The 1977 film 'Saturday Night Fever', in which John Travolta starred as angry Brooklyn youth Tony Manero whose life revolves around dancing, signaled the point where Disco became main-stream. Helped in no small part by a Grammy award winning soundtrack by The Bee Gees, the film, and the Disco phenomenon, went global and the world saw a huge demand for disco records, disco fashions and disco equipment. But disco had been around for many years before.
It is widely accepted that the first club nights that played what we call disco music appeared in New York in the early 1970's. Although the disco equipment used at the time was not that dissimilar to that used by DJs playing other types of music. These clubs and club nights played exclusively dance music which encompassed rhythm and blues, soul and funk. It was therefore inevitable that disco music gravitated towards these venues and flourished.
In 1972 Manu Dibango released the single 'Soul Makossa'. It received favorable radio play and copies were bought by club DJs who recognized its potential to fill dance floors. From these early beginnings as an underground movement, disco took. By 1974 it was a recognized genre with its own fashion, language and etiquette. Radio stations started broadcasting under the disco banner and sales of disco equipment increased as its popularity spread.
Disco was heavily influenced by the soul sounds coming out of cities like Philadelphia and New York and by Berry Gordy's Motown record label in Detroit. The speed with which disco seemed to emerge from the 1960's soul scene was helped by new recording techniques which were pioneered by a new breed of record producer. These new producers, including people like Mel Cheren and Marvin Schlachter, embraced new technology and found a new freedom in producing records and pushing the boundaries of recording and disco equipment.
Disco was liberating without being overtly political. Of course, the liberation has a political current that can be traced retrospectively, but unlike folk music and folk influenced rock music, the message was the medium. Disco was dance music at its most fundamental. It was stripped of all baggage, with the sole intention of getting people to dance together in clubs.
Disco is the point when DJs and DJing became bigger than the sum of its parts. Disco became an experience more than any dance music movement before it. There had always been fashions and styles connected to music but with disco, there was a bigger package. Flashing lights, glitter balls, big speakers and amplifiers and all manner of disco equipment became an important part of the disco statement.
So when John Travolta, twenty foot high on the silver screen, walked down the street to the strains of The Bee Gees singing 'You can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man' everything was in place for disco to become the musical sensation that we now know it as.
When people criticize disco this is one of the aspects that they always mention. This apparent 'style over substance' approach to music and performance was seen as juvenile by many and its apparent lack of a political manifesto, however small, upset many who thought music should stand for something other than hedonism. Of course they were missing the point. Disco was able to happen because of changes in politics and society and had repercussions that are still felt today.
Say DJ to anyone nowadays and the chances are the image that will be conjured up is of a dance floor lit up with strobes, colored lights and a gliiter ball. The image owes everything to disco.
Dominic Donaldson is an expert in the disco equipment industry.
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