American Roots: Gimmie Gimmie Disco, a Sub-genre to One of American Music's Roots
Who? Everyday People
According to Vanity Fair’s article, “Boogie Nights and the Beginning of Disco”, although there are claims that disco began in the American 1960s in New York City in the “sophisticated spots” opened for mainly celebrities, the true magic of disco began in the 1970s in underground minority clubs. The beat of funk had picked up and large dance moves were made, and disco was born. In the article, there are statements from individuals who had their own experience and memory of the boom of disco, including some of my favorites:
“
Harry “KC” Wayne
Casey, songwriter, founder, KC & the
Sunshine Band (“Get Down Tonight,” “That’s the Way [I Like It]”): I wanted to make an album that would all be
up-tempo. “Shake Your Booty” was written out of frustration, seeing people
struggling with wanting to have a good time. Wanting to just feel free and be
themselves. Get up off your ass and do something.
Felipe Rose: Being bi-racial and being gay, I was sort of in the ghetto.
Suddenly Jacques is talking about records, and I wasn’t sure the mainstream
community was going to get it, and I wasn’t sure how the gay community was
going to look at it. But I was an artist and I wanted to just keep working. So
I thought, Well, one album and move on to the next thing. Then, when the first
album came out, I quit the Anvil.
Disco music reflected my own
personal needs—to be able to listen to music at a dinner party or while making
love that wouldn’t be interrupted by a commercial or a radio announcer. When I
got Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby,” I played it at a party, and people
kept telling me to play it again. So I called [producer] Giorgio [Moroder] and
asked him to make an extended version of the record. He made a
16-minute-and-40-second version and the rest is history. —Neil Bogart, president,
Casablanca Records, 1979.
Felipe
Rose: We were proud of our gay roots, but we rode both sides
of the fence very, very cleverly. It wasn’t the gays who bought the albums; it
was straight girls and boys. Radical gay people said we were a sellout and we
should say we’re gay and we’re proud, but our feeling was we were artists and
entertainers first. When you sell a lot of records, you have a responsibility
to your business partners. We became the little cute boys who shook their
fannies—the disco boy group.
Gloria
Gaynor: It made all the sense in the world that “I Will
Survive” became an anthem of the gay movement. Who felt more oppressed than
they did?
Donna Summer: Being called “the Queen of Disco” … well, it’s nice to be
the queen of something.
There’s a party going on right
here A celebration to last throughout the years. —“Celebration,” Kool
& the Gang.
By 1976, there were reportedly
10,000 discos in the U.S.: discos for kids, for senior citizens, for
roller-skaters, and portable discos set up in shopping malls and Holiday Inns.
That year, on a regular basis, 5 out of 10 singles on Billboard’s weekly charts were
disco. And the Fred Astaire Dance Studios did a brisk business teaching the
Hustle.
“
As stated above in the statements of
these American artist that grew disco and the community it thrived in, disco
was for those who want to feel free. Originally serving as a gateway for
African Americans, Latinos/as, and the LBGTQ+ communities to thrive in comfort
of their own skin. It later became popular, loved by everyone, who couldn’t love
the intensity of feeling as you’re free from everything but the beat? Played on
the radio, it did receive criticism from conservative religious rightest, but eventually
disco made its way from the underground to the radios taking over beyond club
culture in New York by leaps and bounds by the mid-1970s across the United
States and even into Europe.
Gloria
Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”
KC
and the Sunshine Band’s “Shake Your Booty”
What? Instruments and Style
“Disco music is funk with
a bow tie.” – Fred Wesley, James Brown’s Trombonist. According to the New World Encyclopedia,
the typical instruments of disco can include but not excluded to, “electric
guitar, bass guitar, electric piano, keyboard, drums, drum machine, horn
section, string section, and orchestral solo instruments (e.g., flute)” which
led to my research of why so many similar instruments yet with slightly
different timbres. In Nicolas Pell’s article, “Instruments
Used in Disco”, they state that the main pieces of disco include “Bass, Percussion,
Strings, and Horns” which makes sense with heavy beats and strong textures. The
bass, a pluck chordophone with a low pitch, is a large piece of disco, serving
as the rhythm which is the basis in majority of disco of music (no pun
intended). The “Latin flavor” the percussion has in disco sets it apart from
other genres such as rock and Latino. The standard drum set, group of five
membranophones of different timbres, and bongos, small pair membranophones with
single heads, are the usual percussion instruments used to drive the beat in
disco music. Using chordophones such as violins, cellos, and violas as the
string section, for the romanticism melodies. A horn section is used in disco,
which could include a saxophone, trombone, and trumpet, serving as “accents to
songs” or “a hook to a song”. Listen below to the instrumental version of one
of the top songs, “Le Freak” by Chic, which displays all the dynamics of disco
pieces.
Disco’s style was a
movement, it was freedom. Freedom in everything, especially sexuality. “Beyond
modern, it was futuristic- “, claimed in “The Disco Lifestyle” expresses that
disco was an expression for society to become new and improved, progressing into
a new world. There was flash and shine, all the outfits were all to show the
body in flashy colors, sparkly stones, and tight polyester fabrics. The dancing
lights in the clubs were hot and fast just like the vibes of disco, after hard
times it seems a lot of people could come and escape in the music. The dancing was much frowned upon like the outfits for the overly expressed sexuality
https://youtu.be/SFzMs2SN--s?t=36
If you
want to look more into these sources and more, check them out below.
https://www.britannica.com/art/country-music
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/02/oral-history-of-disco-201002
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