On this volume of Disco Fever we are treated to yet another helping of disco delicacies from the tantalizing smorgasbord of Seventies and early Eighties dance music. Major hits are rubbing shoulders with songs that may have charted a little lower, but which were still popular on the dance floor.

Among the most successful writer/producer teams of the disco era were of course Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. Any disco collection worth its salt must feature several Rodgers/Edwards songs, and this volume of Disco Fever certainly provides a selection of their very best tracks. From their own group, Chic, we get the fantastic ‘I Want Your Love’, a #7 pop and #5 R&B hit in 1979, released as the follow-up single to the spectacularly successful ‘Le Freak’. Reportedly, the song was originally conceived as a track for Sister Sledge, with whom Rodgers & Edwards collaborated the same year. The couple’s song writing and production for the female quartet resulted in the platinum album We Are Family, one of those albums where each and every track could have been a single. The third single from the album – after ‘He’s The Greatest Dancer’ and the title track – was ‘Lost In Music’, which peaked at #35 on the R&B chart and did even better on the other side of the Atlantic, reaching the UK Top 20.

With the success enjoyed by Rodgers & Edwards, naturally they eventually started working with artists from outside the dance music field, one example being their collaboration with Carly Simon. One of the most famous singer/songwriters of the Seventies, Simon is probably most famous for her 1972 #1 hit single ‘You’re So Vain’ and also for her lead vocal on the 1977 James Bond theme ‘Nobody Does It Better’ (from The Spy Who Loved Me). In 1982 she supplied the vocals for yet another movie-related song. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards had been enlisted to provide the soundtrack for a movie entitled Soup For One. The lead-off single from the project was ‘Why’, featuring Carly Simon. Although the single only managed a #74 position on the pop chart at the time, it has since been recognized as one of the high-points in the Rodgers/Edwards oeuvre, being sampled a number of times.

While we’re on the subject of sampling, perhaps one of the most famous examples of this art-form is the oft-used ‘Love Sensation’ by Loleatta Holloway. The singer first appeared on the R&B chart in 1973, scoring her biggest hit with the Top Ten ballad ‘Cry To Me’ in 1975. By the late Seventies, Holloway was recording for Salsoul, one of the most famous disco labels. Around the same time she also contributed the female lead parts on Dan Hartman’s classic ‘Relight My Fire’. Hartman reciprocated by writing and producing the explosive ‘Love Sensation’, which was released in 1980. Surprisingly, in light of its retrospective fame, the song failed to show up on the pop and R&B charts. ‘Love Sensation’ only began getting the wide recognition it deserved almost a decade after its original release, when it was sampled for the song ‘Ride On Time’ by the Italian disco group Black Box. Although that recording didn’t chart in the US, it was a massive hit all over Europe in 1989, albeit with no credit whatsoever to the much-chagrined Loleatta Holloway. Then, in 1991 – and probably as a result of its exposure in ‘Ride On Time’ – the song was sampled again for a rap number called ‘Good Vibrations’. This time Ms Holloway’s contribution was fully acknowledged, as the song was credited to Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch Featuring Loleatta Holloway. The result was #1 pop hit in October 1991.

The year 1980, when ‘Love Sensation’ was originally released, was also when Gladys Knight & The Pips enjoyed an R&B hit with ‘Bourgie, Bourgie’. However, the song had originally been recorded by its composers, the remarkable duo of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. Originally achieving their breakthrough in the music business as song writers – their first hit came with Ray Charles’ recording of ‘Let’s Go Get Stoned’, after which they went on to write a number of classic Motown songs such as ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ – by 1973, the duo established themselves as the recording act Ashford & Simpson. Their 1977 Gold album, Send It, gave them their first real taste of success as performers, and it was there that ‘Bourgie, Bourgie’ first appeared in its original instrumental form, giving the duo a club hit.

On the funkier side of the spectrum on this disc are Kool & The Gang. Formed in the mid-Sixties as a jazz outfit, they released their debut album in 1969. The band immediately scored a number of single hits, some of which featured in the Top 20 on the R&B chart. Their first major success on the pop chart came with the Top Five hit ‘Jungle Boogie’, found elsewhere in the Disco Fever collection. Their follow-up single, ‘Hollywood Swinging’ – featured on the present disc – gave Kool & The Gang their very first #1 R&B hit in June 1974. The group’s chart success would build up throughout the decade, continuing well into the Eighties; their final hit on the R&B chart to date appeared in 1989.

Another group putting the emphasis on dance-friendly funk were K.C. & The Sunshine Band, whose string of five number one hits on the pop chart are equaled by few other acts of the disco era. Their contribution to this volume of Disco Fever, ‘Keep It Comin’ Love’, peaked just a notch below the top position on the pop chart, but gave the band their fourth and final R&B chart-topper in September 1977. The creation of the song itself could in some respects be said to have been generated by the band’s previous success, as its conception was sparked by the energy exchanged between artists and audience while the band was out on tour. “I looked out over the crowd and was thinking about what it was like to be in love,” Harry Wayne “KC” Casey told author Christopher G. Feldman, “and from touring I saw a lot of love out there.”

Vocal group The Spinners managed an impressive chart run throughout the Seventies and also for the first few years of the Eighties, notching up a total of six number one R&B hits. Having enjoyed a massive hit in early 1980 with their medley of ‘Working My Way Back To You/Forgive Me, Girl’ – available elsewhere in the Disco Fever collection – the group followed that with a similar concoction: a modernized version of a Sixties hit, coupled with a new song by their producer, Michael Zager, all supported by a relentless disco beat. In this case, Sam Cooke’s 1961 Top 20 pop hit, ‘Cupid’, was combined to form a medley with Zager’s ‘I’ve Loved You For A Long Time’. The result was a #5 R&B and #4 pop hit in 1980, The Spinners’ fifth biggest hit on the pop chart.

Perhaps the most famous disco artist of them all, Donna Summer, makes a welcome appearance on this volume of Disco Fever. The lead-off single and title track of her then-current compilation album, ‘On The Radio’, was a #5 pop and #9 R&B success. The album was an even bigger hit, reaching number one on the album chart and achieving double platinum status.

Hitting the charts in early 1980, ‘On The Radio’ came towards the end of the spectacularly successful years of intense collaboration between Summer and producer Giorgio Moroder – the song was even a co-write between the pair. As their final album together was released later in the year, somewhat symbolically it seemed to signal the end of the disco era. But ‘On The Radio’ and all the other songs on this disc were destined to live on, and are just as dance-friendly today as they were when they first helped fill the world’s dance floors.

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