Episode 9: 70's Disco

70's Disco Spotify Playlist

Put on your bell-bottom jeans and platform shoes and go to the Disco this week.  

Transcript

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Welcome to Mixtapes of Today, Episode 9. I am your host, Suze Jones. This week we are going to the Discotech. So break out your bell bottom jeans and platform shoes and step back in the 70s with me. Disco is a genre of dance-oriented pop music that emerged in the late 60s and peaked in the mid to late 1970s. It's characterized by a four-on-the-floor beat, syncopated bass lines, and lavish orchestration, meshing the electric guitar sound and layers of orchestra strings and horns to create a unique disco sound. Originating from urban life, disco dancing became a global cultural phenomenon, particularly in the club scenes of the larger cities like New York City and Philadelphia. It evolved from funk, soul, and Latin rhythms as a reaction to the ever-changing pop music, gaining massive popularity through the 1970s. Pop and rock music continues to be influenced by disco and the elaborate studio productions of music through the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and our current decade. I have 10 tracks for you this week from the 70s disco era. There is an endless list of disco songs to choose from, so I am queuing up some of my favorites. Some are popular and you'll already know, and some you may not be as familiar with. So check out my Spotify link in the description. Track 1. The Brothers Gibb, later marketed as the Bee Gees, were a popular group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio was especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in the disco music era in the mid to late 1970s. The group sang recognizable three-part harmonies, with Robin and his clear vibrato lead vocals, were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's RB falsetto became their signature sound during the mid to late 1970s and 1980s. The group wrote all their own original materials, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists, and are regarded as one of the most important and influential acts in pop music history. The song Stayin' Alive was part of the soundtrack for the 1977 movie Saturday Night Fever. Participating in that soundtrack was a turning point in their career. The cultural impact of both the film and the soundtrack was significant throughout the world and epitomized the disco phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

unknown 3:40

Somebody help me nowhere, somebody help me.

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But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong, and I grew strong, and I learned how to get along with so you're back from out of face. I just walked in to find you here with that bad look upon your face.

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Gloria Gaynor is an American singer, best known for the disco-era hits worldwide. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1943, she grew up in a very musical household, but she was not allowed to sing with her brother's all-male singing group at the time, so no one really knew that she wanted to sing or even that she could sing. She spent years singing in nightclubs in Newark, where she was recommended to a local band by a neighbor, and then she was discovered and signed to Columbia Records in 1971. I Will Survive was released in October 1978 by Polydor Records as the second single from her sixth album, Love Tracks. I Will Survive received heavy airplay in 1979. When Gaynor was asked what kind of music she liked, she said she liked songs that are meaningful, have good lyrics, and touch people's hearts.

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Now I'm saving all my love and for someone who's loving me. Going out, go walk out the door. Just turn around now. You're not a welcome anymore. Weren't you the one who tried to break me with your vibe?

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You think I throw Track three Disco Inferno by the Tramps. The band's first major success was their 1972 cover version of Zing with the Strings of My Heart, while the first disco track they released was Love Epidemic in 1973. However, they are best known for their song Disco Inferno, which was included on the Grammy winning Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. The song was originally recorded by the Tramps in 1976 and released as a single. It was inspired by the 1974 blockbuster film The Towering Inferno, in which a party in a top-floor ballroom is threatened by a fire that breaks out below. Disco Inferno gained much greater recognition when the nearly 11-minute album version was included on Saturday Night Fever's soundtrack. In 1974, ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden with their song Waterloo, where they got their breakthrough. Dancing Queen was released as the lead single from their fourth studio album, Arrival, in 1976. It was released as a single in Sweden in August of '76, followed by a UK release and the rest of Europe. It was a worldwide hit and is widely considered to be the band's signature song and a perfect disco style song. It became ABBA's only number one hit in the United States and topped the charts of 15 other countries, entering the top five and various others. The song gained a resurgence of popularity from the release of the song in the 2008 movie Mamma Mia, and then again the 2018 sequel Mamma Mia Here We Go Again soundtrack, both performed by the movie cast members. Casey and the Sunshine Band are an American disco and funk band that was founded in 1973 in Hyaleah, Florida. Started by Harry Wayne Casey, who was a record store employee and part-timer at TK Records in Hyaleah. The band was originally called Casey and the Sunshine Junkanoo Band because Casey used studio musicians from TK and a local junkanoo band called the Miami Junkanoo Band. And their first few singles in 1974 went well enough overseas that they had a great following in Florida as well on the pop radio stations. The release of the self-titled second album, KC and the Sunshine Band, in 1975 spawned the group's first major U.S. hit with Get Down Tonight. It topped the RB chart in April and hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in August.

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Please don't talk about sweet love.

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Please don't talk about being true. And all the we've been through. Ah, please don't talk about all the plans we had for fixing this Baroque romance.

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Alicia Bridges is an American singer and songwriter, born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1953 and raised in the small Cleveland county town of Laundale. Bridges sang from a very young age, learning to play guitar at the age of 10. At the age of 12, she had her own radio program, The Alicia Bridges Show. From age 13, Bridges fronted bands that performed in local clubs. Bridges first recorded for the Nashville-based Mega Records with two 1973 single releases of her own original material, which lacked any success. Bridges moved to Polydor in 1977 and released her self-titled album. Bridges and her songwriting partner, Susan Hutcheson, had written a song entitled Disco Round, which at Buckingham, the producer's suggestion, was recorded as I Love the Nightlife, as Buckingham felt that the song was RB rather than disco. However, disco club support was a key factor in the success of the track, spending 27 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 with a peak of number five. Their music spans multiple genres, including jazz, RB, soul, funk, disco, pop, Latin, and Afropop. They are among the best-selling bands of all times, with sales of over 90 million records worldwide. Boogie Wonderland, performed by Earthwind and Fire, along with the girl group The Emotions, was released in April 1979 on Columbia Records as the first single from their ninth album, I Am in 1979. The song peaked at number 14 on the U.S. Billboard Dance Chart, number 6 on the Hot 100, and number 2 on Billboard Hot Soul Singles. The song was composed by Allie Willis and John Lind and produced by Earth Wind and Fire band member Maurice White and Al McKay. Boogie Wonderland described in the song is a magical place, but the lyrics also focus on the dreary reality from which Discos provided an escape. The song creates a general vibe of escapism and begins with the unpleasant aftermath of a night out that made life better, but for only a few hours. Born and raised in Boston, Summer dropped out of high school before graduating and began her career as the lead singer of a blues rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. In 1968, she met music producers Giorgio Marauder and Pete Bellotti and released her first album, The European Market Only, Lady of the Night, in 1974. Hot Stuff is a song written by Pete Bellotti, Harold Faltemeyer, and Keith Forcy, released as the lead single from her seventh studio album, Bad Girls, in 1979. Hot Stuff has a strong RB soulish feel, along with a fiery vocal performance from Donna Summer. Up to that point, Summer had mainly been associated with disco songs, but this song also showed a significant rock direction, including a guitar solo by ex-doobie brother and Steely Dan guitarist Jeff Skunk Baxter. It is the second of four songs by Summer to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The group began in the early 70s when members of several backup bands from the Watts and Inglewood area of Los Angeles united under the name Total Concept Unlimited. In 1973, this collective toured England and Japan, behind Motown's sole star Edwin Starr. Starr introduced them to Norman Whitfield, who took them under his wing and signed them under his label. Then the group was called Magic Wand. Gwen Dickey joined the band and they gave her the stage name of Rose Norwaite. During this time, Whitfield was offered the opportunity to score a film called Car Wash. Whitfield would use the film to launch his new group and began composing music based on the script outlines. In the spirit of the soundtrack, the band's name was changed one final time to Rose Royce. The movie Car Wash and the soundtrack were great successes. Reaching number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Soul singles charts, Car Wash also peaked at number three on the National Disco Action Top 30 chart and reached number nine on the UK singles chart in February 1977. Track 10 and the final track this week, YMCA by the Village People. French musical composer and producer Jacques Morale and his business partner Henry Bellello, known collectively as Can't Stop Productions, were enjoying a successful string of hits in France and Europe. In 1977, they moved to New York City to attempt to break into the American market. YMCA was written by Jacques Morale and singer Victor Willis and released in October 1978 by Casablanca Records as the only single from their third. Studio album Cruising. YMCA spent six weeks at number one on the Billboard Dance Electronic Digital Song Sales Chart. The song remains popular and is played at many parties and sporting events in the US and Europe, with crowds joining in on the dance by spelling out the four letters of the song's title via arm movements. YMCA was a hit around the world, going to number one on the charts in over 15 countries, and its ongoing popularity in almost 50 years is evidence that despite the naysayers, disco has never truly died. This concludes this episode of Mixtapes of Today. 10 tracks from the 70s disco era, and hopefully you got your groove on. Please check out the Spotify playlist link in the description. Thank you for listening to Mixtapes of Today. We will be back next week. Talk to you soon.

unknown 23:20

It's fun to stay at the MCA. Who can have a good meal? Who can do whatever you feel?