#early disco

[rocknroll105]

Lecture 15: Afrobeat musician Manu Dibango of Cameroon recorded one of the first disco songs ever, “Soul Makossa,” in 1972.  The song gained a cult following in North America, and could often be heard at dance clubs in the early to mid-1970s. Dibango (1933- ) is alive and well and remains a highly regarded Cameroonian musician. You may recognize the familiar coda “Mama-say mama-sah ma-ma-coo-sah,“ which is featured in Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” (1983).

[rocknroll105]

Lecture 15: Another important early disco song, “Lady Marmalade” by Labelle (an all-woman group fronted by R&B/soul singer Patti Labelle as its lead vocalist) was a massive hit in 1974, rising to the top of the pop charts and going gold. It also anticipated the soon-to-follow disco craze. Labelle had been around since the early 1960s, performing under various names (The Ordettes, The Bluebelles, Patti Labelle and The Bluebelles, etc.), but they wouldn’t find stardom until the mid-1970s. Labelle herself would go on to a highly successful solo career, with lots of huge hits in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and multiple Grammy awards. 

[rocknroll105]

Lecture 15: One of the late, great Barry White’s signature tunes was “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Baby,” which was the first single released from his hugely successful 1974 album Can’t Get Enough. The album contained such #1 hits as “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” and “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.” Both songs received constant radio airplay for about two years. As for the album, it shot up to #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Outside of “Love’s Theme,” “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” is probably Barry White’s most recognizable song.He performs the song here in 1974 on Burt Sugarman’s The Midnight Special.

[rocknroll105]

Lecture 15: The Love Unlimited Orchestra, conducted by soul singer Barry White (1944-2003), performs pioneering disco smash hit, “Love’s Theme,” originally released in 1973. Here the song is performed on Burt Sugarman’s Midnight Special music television variety show in ‘74. White, a gifted singer who had raised himself up from a life hardship and crime, brought together a 40-piece orchestra in the early 1970s, consisting mostly of string instruments, creating his Love Unlimited Orchestra. They released a huge hit, “Love’s Theme,” that climbed the charts quickly, eventually reaching the coveted number one spot in the Billboard Top 100 early in 1974. The song combined romantic symphonic music with a beat that was hard to resist, and placed heavy emphasis on a Seventies wah-wah guitar effect that would become all-too familiar in the genres of funk and disco. “Love’s Theme” would catapult Barry White to fame in the United States. It proved to be the biggest instrumental hit of the 1970s, and became instantly recognizable.

[rocknroll105]

Lecture 15: More early disco. “Rock the Boat,” a 1974 hit by one-hit wonder group The Hues Corporation (a soul trio from Santa Monica), sold more than 2 million copies and climbed to #1 on the Billboard pop chart. It was on the radio all the time in the mid-seventies. The band charted a few more minor hits in the 1970s, but never repeated the success of “Rock the Boat,” and broke up in 1978. 

[rocknroll105]

Lecture 15: American soul singer George McCrae (1944- ) recorded another key early disco song, “Rock Your Baby,” in 1974. McCrae performs the song here on national television, against a rather bizarre backdrop. After the heyday of music, McCrae’s career faded. He moved to Canada for a time, but now lives in Florida (with homes in Aruba and the Netherlands), and enjoys a fairly robust following in Europe as a soul singer. 

[hist105]

Lecture 15: Barry Gibb and his younger brothers, twins Robin and Maurice, were a musical powerhouse. As the band the Bee Gees (formed in 1958 and originally a pop act) they recorded a number of hits, including a string of #1s. But their real talent was in song writing. In one year alone, 1978, they were responsible for 13 singles on the Billboard Top 200, either as song writers or singers - 12 of which broke the top 40. The Bee Gees would go on to become not just one of the most successful groups of all time, with well over 100 million in estimated unit sales, but also one of the most successful song-writing partnerships in music history. “You Should Be Dancing” (1976) was the band’s first foray in to disco, a genre they would later come to symbolize.

[hist105]

Lecture 15: Every decade had its huge dance craze. Without question, the biggest one in the United States in the 1970s was “The Hustle” (from 1975) based on the song of the same title by musician and record producer Van McCoy (1940-1979). Classes that taught “The Hustle” were offered across the country, “Hustle” dance competitions were held, and posters showing the different dance moves sold millions of copies. A behind-the-scenes figure in music, heavily involved in the production side of things, McCoy finally scored a big hit with the instrumental song “The Hustle” from 1975, off of his album Disco Baby, one of the first albums to feature word “disco” in the title. “The Hustle” spawned a popular dance craze in the mid-1970s of the same name, “The Hustle,” recognized as the first uniquely “disco” dance.