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Liner Notes
The Disco Box
$59.98
50 ESSENTIAL DISCO ALBUMS
Kool & The Gang: Wild And Peaceful (De-Lite, 1973)
Snap-back rhythm and sexplosive horn moans ("Funky Stuff," "More Funky Stuff") progress to boogie downs and chanted, outdoor music ("Jungle Boogie," "Hollywood Swinging"). Show-band R&B hadn't turned rooms upside down this excitedly since James Brown.
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Mercury)
Love Unlimited: Under The Influence Of . . . (20th Century, 1973)
Lots of DJs received a commemorative gold album for helping make Under The Influence Of . . . go #1. They had been seduced immediately by "Love's Theme" segue into the title track. "It May Be Winter Outside (But In My Heart It's Spring)" and "Oh Love, Well We Finally Made It" are near-greatest hits. (BC)
Current Availability: Greatest Hits (Mercury/Chronicles)
B.T. Express: Do It ('Til You're Satisfied) (Roadshow, 1974)
The great rhythm album of the year, an extended night-train's run through the city: driving-wheel rhythms; glistening guitars; Barbara Joyce's husky, smart voice; and Trade Martin's uncommonly phrased horns. Randy Muller's strings are a delight one doesn't expect to hear in funk as tough as "Express."
Current Availability: The Best Of B.T. Express (Rhino)
Isaac Hayes: Truck Turner (Original Soundtrack) (Enterprise/Stax, 1974); Chocolate Chip (HBS, 1975)
One Turner track is crucial to club disco: "Pursuit Of The Pimpmobile." More than nine minutes of guitar vamps, string section, big band melody, and high-hat. In Chocolate Chip's title track, "Body Language," and "I Can't Turn Around," Hayes is a kind of bearish Fred Astaire, responding to dark, forceful body talk.
Current Availability: Double FEATURE: Music From The Soundtracks Of Three Tough Guys & Truck Turner (Stax/Fantasy); Chocolate Chip: out of print
LaBelle: Nightbirds (Epic, 1974)
Dangerous but also a celebration for these divas of fantasy. "Lady Marmalade," the year's catchiest come-on; their romance dances--"What Can I Do For You?," "You Turn Me On," and "Space Children" seem to be idealism at its most sublime.
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Epic)
The Jimmy Castor Bunch: Butt Of Course (Atlantic, 1974)
Castor's New York boogaloo uses electric piano and synthesizer as dual rhythm instruments. His keyboard work makes "E-Man Boogie" flutter as well as "Bertha Butt Boogie - Part 1," comically supported by his Mr. Bass Man voice.
Current Availability: The Everything Man: The Best Of The Jimmy Castor Bunch (Rhino)
Ecstasy, Passion & Pain: Ecstasy, Passion And Pain (Roulette, 1974)
Philly master arranger Bobby Martin (Manhattans, LTD) produced danceable soul classics for the testifying Barbara Roy: "Ask Me," "Good Things Don't Last Forever," and "I Wouldn't Give You Up" are all among the records the earliest clubgoers remember most fondly.
Current Availability: "I Wouldn't Give You Up": Sisters From The City (Sequel/U.K.)
The Trammps: The Trammps (Golden Fleece/CBS, 1975)
Their most romantic album: so luscious, soft, and smoochy. Jimmy Ellis' full-length croon in "Where Do We Go From Here" and "Trusting Heart" promises plenty of empathy. Best of all is "Stop And Think," so gentle it feels like a best friend putting an arm around you.
Current Availability: This Is Where The Happy People Go: The Best Of The Trammps (Rhino)
Barry White: Barry White's Greatest Hits (20th Century, 1975)
Barry White changes the odor, texture, and temperature of the atmosphere his music sweeps through. Song titles like "You're The First, The Last, My Everything," "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love Babe," and "Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up" function as commentary on how White feels when he's dreaming about kissing you.
Current Availability: Just For You (3-CD box set); All-Time Greatest Hits (Mercury/Chronicles)
KC & The Sunshine Band: KC & The Sunshine Band (TK, 1975)
Funk and pop never married so perfectly and feverishly as in "Get Down Tonight" and "That's The Way (I Like It)." "I Get Lifted" and "Ain't Nothin' Wrong" were hidden gems for samplers.
Current Availability: The Best Of KC & The Sunshine Band (Rhino)
Disco-Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes: Disco Tex & His Sex-O-Lettes (Chelsea, 1975)
Campy disco auteurs Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan's friends cast as chorus girlies. Also invited: campy disco emcee Sir Monti Rock III, doing Disco-Tex as a limp-wristed Louis Prima.
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Collectables)
Jackson 5: Moving Violation (Motown, 1975)
Easy and assured as Michael sings it, "Forever Came Today" is a novel concept for Motown: having an all-boys group cover a girl group. What's diva style got to do with young boys? Just the tasty thrill of showing off, new clothes, new tempos, plus Michael twisting the title as if his voice were his hips.
Current Availability: Soulsation! 25th Anniversary Collection (4-CD box set) (Motown)
Gloria Gaynor: Never Can Say Goodbye (MGM, 1975)
Gaynor wears her voice like a big ego. So how could she not become the first queen of disco? The 18-minute segued A-side is a first, but don't overlook the B. "False Alarm" and "Real Good People" have all the dressy intensity she imparts to the highest octaves.
Current Availability: I Will Survive: The Anthology (Polydor/Chronicles)
Various: Disco Gold; Disco Gold Volume 2 (Scepter, 1975, 1976)
Volume 1 witnesses the birth of disco in songs full of wonder, joy, and magic ("Wan Tu Wah Zuree," "Make Me Believe In You," "We're On The Right Track"); in Volume 2's "Chinese Kung Fu," "El Bimbo," "Undecided Love," and "Waterbed," voices come second. Rhythm's the thing, and what rhythms! A Tom Moulton Mix, in its entirety.
Current Availability: both albums reissued on CD (Hot)
Sister Sledge: Circle Of Love (Cotillion, 1975)
Producers Tony Silvester and Bert deCoteaux outdo themselves with two songs: "Circle Of Love" is Kathy Sledge's chance to discover her body, and "Love Don't Go Through No Changes On Me" is her realization that it's frightening to be a slave to someone's love.
Current Availability: album reissued on CD; The Best Of Sister Sledge (Rhino)
Salsoul Orchestra: The Salsoul Orchestra (Salsoul, 1975)
DJs will like the selective cuing of the vocals because the instrumental makes for fail-safe segues. Dancers will like the suggestive oohing ("You're Just The Right Size") foreplay come-ons ("Chicago Bus Stop (Ooh, I Love It)") and Brazil-isms ("Tangerine").
Current Availability: The Salsoul Orchestra Anthology (The Right Stuff)
Silver Convention: Save Me (Midland International, 1975)
These three angels sound like The Three Degrees, except that around them, there's nothing but skimpy melody and a lithe string section doing rhythm guitar's work. The lyrics are one-liner kiss-me's: "Fly, Robin, Fly," "I Like It," "Save Me," and "Tiger Baby"--words that scamper around the music like a flirt's scent.
Current Availability: Silver Convention Greatest Hits (Unidisc/Canada)
The Trammps: Where The Happy People Go (Atlantic, 1976)
Never has Philly disco assembled such a torrent of choir's crescendos and string section symphonies. If party-time with all your friends around is what disco means to you, then "That's Where The Happy People Go," a huge wave, and "Disco Party," a fast slip-slide, are your anthems; and "Soul Searchin' Time," a worried rush of rhythm, is your rock blues.
Current Availability: This Is Where The Happy People Go: The Best Of The Trammps (Rhino)
Candi Staton: Young Hearts Run Free (Warner Bros., 1976)
Staton's voice does just about everything danceable that Chaka Khan's does not with its shy intensity and smooth middle range. Staton's recalcitrant sighs and David Crawford's silver rhythms hold up mirrors to one another in "Run To Me," "Young Hearts Run Free," and "Destiny."
Current Availability: The Best Of Candi Staton (Warner Archives)
Loleatta Holloway: Loleatta (Gold Mind/Salsoul, 1976)
Holloway's third album explodes in earthy shouts, soaring screams, and happy howls when the glory of sex hits her ("Dreamin'," "Hit And Run") and turns sultry and full of warmth when her soprano speaks softly. "Worn Out Broken Heart" is the mother of all crying songs.
Current Availability: Greatest Hits (The Right Stuff)
Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band: Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band (RCA, 1976)
August Darnell, Stony Browder Jr., and Sandy Linzer recreate 1940s rumba nights with Cory Daye as Celia Cruz, Don Armando Bonilla as Mongo Santamaria, and Andy Hernandez and Mickey Sevilla as a swinging rhythm section. Very Broadway with the finesse and that's-life details of the lyrics in "Cherchez La Femme," "I'll Play the Fool," and "Hard Times."
Current Availability: album reissued on CD; Greatest Hits (RCA)
Cloud One: Atmosphere Strutt (P&P, 1976)
Patrick Adams' flutes and keyboards shriek and squeal like little girls splashing in wading pools in "Disco Juice" and "Spaced Out." Miragelike, you can hear the voices of dancers singing the title jingle, as if its giddy insignificance were love potion #9. In disco, it is.
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Hot)
Ashford & Simpson: So So Satisfied; Send It (Warner Bros., 1977)
Every song is a gospel glory-of-love hymn: the fast songs blaze with a super-sexy thump-and-roll. The titles, "Tried, Tested And Found True," "So So Satisfied," and "Couldn't Get Enough," say it all, as great songwriting triumphs over average singing. Extra treat: "Bourgie Bourgie," their contribution to the satin, upscale swish of "The Hustle."
Current Availability: both albums reissued on CD (Warner Bros.)
First Choice: Delusions (Gold Mind, 1977)
Rochelle Fleming warms up to the lusty, slick, and slippery rhythm of "Doctor Love," and makes "Let No Man Put Asunder" a throaty and desperate diva workout. This is the group that taught Gloria Gaynor how to torch.
Current Availability: Greatest Hits (The Right Stuff)
Love And Kisses: Love And Kisses (Casablanca, 1977)
Alec Costandinos' hotel ballroom disco erases everything between romantic gestures and the dancer. The roseate sweetness of "I Found Love" resolves the tougher flamenco fervor of "Accidental Lover" into one soft break after another.
Current Availability: Greatest Hits (Unidisc/Canada); also includes Romeo And Juliet
Grace Jones: Portfolio (Island, 1977)
Jones sings at a distance from her music ("Tomorrow," "La Vie En Rose"), as if disrespecting it, and therefore, you, the dancer. Like a wig queen with too much makeup and too many sequins, Jones' femininity is done all wrong--which is why it feels like fun.
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Island)
Cerrone: Love In C Minor (Cotillion, 1977)
Sounds like disco Mozart, sort of: light strings, theatrical counterrhythm, and thump. The rhythm highlights the raunch--don't-stop, keep-it-going, and gimme-more.
Current Availability: out of print
Chic: Chic (Atlantic, 1977)
"Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" has it all: disco's mythic history, a rhythm that shudders as it shuffles, flirtatious atmosphere, and plenty of time. Also fine: the show-yourself moves of "Everybody Dance" and bossa nova vibe in "You Can Get By." Smooth moves, sexy glow--that's disco!
Current Availability: The Best Of Chic, Volume 2 (Rhino)
Village People: Village People (Casablanca, 1977)
America's collective horrified gasp never occurred because the third album's "Y.M.C.A." made the Village People cartoons. But on this first album, they were really the dancing, cruising, sex-having gay men you might encounter in "San Francisco (You've Got Me)," "Fire Island," and "In Hollywood (Everybody Is A Star)."
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Mercury)
Voyage: Voyage; Fly Away (Marlin, 1978)
The most virtuosic Eurodisco albums of the period: muscular rhythm, vast orchestral soundstage, razor-sharp arrangements. If "Souvenirs" and "From East To West" are just textbook Euro, let's see you follow their blueprint.
Current Availability: Greatest Hits (Hot/U.S.; Unidisc/Canada)
Michael Zager Band: Let's All Chant (Private Stock, 1977)
Wild disco whoops and street jive meet unstoppable bass riffing and clever jazz/classical counterpoint in "Let's All Chant" and "Love Express." Recent compilation also includes the heart-stopping Cissy Houston cowritten "Think It Over" and "Warning-Danger."
Current availability: The Michael Zager Collection (Varese Sarabande)
Santa Esmeralda starring Leroy Gomez: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Casablanca, 1977)
A rock purist's nightmare. French studio habitués strap garage rock and blues to disco's insatiable pulse. They leaven the noise of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and "Gloria" down to gypsy jazz. As costume drama, trash becomes triumph.
Current Availability: Best Of Santa Esmeralda: You're My Everything (Hot)
Various: Philadelphia Classics (Philadelphia International, 1977)
Tom Moulton's remixes present orchestrated rhythm music at its most optimistic. The lyrically definitive "Love Train," "Bad Luck," "I'll Always Love My Mama," and "TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)" were disco's body and soul--style and swoosh in the same move.
Current availability: album reissued on CD (Philadelphia International)
Linda Clifford: If My Friends Could See Me Now (Curtom, 1978)
With If My Friends, Clifford, unlike many, has a full album's staying power. Credit arranger Gil Askey for orchestrations that accelerate Clifford's hectoring midrange voice to top speed. And note her tasty touch in "Runaway Love."
Current Availability: Greatest Hits (Unidisc/Canada)
Cerrone: Cerrone 3 - Supernature (Cotillion, 1978)
The A-side's "Supernature"/"Sweet Drums"/"In The Smoke" suite is one of a kind: disco rhythms, art-rock noise, and symphonic extension so casually segued into one another that the various sounds find themselves adrift but free to mingle.
Current Availability: Atlantic Dance Classics (Turnstyle/Atlantic)
Sylvester: Step II (Fantasy, 1978)
Sylvester and Harvey Fuqua's R&B and soul got a head-turning synthesizer overlay from Patrick Cowley in the historic and unforgettable "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" and "Dance (Disco Heat)." Also: "Grateful," which we should be.
Current Availability: The Original Hits (Fantasy)
Hamilton Bohannon: Summertime Groove (Mercury, 1978)
"Let's Start The Dance" and "Me And The Gang" are happier than Bohannon's Brunswick sides, thanks to Caroline Crawford's vibrant singing. As she puts it: I wanna say something strong to you...
Current Availability: The Very Best Of Bohannon: Funky, Wicked & Smooth (Rhino)
Gregg Diamond Bionic Boogie: Hot Butterfly (Polydor, 1978)
Alongside the hit-and-run bawdiness of "Chains" and "Cream (Always Rises To The Top)" comes sensuous soul sung by Luther Vandross into the title tune's portrait of a night girl. And then David Lasley's samba diva performance in "Paradise." Joyous laughter with rhythmic tickle.
Current Availability: "Hot Butterfly," "Chains," "Cream" (Unidisc CD-5/Canada); PolyGram compilation in development
Beautiful Bend: Beautiful Bend (Marlin, 1978)
Only an art-rocker could make concept-disco as imagistic as Boris Midney. Beats as hard as V-8 pistons orbit crystalline rainbows of melody: very spatial, seductive but intellectual, even nerdy. In "Boogie Motion" and "Make That Feeling Come Again," the music feels less like lasciviousness and more like abstraction.
Current Availability: "Boogie Motion": The Disco Years, Volume 5: Must Be The Music (Rhino)
Sister Sledge: We Are Family (Cotillion, 1979)
All Chic, and no problem. Most personal to lead singer Kathy Sledge are the boy-watching "He's The Greatest Dancer" and "Lost In Music," in which she finds she's willed herself a new life.
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Rhino)
Diana Ross: The Boss (Motown, 1979)
Ashford & Simpson force Ross to walk some tough, fast, happy beats and sing with a lot of wiggle ("No One Gets The Prize," "It's My House"). "I Ain't Been Licked" is true to her situation. Suddenly, it's Ross' voice, again, giving her songs rhythms of fever.
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Motown)
Taana Gardner: Taana Gardner (West End, 1979)
If you let your feet follow DJ Larry Levan's mixes, you'll feel how ready Gardner is to apply her nervous little whine to where it hurts. In "Work That Body" and "When You Touch Me," the body action is so instinctive, the voice so bodacious.
Current Availability: The West End Story, Volumes 1 and 2 (Unidisc/Canada)
France Joli: France Joli (Prelude, 1979)
Fifteen-year-old Joli is every inch the teen princess acting all dressed-up for her big chance. She has a ball playing goddess of desire in "Come To Me," as if living the disco life were the easiest, most exciting after-school recreation she and her friends could possibly imagine.
Current Availability: Come To Me (Unidisc/Canada)
Direct Current: Direct Current (TEC Records, 1979)
Whether they're looking for a hot guy ("Sweet Release"), shouting a get-on-up ("Everybody Here Must Party"), slanging and bragging ("Nothing Can Stop Us"), or pouring on sunny pop ("Boogie Man"), the Clement sisters sing their way into the house-party hall of fame.
Current Availability: out of print
Tantra: The Double Album (Importe/12, 1980)
Dream disco at its dreamiest, as Italy's Celso Valli spins Braziliana, Afro-chants, electro-Kraftwerk, angel's choirs, rock noise spurts, flutey jazz dances, and love-and-kisses pretty pop into his private planetarium of delirium. In "Hills Of Katmandu," it's hard not to be intoxicated by the sheer aural lust.
Current Availability: out of print
Change: The Glow Of Love (Warner Bros./RFC, 1980)
The slender stripe of rhythm guitar that walks Luther Vandross through the title track makes a kind of tea for two, and the magic carpet bass ride of "Searching" carries him to his love girl so smoothly it feels more like weightless hovering than forward motion. Plus "A Lover's Holiday."
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Warner Bros.)
Kano: Kano (Emergency, 1980)
What really melts the sophisticated heart here is the naïveté. Kano's guys sing "It's A War" as if war were a fun dance, then hand-clap "I'm Ready" and "Now Baby Now" like beach bingo. Definitive, however, is "Ahjia," announcing that "everything is music." Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Unidisc/Canada)
Diana Ross: Diana (Motown, 1980)
Produced by Chic's Rodgers & Edwards, Diana sounds alive, young, restless, and glad about it. The almost cubist abstraction of her joys ("Upside Down," "I'm Coming Out," "Give Up") just about break down her fancy image. In other words, she really means "Have Fun (Again)."
Current Availability: album reissued on CD (Motown)
Giorgio Moroder: From Here To Eternity . . . And Back (Casablanca, 1985)
The title suite is a fully realized rhythm drama, and "Evolution" re-creates the mystery, cruelty, and waywardness suggested by the topic--after which Moroder's synthesizer rekindles peacefulness.
Current Availability: out of print; PolyGram compilation in development
Donna Summer: The Donna Summer Anthology (Casablanca/Chronicles, 1993)
Donna Summer's career is itself a catalog of European disco styles, from the extended slow grind of "Love To Love You Baby" to the futurism of "I Feel Love," from the pop rock of "Bad Girls" to "This Time I Know It's For Real"--pop-disco of a sort she'd oddly never made previously.
Current Availability: as above, plus individual albums in print on CD
--Michael Freedberg
