Do you know how to do the Hustle? Does your heart beat a little faster at the sight of a glittering disco ball? Do you prefer your dance music to combine its beats and rhythms with heart and soul, to be more than an electronic sledgehammer with little room for true emotion? If your answer to some or all of those questions is “yes!”, then chances are you would also agree that the best era of modern dance music was the Seventies – the Disco Years. You would probably also support the argument that Disco Fever’s selection of dance-a-licious beats and funk-tastic rhythms would be enough to silence any argument against such a claim. For this collection gives you the crème de la crème of that most magical era in dance music, when pounding bass lines, pulsating drum beats, inventive musical arrangements and soulful singing combined to command even the most reluctant of hoofers to strut their stuff.

Let’s go on a journey across the dance, touching down on a few seminal moments in disco music history. There was no official day zero for the birth of disco, it was more a matter of several different strands in popular culture converging at just the right time. As the Sixties were shifting into the Seventies, soul music was gaining a harder edge and a more insistent beat. At the same time, now-legendary New York clubs such as The Loft, headed by legendary disc jockey David Mancuso, and Nicky Siano’s The Gallery, were attracting ever-larger crowds. Spinning a record on a turntable was turning into an art form, and dancers responded by staying on the dance floor all night long. Quite simply, the discotheque was the place to be.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, disco was about to claim a musical birthplace of sorts. By the early Seventies the so-called Philly soul had grown to be the most dominant and influential force on the soul music scene, sending hit after hit to the top of the charts. Marrying the new, hard-edged beat with lush strings and grandiose orchestral arrangements, Philly soul provided the blueprint for the soulfulness, the elegance and the joie-de-vivre that was to become the trademark of disco music.

One of the major writers and producers in Philly soul was Thom Bell, who achieved some of his biggest hits with vocal group The Spinners. Before teaming up with Bell, The Spinners were signed to Motown, being one of the acts whose career never seemed to take off. On the recommendation of no less an authority than soul queen Aretha Franklin, the group changed labels to Atlantic, at which time they also gained a new lead singer, Phillipe Wynne. Under Bell’s guidance they notched up a string of hits, the peak achievement being their duet with Dionne Warwicke on ‘Then Came You’ (R&B #2, pop #1).

Traveling down the east coast from Philadelphia we end up in the town of Hialeah, Florida, where other pioneering steps were taken within the world of disco music. At T.K. Records, run by Henry Stone, two ambitious young men named Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch were employed. Fooling around in the studio late one night in 1974, they spent 45 minutes concocting a rhythmic backing track for a new song they had written. Everybody involved instantly recognized that they had a winner on their hands. Once lyrics had been written, the song was given to singer George McCrae. The result was ‘Rock Your Baby’, a pop and R&B # 1 smash in July 1974. With its dry but highly percussive rhythm-box sound, it is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential songs in the history of disco music.

Casey and Finch had achieved the break they were after, and went on to top that triumph with a string of five #1 pop hits with their very own musical congregation: the remarkably lively KC And The Sunshine Band, naturally named after lead singer Casey. Their 1975 chart-topper ‘That’s The Way (I Like It)’ is certainly one of the most instantly recognizable disco records: those “ah-ha, ah-has” are a strong contender for the title of Catchiest Hook in Popular Music History!

By the end of the Seventies, a New York-based writer-producer team had taken over as the most successful disco masterminds. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were not only the core members of their own group, Chic, but achieved spectacular success with their songs for many other artists as well. In terms of chart statistics, none of the hits they masterminded could top their 1978 triumph with ‘Le Freak’: the single spent a spectacular six weeks at the top of the pop chart, shifting six million copies to become Atlantic Records’ biggest-selling single ever. Incidentally, this celebration of the hedonistic atmosphere at the most famous disco club of them all, Studio 54, actually started life as a significantly less celebratory piece of music, after Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards failed to be recognized by the guards and were denied entrance to the club. Let’s just say that the “Freak out!” of the chorus replaced a well-known expletive phrase in the original lyrics – we’ll leave the rest to the reader’s imagination…

After the success of ‘Le Freak’, the team of Rodgers & Edwards was clearly on a roll. Hardly surprising, then, that other artists wanted to experience some of their golden touch. Their most successful collaboration was perhaps their work with Sister Sledge. The four sisters Debbie, Kim, Joni, and Kathy Sledge had been recording since the early Seventies, but without ever achieving any major hits. That situation was turned around completely in 1979, when they got in touch with Rodgers & Edwards. Although the team gave the sisters a number of exceptional hit singles, perhaps ‘We Are Family’ (R&B #1, pop #2) is the one that is most fondly remembered. “’We Are Family’ was written for us by Nile and Bernard,” recalled Debbie Sledge. “It summed up what they thought about us when they met us. It described our close relationship as sisters but also spoke of bonding in whatever situation.” The incredibly catchy song was carried forward by the trademark Chic sound of Tony Thompson’s elegant drumming, Bernard Edwards’ ingenious bass lines and Nile Rodgers percussive guitar playing. Its message of optimism and strength through unity transcended the feelings within the Sledge family, striking a chord with listeners everywhere.

And that’s what disco music seemed to do all over the planet by the end of the Seventies. It had become the beat of the decade, influencing everyone who had anything to do with the world of music. Who could fail to pick up on the rhythmic celebration of Earth Wind & Fire’s amazing ‘Boogie Wonderland’, the raw energy of Shirley & Company’s ‘Shame, Shame, Shame’, or the plain excitement of ‘Boogie Oogie Oogie’ by A Taste Of Honey, to name just a few of the dance classics included on this collection? No less than 14 of the tracks on this disc peaked at #1 on the pop and/or R&B chart, which also goes some way to prove how significant those songs were at the time. But even more astounding is the fact that three decades later these rhythmic confections sound just as fresh and irresistible as they did when they first enticed dancers to get up and boogie. They guaranteed a great party then – and still do today!

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