“Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever,” “More Than A Woman”… here was disco’s high-water mark.
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1 “You Should Be Dancing.” Disco had ushered in a new phase of the group’s career and, in return, Bee Gees gave disco much of its enduring soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever, songs that made a downbeat 1977 movie an unanticipated smash. Further disco material populated their 1976 album, Children Of The World, which boasted the US No. This was not audio junk food: these were highly accomplished records with an evident understanding of the genre. In 1975 they cut Main Course, an album that delivered two hits, “Jive Talkin’” and “Nights On Broadway.” Their remarkable one-size-fits-all material had been heavily covered by soul singers such as Al Green (“How Can You Mend A Broken Heart”) and Nina Simone (“To Love Somebody,” initially intended for Otis Redding), so they were no strangers to groove. Chart fixtures since the second half of the 60s, the group were looking to retain their prominence as the 70s drew to a close. It was a perfectly logical move for the brothers Gibb. The most obvious example were three Mancunians with Australian accents: Bee Gees. It was only a matter of time before white pop bands decided to turn their hands to it.
The charts filled with music driven by four bass-drum thuds to the bar, and, unlike funk, the rougher groove that claimed to be the sound of black rebellion when delivered by the likes of Parliament and James Brown, disco was rhythmically simple to master. While critics raved over rock and the kids wore greasepaint for glam, an audience that was old enough to go clubbing danced to disco. By 1974, Barry White was delivering symphonies of disco-soul for himself and Love Unlimited, and the likes of KC & The Sunshine Band and Gloria Gaynor were cutting music designed for DJs to move the crowds with the minimum of effort. African-American acts such as Hamilton Bohannon (“South Africa Man,” “Disco Stomp”), The O’Jays (“992 Arguments,” “I Love Music”) and Eddie Kendricks (“Keep On Truckin’,“Boogie Down”), to name but a few, produced credible, funky, highly-arranged music aimed at the dancefloor with a disco beat. And never the twain should meet… Except it wasn’t that simple.ĭisco had grown up on the US East Coast, stepping out of black clubs and sneaking up on pop almost unnoticed. There were events where disco records were smashed, much as hellfire preachers shattered rock’n’roll singles in the mid-50s. It’s not often remembered now, but disco-tinged groups such as Bee Gees and ABBA were once the enemy: the birth of disco and the dominance of the four-to-the-floor beat was regarded by some rock fans as a plague on mid-70s music.