The Trammps – “Disco Inferno” (1978)
“Disco Inferno” burned up the clubs in 1976 but missed the pop Top 40. A year later, it lit up the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, leading to a 1978 reissue. This time – huge pop success on its way to becoming a bona fide classic. 🔥
The late Jimmy Ellis of The Trammps was born on this date in 1937. A few of his band’s songs are included on today’s playlist.
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Norma Jean Wright, who sang lead vocals on Chic’s first smash single “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah),” was born on this date in 1956 in Ripley, Tennessee, which is not far from the town of Nutbush, from where Tina Turner hails. Wright’s dad attended the same church as Tina. Besides her work with Chic, most notably on the aforementioned single and its follow-up, “Everybody Dance,” Wright has released solo records and sang backup on albums by Aretha Franklin, Madonna, Luther Vandross (who sings backup on “Dance, Dance, Dance”) and Sister Sledge.
Tunes du Jour celebrates the birthday of Norma Jean Wright with a playlist that includes her two biggest hits with Chic.
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Today’s playlist includes a couple of songs by K.C. & the Sunshine Band, whose leader celebrates a birthday today.
Inspired by the July 1 birthdays of Debbie Harry, Missy Elliott, The B-52’s Fred Schneider, Village People’s Victor Willis, Evelyn King, Sufjan Stevens, Bobby Day, David Geddes, Imperial Teen’s Roddy Bottum, Elwood Blues (aka Dan Aykroyd), The Rembrandts’ Phil Solem, and Plies.
On May 31, President Obama issued a proclamation declaring June 2016 as African American Music Appreciation Month. The designation has actually been around since 1979, when President Carter commemorated the cultural and financial contributions of music made by African Americans at a reception at the White House. Back then it was Black Music Month, an idea conceived by music industry executive and radio personality Dyana Williams and her husband, Kenny Gamble.
You may not know Gamble’s name, but you know his music. The co-founder of Philadelphia International Records with Leon Huff, Gamble and his music partner have written and produced hits for Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations, Dusty Springfield, the Jacksons, the O’Jays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Jerry Butler, Archie Bell and the Drells, the Three Degrees, Joe Simon, MFSB, Billy Paul, the Soul Survivors, Teddy Pendergrass, the Intruders, Lou Rawls, People’s Choice and the Jones Girls.
Tunes du Jour’s weekly dance party celebrates African American Music Appreciation Month with twenty dance floor packers, kicking off with a few of Gamble and Huff’s gems.
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The Gong Show debuted on NBC in June of 1976. The program was a competition between amateur performers, whose acts were rated by three celebrity judges, rotating between Rip Taylor, Rex Reed, (Juicy) Jaye P. Morgan, Jamie Farr, Arte Johnson, Phyllis Diller, Steve Garvey, and Potsie Weber. The judges gave each act a rating between 1 and 9, unless any of them found the act particularly odious, in which case he or she would bang the gong and end the performance. The act who scored the highest cumulative rating of any given episode won a trophy and a cash prize of $516.32.
Performers on The Gong Show included Paul Reubens and John Paragon, prior to the creation of their alter-egos Pee Wee Herman and Jambi the genie; Andrea McArdle, just before she won the role of Annie in the Broadway musical based on the Little Orphan Annie comic strip; and Cheryl Lynn, who would go on to sign a record deal with Columbia Records.
On The Gong Show, Cheryl Lynn scored a 30 with her performance of “You Are So Beautiful.” However, she didn’t win the $516.32, as a juggler on the same episode also scored a 30, and audience applause settled the tie score in his favor. Still, the exposure netted Lynn the recording agreement, and odds are she made more than $516.32 from her pop/disco/r&b hit “Got to Be Real.”
“Got to Be Real” was Lynn’s only top 40 single on the pop chart. On the r&b chart, she scored twelve top 40 singles.
Today, Cheryl Lynn turns 59 years old. Tunes du Jour’s weekly dance party kicks off with the disco classic “Got to Be Real.”
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I’m reading NLP: The Essential Guide to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, subtitled Creating the Person You Want to Be, by Tom Hoobyar and Tom Dotz with Susan Sanders. The book teaches one how to think, as opposed to what to think.
Of the many exercises in the book is one the authors call “Creating a Well-Formed Outcome.” You list things you want and answer six questions related to each want. Within those six questions is an exploration of “meta-outcomes.” To explore the meta-outcomes, one must keep asking what will happen if I achieve this goal.
For example, one of my goals is to have a leaner physique. Using this exercise, I say “When I am leaner, I’m more confident. When I am more confident, more guys will be attracted to me. If more guys are attracted to me, I’ll date more often. If I date more often, I’ll end up with a boyfriend. If I have a boyfriend, I’ll have someone with whom to watch movies, dance, and share other activities I enjoy. If I do more activities I enjoy, I’ll be “in the flow” more often. If I am in the flow more often, my happiness will increase.
Another goal I have is to work with more clients. If I work with more clients, I’ll make more money. If I have more money, I can partake more often in the activities I enjoy. If I partake more often in the activities I enjoy, I’ll be in the flow more often. If I am in the flow more often, my happiness will increase.
Now you try it. What is a goal you have? Keep asking yourself what will happen if you achieve each part. If you don’t end with me being happier, you’re doing it wrong. Start over!
Something that makes me happy is dancing. Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour. Today happens to be the birthday of John Lennon. As he never hit the Billboard dance charts, we’ll kick off this week’s party with someone else whose birthday is today, Ini Kamoze. More accurately, today is the 58th birthday of Cecil Campbell, who later changed his name to Ini Kamoze. Here are twenty songs you can hotstep to.
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Billboard magazine’s first disco chart was published in October of 1974. Its #1 song was “Never Can Say Goodbye” performed by Gloria Gaynor. That record stayed on top for four weeks, soon crossing over to the pop chart, where it peaked at #9.
An eighteen-plus minute medley of “Honey Bee,” “Never Can Say Goodbye” and “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” reached #2 on the Disco chart in early 1975, leading to Gaynor being named “Queen of the Discos” by the National Association of Discotheque Disc Jockeys in March of that year.
Six more top ten disco hits followed in 1975 and 1976, but then her fortunes dried up. Her sole entry on the Disco chart in 1977 reached only #38. Her next charted disco single was over a year later, and peaked at #24. By this point, Donna Summer was the new Queen of Disco. Summer was also crossing over onto the pop chart, while Gaynor’s sole top 40 pop single was “Never Can Say Goodbye.” She failed to crack the Hot 100 in 1976 and 1977.
Her record company, Polydor, reached out to producer Dino Fekaris and asked him to produce for Gaynor a cover of the Righteous Brothers track “Substitute,” then a recent hit overseas for a group called Clout.
Fekaris was a staff songwriter at Motown Record for almost seven years before the company let him go. Determined not to let that career setback derail him, Fekaris got together with his songwriter and production partner Freddie Perren, who also had a stint at Motown, and wrote a song about getting over the fear of the unknown and surviving what life throws at you. They wanted a woman to record the track, but didn’t have anybody in mind. They decided to give the song to the next diva they work with. That’s when Polydor called with the Gaynor gig.
As requested by her label boss, Gaynor recorded “Substitute” to be the A-side of her next single, but the song about survival, which she recorded to be the record’s B-side, really resonated with her. Besides her career troubles, she recently lost her mother and fell on stage while performing, which required her to undergo spinal surgery and spend six months in the hospital. She recorded the tracks wearing a back brace.
“Substitute” was released in the fall of 1978. It failed to make the Hot 100.
One night around that time, Studio 54 DJ Ritchie Kaczor flipped over “Substitute” and played its B-side. The patrons ignored it that first time, but Kaczor kept playing it. Eventually, it became the club’s most popular cut. Soon, all New York City clubs were playing the track.
In November 1978 Vince Aletti wrote in Record World magazine that this song “is Gaynor’s very best work in years…delivered with such relish that one can’t help but get caught up in the emotion.”
In Boston, disco radio DJ Jack King played the single’s B-side and reported that “my listeners went nuts!” Seeing the response this song was getting, Polydor reissued the single with “Substitute” as the B-side. The A-side was now the anthem “I Will Survive.”
In January 1979, “I Will Survive” returned Gloria Gaynor to #1 on the Disco chart, where she remained for three weeks. In March of that year the record hit #1 on the Hot 100, where it also stayed for three weeks. It went on to become a smash around the world.
At the 22nd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony on February 27, 1980, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” won for Best Disco Recording, the only time that award has ever been given, over Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?,” Earth Wind & Fire with The Emotions’ “Boogie Wonderland,” and then Queen of Disco Donna Summer’s Bad Girls.
“I Will Survive” kicks off Tunes du Jour’s weekly dance party.
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Ebola is now in the US. Isis is on its way. Unarmed civilians are getting shot by law enforcement officials. Civil wars, mass kidnappings, volcanoes, a new Lenny Kravitz album. It’s a scary world!
I got my flu vaccination earlier this week, so I have one less thing to worry about. There is a movement against the flu vaccine, but the flu is mighty unpleasant and can lead to death. I’d rather go on living and enjoying my life with a little mercury in my system than deal with chills, fever, a runny nose, a sore throat, muscle pains, a severe headache, coughing, and/or fatigue. If I wanted to be in that much pain I’d listen to the new Lenny Kravitz album.
Though I get my flu shot every year, the needle always scares me. This year the doctor used a very small needle. I barely felt it and I’m happy to say I suffered no side effects. I feel great and energized, which is great because it’s Friday and I need to dance.
The cover art can be obtained from Warner Bros. Records.
We’ll kick off this week’s dance playlist with the only Fleetwood Mac song to make the US dance chart, “Big Love.” The track was written, co-produced and sung by FM’s Lindsey Buckingham, who turns 65 today.
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The 1970s were all about Star Wars and disco. One man had the brilliant idea to combine the two. Is it an overstatement to call Meco Monardo a genius? His disco version of the Star Wars score was a #1 hit in 1977.
That’s his only top ten hit where he is credited as the artist; however, Meco arranged the horns on Tommy James and the Shondells’ smash “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” played the trombone on Diana Ross’ classic “I’m Coming Out,” and, alongside Jay Ellis, Harold Wheeler and Tony Bongiovi, produced Gloria Gaynor’s “Never Can Say Goodbye” and Carol Douglas’ “Doctor’s Orders.”
He revisited the Star Wars connection in 1980 when he released Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album, which includes the holiday evergreen “What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb?)” and “R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” which features vocals by Tony Bongiovi’s second cousin John (who later dropped the “h” from his first name and changed the spelling of his last name. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.)
As it’s Friday, our playlist is designed to get you dancing into the weekend. It’s Meco’s birthday, so we’ll start with his track that encapsulates the seventies.