Hello party people! put on your dancing shoes and join me for ninety minutes of disco tracks from my music library.
| Title | Artist | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Celebration | Kool & The Gang | Kool & the Gang’s co-founder and sax player Ronald Bell, also known as Khalis Bayyan, was inspired by his religious study, reading the Q’uran passage where God was creating Adam, and the angels were celebrating and singing praises: “’Everyone around the world, come on, celebration’” |
| Boogie Wonderland (ft. The Emotions) | Earth, Wind & Fire | Earth, Wind & Fire’s song “Boogie Wonderland” teamed up with the talented vocal group the Emotions puts every wannabe disco queen or king in the spotlight at parties or discos. Co-writer Allee Willis was known for hosting spectacular parties at her home just outside Hollywood. |
| Alexandrie Alexandra | Claude François | In “Alexandrie Alexandra”, French musician Claude François refers to Egypt where he was born in 1939. While the initial song version had appeared on his album ‘Magnolias for Ever’ in 1977, the single version was released on the day of his funeral in March 1978. Claude François had met Tamla Motown artist Lamont Dozier, who had played the intro of “Going Back to My Roots”, which inspired him to write the melody for “Alexandrie Alexandra”. |
| Going Back To My Roots | Odyssey | “Going Back to My Roots” is a 1977 song by Lamont Dozier. Dozier, after moving to Los Angeles, found himself taking trips to Detroit, where he had his ‘roots’, to see his family and so on.” New York City disco group Odyssey released a cover version of this song in 1981. |
| Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You | Boys Town Gang | “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” is a 1967 song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, and first recorded and released as a single by Gaudio’s Four Seasons bandmate Frankie Valli. In 1982, San Francisco-based post-disco band Boys Town Gang released a dance version of the song. |
| Do You Wanna Funk (ft. Patrick Cowley) | Sylvester | “Do Ya Wanna Funk” is a 1982 dance song recorded by American recording artists Sylvester and Patrick Cowley. It was produced by Cowley, who incidentally died the same year. The song was inspired by “I’m Your Jeanie”, a single by Jeanie Tracy, who was a background vocalist for Sylvester. |
| Disco Samba | Two Man Sound | Two Man Sound was a Belgian pop trio of the 1970s with Lou Deprijck, Sylvain Vanholme (formerly of Wallace Collection) and Yvan Lacomblez. Their style combined the disco music typical of the era with samba and bossa nova. The medley of Brazilian pop songs “Disco Samba” is one of their signature hits released in 1977. Band members Lacomblez and Deprijck were also record producers and songwriters. |
| Dance Classics -The Mix- | Ben Liebrand | Ben Liebrand was a pioneer of mixing and remixing for the dance floor and experimented with all forms of signal processing including pitch-transpose to match the song key back in 1983, filtered tracks and reed relay triggered samples. In 1986 Ben started to make remixes in a tempo other than the original songs tempo. |
| Disco Inferno | The Trammps | The song was originally recorded by the Trammps in 1976 and released as a single. It was supposedly inspired by a scene in the 1974 blockbuster film The Towering Inferno. The nearly 11 minute album version was included on the soundtrack to the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever. |
| You Should Be Dancing | Bee Gees | “You Should Be Dancing”, written and performed by the brothers Gib in 1976, is also one of six songs performed by the Bee Gees included in the Saturday Night Fever movie soundtrack which came out a year later. |
| You’re The First, The Last, My Everything | Barry White | Barry White recorded and produced the song. Peter Radcliffe originally wrote the track as a country song with the title “You’re My First, You’re My Last, My In-Between”, which went unrecorded for 21 years. |
| Its Raining Men | The Weather Girls | The Weather Girls are an American female duo whose best-known line-up comprised Martha Wash and Izora Armstead. Formed in 1976 in San Francisco, California, Wash and Armstead began their musical careers as Two Tons O’ Fun, the female backup duo for disco singer Sylvester. Paul Jabara and Paul Shaffer wrote the song over the course of one afternoon in 1979, intending it for Donna Summer, who had scored a hit with “Last Dance” (1978). However, as Shaffer later recalled, Summer had recently become a born-again Christian and rejected the song as “blasphemous”. The song was then offered to Diana Ross, Cher, and Barbra Streisand, all of whom declined it. |
| You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) | Sylvester | 4The song was originally recorded as a mid-tempo piano-driven gospel song; however, after producer Patrick Cowley saw a rehearsal of the song at San Francisco’s City Club, he offered to remix the song, following closely on “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer which heavily used electronic instrumentation ahead of its time. |
| Born To Be Alive | Patrick Hernandez | Belgian producer Jean Vanloo recycled “Born to be alive”, originally a song of ‘Paris Palace Hôtel’, engaged French singer Patrick Hernandez and suggested to match it to the tempo of Sylvester’s ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’. |
| Cuba | Gibson Brothers | “Cuba” is a 1978 song by French musical group Gibson Brothers. It was written and produced by Daniel Vangarde, and the Belgian producer Jean Kluger. Vangarde is the father of Thomas Bangalter, who is best known as a member of the electronic music duo Daft Punk. He is credited with aiding the duo in their early musical career. |
| Singing In The Rain | Sheila & The Black Devotion | The French Yé-yé artist Sheila (born Annie Chancel in Créteil, France on August 16, 1945) changed her image when she formed Sheila and B. Devotion (also credited as “Sheila B. Devotion”, “Sheila and the Black Devotion” or “S.B. Devotion”) in 1977. |
| We Are Family | Sister Sledge | “We Are Family” was the first song that Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards wrote for any act other than their own band Chic. The chorus (and therefore the title) makes reference to the fact that the group are the four sisters of a family. The lead vocals were recorded in a single take by then-19-year-old Kathy Sledge. |
| Le Freak | Chic | This song commemorates Studio 54 in New York City for its notoriously long customer waiting lines, exclusive clientele, and discourteous doormen. The refrain went from originally “Fuck off!” to “freak off” to eventually “Freak out!”, referring to the doormen’s words when guitarist Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards’ were refused entrance during New Year’s Eve 1977. |
| I Will Survive | Gloria Gaynor | “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor was initially released as the B-side to “Substitute”. Co-writer Dino Fekaris,found inspiration in his experience getting fired by Motown Records in the mid-1970s after seven years working there as a staff writer. |
| Dancing Queen | ABBA | With ‘Dancing Queen’, ABBA made an Europop version of the dominating American disco music, replicating Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound arrangements. Benny Andersson Björn Ulvaeus cited George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby” as a source of inspiration for the style of the song. |
| Rock Your Baby | George McCrae | “Rock Your Baby” is the debut single by George McCrae. Written and produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch of KC and the Sunshine Band, “Rock Your Baby” was one of the landmark recordings of early disco music, with Casey on keyboards and Finch on bass and drums. John Lennon admitted to using the song as an inspiration for the chord progression of “Whatever Gets You thru the Night”, released a few months later. |
| Queen of Clubs | KC And The Sunshine Band | KC and the Sunshine Band’s hit “Queen of Clubs” features uncredited vocals by George McCrae and Jimmy “Bo” Horne The band took its name from lead vocalist Harry Wayne Casey’s last name (‘KC’) and the ‘Sunshine Band’ from KC’s home state of Florida, the Sunshine State. |
| Dance Across The Floor | Jimmy “Bo” Horne | Jimmy “Bo” Horne’s (born Jimmie Horace Horne Jr. on September 28, 1949) biggest hit was “Dance Across the Floor”, released in 1978, which was written and produced by Harry Wayne Casey of KC and the Sunshine Band. |
| Funkytown | Lipps Inc. | In 1980 Lipps Inc. put disco’s funeral on hold and proclaimed “Disco lives in Funkytown,” Lipps. Inc. merged the sounds of disco, new-wave pop and old rhythm and blues staples to create a crossover hit that knew no musical, racial or gender barriers. |
Sources
The information sources of the song facts include, but are not limited to, Wikipedia, songfacts.com, discogs.com, secondhandsongs.com, YouTube and artists’ related websites.
