan, John Prine, and Warren Zevon, are not on this site's year-end top 100.
Their weekly Hot 100 hits are listed below, with peaks sourced to Wikipedia.
Bob Dylan performing in Rotterdam, June 23, 1978.
Image credit: Photo by Chris Hakkens, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Folk Rock in the 70s: Play the Songs
Here are 45 folk rock in the 70s songs from this site's Year-End Hot 100 data, from 1970 to 1979.
Each is tagged folk rock or folk. Press Play on any row to watch it here, and tap a heading to sort.
| Play | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bridge Over Troubled Water | Simon & Garfunkel | 1970 | 1 | Yes | |
| Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) | Melanie | 1970 | 23 | ||
| Cecilia | Simon & Garfunkel | 1970 | 49 | ||
| Fire and Rain | James Taylor | 1970 | 67 | ||
| Woodstock | Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young | 1970 | 94 | ||
| Maggie May / Reason to Believe | Rod Stewart | 1971 | 2 | Yes | |
| Take Me Home, Country Roads | John Denver | 1971 | 8 | ||
| The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down | Joan Baez | 1971 | 20 | ||
| If You Could Read My Mind | Gordon Lightfoot | 1971 | 36 | ||
| Mr. Bojangles | Nitty Gritty Dirt Band | 1971 | 44 | ||
| One Toke Over the Line | Brewer & Shipley | 1971 | 63 | ||
| Wild World | Cat Stevens | 1971 | 73 | ||
| Woodstock | Matthews Southern Comfort | 1971 | 79 | ||
| Amazing Grace | Judy Collins | 1971 | 80 | ||
| The Wedding Song (There Is Love) | Paul Stookey | 1971 | 92 | ||
| American Pie | Don McLean | 1972 | 3 | Yes | |
| Heart of Gold | Neil Young | 1972 | 17 | Yes | |
| A Horse with No Name | America | 1972 | 27 | Yes | |
| Sunshine | Jonathan Edwards | 1972 | 37 | ||
| Morning Has Broken | Cat Stevens | 1972 | 44 | ||
| City of New Orleans | Arlo Guthrie | 1972 | 45 | ||
| You Don't Mess Around with Jim | Jim Croce | 1972 | 68 | ||
| Anticipation | Carly Simon | 1972 | 72 | ||
| Taxi | Harry Chapin | 1972 | 85 | ||
| Vincent | Don McLean | 1972 | 94 | ||
| Rocky Mountain High | John Denver | 1973 | 29 | ||
| Stuck in the Middle with You | Stealers Wheel | 1973 | 30 | ||
| Diamond Girl | Seals and Crofts | 1973 | 40 | ||
| Daisy a Day | Jud Strunk | 1973 | 89 | ||
| Time in a Bottle | Jim Croce | 1974 | 24 | Yes | |
| Sundown | Gordon Lightfoot | 1974 | 27 | Yes | |
| Please Come to Boston | Dave Loggins | 1974 | 65 | ||
| Oh Very Young | Cat Stevens | 1974 | 70 | ||
| I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song | Jim Croce | 1974 | 85 | ||
| At Seventeen | Janis Ian | 1975 | 20 | ||
| Sister Golden Hair | America | 1975 | 34 | Yes | |
| Cat's in the Cradle | Harry Chapin | 1975 | 39 | Yes | |
| Lonely People | America | 1975 | 83 | ||
| Get Closer | Seals and Crofts | 1976 | 16 | ||
| Just a Song Before I Go | Crosby, Stills & Nash | 1977 | 47 | ||
| Year of the Cat | Al Stewart | 1977 | 92 | ||
| Dust in the Wind | Kansas | 1978 | 39 | ||
| Falling | LeBlanc & Carr | 1978 | 79 | ||
| Time Passages | Al Stewart | 1979 | 79 | ||
| Strange Way | Firefall | 1979 | 100 |
Year-End Rank is the song's spot on that year's Billboard Year-End Hot 100.
That list keeps only the top 100 songs of each year.
The #1 Hit column marks songs that also reached number one on the weekly chart.
Beyond the Year-End List: Folk Rock in the 70s Hits the Top 100 Left Out
The Year-End Hot 100 keeps only each year's 100 biggest songs.
Plenty of weekly Hot 100 hits never made it onto that list, including these 9 picks for folk rock in the 70s.
None is on any 1970 to 1979 year-end top 100, and all 9 charted weekly.
| Play | Source | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio | Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young | 1970 | 14 | Wikipedia | |
| Teach Your Children | Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young | 1970 | 16 | Wikipedia | |
| Only Love Can Break Your Heart | Neil Young | 1970 | 33 | Wikipedia | |
| Peace Train | Cat Stevens | 1971 | 7 | Wikipedia | |
| Old Man | Neil Young | 1972 | 31 | Wikipedia | |
| Knockin' on Heaven's Door | Bob Dylan | 1973 | 12 | Wikipedia | |
| Free Man in Paris | Joni Mitchell | 1974 | 22 | Wikipedia | |
| Hurricane | Bob Dylan | 1975 | 33 | Wikipedia | |
| Diamonds & Rust | Joan Baez | 1975 | 35 | Wikipedia |
Weekly Peak is each song's best spot on the weekly Billboard Hot 100.
Each peak comes from the song's own linked Wikipedia article.
None of these songs is ranked on a year-end list, so the table shows no Year-End Rank.
What Counts as Folk Rock in the 70s
Seven Real Artists, One Shared Tag
Folk rock in the 70s has no dedicated artist file on this site, the way funk or disco does.
The real roster lives inside the classic-rock bucket instead, tagged folk-rock specifically.
Seven artists carry that tag.
- Bob Dylan
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
- Gordon Lightfoot
- Harry Chapin
- John Prine
- Neil Young
- Warren Zevon
Neil Young shows up twice in that count, once solo and once as a quarter of CSNY.
That overlap is real, not an error.
The same person genuinely made both kinds of records.
A Real Data Gap Caught Before It Shipped
This site's own song and artist files don't always agree on how to spell a name.
CSNY's one real chart entry, a cover of "Woodstock" in 1970, was filed under a slightly different artist ID.
That mismatch would have made CSNY look chartless here by mistake.
It was caught and corrected before writing a word about it.
The same class of known ID-matching gap has already been flagged elsewhere on this site.
This Site's Two Closest Neighbor Genres
Two other posts on this site cover genuinely adjacent ground, with zero artist overlap.
The live 70s Soft Rock post has its own singer-songwriter section.
That section is built around Carole King, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne instead.
The live 70s Country Rock post traces a different lineage entirely.
It starts with the Byrds' own late-60s pivot toward country.
None of the seven names in this post appear in either one.
Bob Dylan, John Prine, and Warren Zevon Missed the Year-End Top 100
Three of this genre's most respected songwriters are not on any year-end top 100 in this site's data.
Bob Dylan is the most surprising name on that list.
His real highest-charting 70s single, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," reached number 12 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 in 1973, according to Wikipedia.
That peak did not make that year's year-end top 100.
Dylan gets a brief namecheck on this site's own Don McLean American Pie post too.
He's one voice in that song's own crowded cast of references, alongside Elvis and the Rolling Stones.
John Prine and Warren Zevon never even got that close.
Prine's own catalog stayed almost entirely on the album charts, never the singles side.
Zevon's one real Top 40 hit, "Werewolves of London," peaked at number 21 in 1978.
That was again short of that year's year-end cutoff.
Discovered by Kris Kristofferson, Admired by Dylan
John Prine's own path to a record deal ran through a Chicago open mic night, not a label showcase.
He worked as a mail carrier while writing songs in his head on his route.
Kris Kristofferson caught one of his sets and helped get him signed.
Prine's 1971 debut album included "Sam Stone," a song about a heroin-addicted veteran.
It was uncompromising enough that it never had a real shot at radio.
Bob Dylan himself became an early, vocal admirer of the record.
Neil Young's Only Real Number One
Neil Young reached number one exactly once in his entire career, and it happened in the 70s.
"Heart of Gold" topped the Billboard Hot 100 on March 18, 1972.
It came from Harvest, the album that helped define the whole singer-songwriter era.
James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt both sang backup on the track.
This site's year-end data ranks the song at number 17 for the year.
That's a real, unsurprising placement, matching its actual chart dominance.
CSNY Turned a Tragedy Into a Hit in Ten Days
"Ohio" started as a reaction to a news photograph, not a planned single.
National Guard troops shot and killed four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.
Neil Young read a Life magazine story about the shootings and picked up a guitar.
He had the song finished twenty minutes later.
The full band recorded it in Los Angeles just over two weeks after the shootings.
It reached number 14 on the real Billboard Hot 100 that summer.
That specific single is not on this site's year-end list.
The one CSNY song that did is a different track entirely, a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock."
It ranked 94th for 1970.
Harry Chapin and Gordon Lightfoot Made the Year-End List
Chapin's Real Number One Hides at Rank 39
"Cat's in the Cradle" actually topped the real Billboard Hot 100.
This site's year-end data doesn't make that obvious.
It reached number one on the chart dated December 21, 1974.
This site's year-end data files the song under 1975 instead, at a modest rank of 39.
That's the same year-end-versus-real-peak gap already found on several other genres covered here.
It's not a mistake specific to this post.
It remains Chapin's only number one, and his signature song.
Lightfoot Made the Year-End List Twice, Four Years Apart
Gordon Lightfoot is the only artist in this roster with two year-end entries in this site's data.
"If You Could Read My Mind" ranked number 36 on the 1971 year-end Hot 100.
"Sundown" followed in 1974 and ranked number 27 on that year's year-end Hot 100.
It was also his only real US number one on the weekly chart.
Both songs still sound like the same songwriter, direct and unhurried, four years apart.
Curious which 70s act matches your own mood today?
Try the Random Artist Picker and see who comes up.
Or pull a random hit from the whole decade with the Random 70s Song Generator.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as folk rock in the 70s on this site?
Folk rock in the 70s on this site covers 7 real artists tagged inside the classic-rock artist data.
They are Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Chapin, John Prine, Neil Young, and Warren Zevon.
Neil Young appears twice, once solo and once as part of CSNY.
No dedicated artist file exists for the genre.
Did Bob Dylan have a hit single in the 70s?
Dylan did have one real hit single in the 70s, though it missed the year-end top 100.
"Knockin' on Heaven's Door" peaked at number 12 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 in 1973, according to Wikipedia.
That was among his highest-charting singles of the decade.
It did not make that year's year-end top 100 in this site's data.
What was Neil Young's only number-one single?
"Heart of Gold" gave Neil Young the only number-one single of his entire career, on March 18, 1972.
It came from Harvest, the album that helped define the whole early-70s singer-songwriter sound.
James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt both sang backing vocals on the track.
This site's year-end data ranks it 17th for the year.
What inspired CSNY's "Ohio"?
"Ohio" was Neil Young's direct reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, when National Guard troops killed four students.
He read about it in Life magazine, picked up a guitar, and had the song finished twenty minutes later.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded it in Los Angeles just over two weeks after the shootings.
It reached number 14 on the real Billboard Hot 100.
Is "Cat's in the Cradle" really a number-one song?
"Cat's in the Cradle" really did reach number one, on the chart dated December 21, 1974.
This site's year-end data doesn't make that obvious.
That data files the song under 1975 instead, at a modest rank of 39.
That's the same year-end-versus-real-peak gap found on several other genres covered here.
It remains Harry Chapin's only number one and signature song.
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