This highly influential series launched April 1970, playing 'adventurous contemporary sounds'. It was presented by a variety of D.J.'s including David Symonds, Bob Harris, Mike Harding, Andy Ferris, Stuart Henry, Pete Drummond, Alan Black, Anne Nightingale, John Peel and even actor Vincent Price in 1973.

The show was heard originally as a 1 hour 6PM show Monday-Thursday on 247m AM only, with John Peel on Saturday Afternoons.

Sounds of the seventies highlighted the new sounds in soul, rock and folk music from the USA and UK. Regularly featured artistes included Yes, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Simon and Garfunkel, Nazareth, Thin Lizzy, Genesis, Roxy Music, Led Zeppelin, and Santana. Many bands were invited to record their music in the BBC studios with renditions as close as possible to the commercially released track in order to save the scarce 'needle time' restriction imposed on the BBC by the Musicians Union.

These programmes were subtitled The Sequence since records were introduced by DJ's with a minimum of chat or jingles. The whole of the tracks were played with no talking over the intro! 

From October 1971 it moved to a 10PM slot as a two-hour show with the added benefit of improved sound quality of the Radio 2 VHF frequency. It remained until sadly axed due to financial cutbacks on the network in December 1974.