The Bee Gees rounded off an astounding few years with a fourth number 1. It was to mark the start of another downward slide in their fortunes, however.
Before
Thanks to the disco boom and their part in the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, the Gibb brothers were everywhere in the late-70s. After Night Fever became their third UK number 1, the LP was mined further. Yvonne Elliman’s version of If I Can’t Have You was a US number 1. The Tavares’ version of More Than a Woman was a number seven hit in the UK. In March 1978 songs by The Bee Gees held the number 1 and two spots in the US with Night Fever and Staying Alive – a feat unrivalled since The Beatles. Five songs written by the Gibbs were in the top 10 at once over there that month, too.
Barry Gibb and brother Robin wrote Emotion, a number 11 UK hit for their Australian friend Samantha Sang and The Bee Gees performed backing vocals and Barry wrote the classic theme to the smash-hit cinema adaptation of Grease, sung by Frankie Valli – a US number 1. It wasn’t a good time to be alive if you weren’t a fan of the Gibbs.
However, not everything they touched turned to gold. They starred in their manager Robert Stigwood’s famous flop Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, based on The Beatles’ concept album, in 1978. The critics hated it and the public ignored it. They featured heavily on the soundtrack too. But at least while working on the film, the Gibbs did co-write the excellent Shadow Dancing for their younger brother Andy, which also became a US number 1.
From there, they went to work on their follow-up to Saturday Night Fever. Spirits Having Flown, their 15th album, was co-produced by Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. Galuten has claimed that it was he, Richardson and Barry who did most of the work, though keyboardist Blue Weaver disputes this. They both agree that Robin took on more of a behind-the-scenes role, active in songwriting and offering feedback during the recording process. He performed only one solo lead vocal, on Living Together, amounting to the least work he had featured on a Bee Gees album since the 60s. It wasn’t a happy time for Maurice, who was an alcoholic and struggling with back pain. Although he recorded bass parts, he didn’t know they were later overdubbed.
In a bid to prove they weren’t just about filling disco dance floors, the first single from Spirits Having Flown was the ballad Too Much Heaven. It was another US number 1, and peaked at three in the UK. That single and the next, Tragedy, had been written by Barry, Robin and Maurice earlier the same day as Shadow Dancing.
Review
I’ve mixed feelings about Tragedy. I’ve never been much of a fan until relistening for the blog just now. I previously found it overblown and too melodramatic, with the Gibbs harmonies, which I normally enjoy, just too much. Now, I can see it’s a decent enough tune, just not up there with the likes of Staying Alive and Night Fever. I mainly like the bubbling synth sound on the verses. But it outstays its welcome somewhat and is a sign the Gibbs were starting to slide creatively. Though nobody can deny they’d had a bloody good run.
After
It would be eight years before The Bee Gees next held the top spot in the UK. Just as with psychedelia at the close of the 60s, the genre the Gibbs had aligned themselves with, disco, became unfashionable. The Bee Gees were much more successful at the point though, and had farther to fall. The backlash became so strong, they were forced into writing hits for others.
The Outro
Tragedy would return to the top of the charts in 1998 when it became half of a double A-side with Heartbeat for the dance-pop group Steps. It became their signature song and led to a stupid trademark dance as well. Shorn of the synths, it’s not as good as the original.
Simultaneously one of the hottest and coolest new wave bands, US six-piece Blondie were also one of the most successful, notching up five UK number 1s in under two years (and another in 1999). Heart of Glass melded new wave, rock, disco and pop with a slither of punk attitude, and it’s their best single.
Before
Blondie’s beginnings start back in New York in 1973. Guitarist Chris Stein joined rock band the Stilettoes. He began a romantic relationship with one of their vocalists – Debbie Harry. She had been a waitress, a Playboy Bunny and a member of folk-rock group the Wind in the Willows in the late-60s. Harry and Stein decided to leave the Stilettoes and start a new band in 1974. Together with former bandmates Billy O’Connor on drums and Fred Smith on bass, they became Angel and the Snake that August.
Two months later and with only two gigs under their belts, they changed their name to Blondie. As the whole world knows, Harry was one of the most beautiful women in the world, and would turn heads wherever she went. Among no doubt filthier shouts, lorry drivers would bark ‘Hey, blondie!’ at her as they drove by her walking down the street.
Fast forward to spring 1975 and Blondie’s line-up had changed several times – including experimenting with female backing singers. Drummer Clem Burke then joined them, along with Gary Valentine on bass. They became regular performers at hip joints CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, wowing crowds with power-pop and Harry’s stage presence. A few months later they recruited keyboardist Jimmy Destri to fill out their sound.
Signing with Private Stock Records, their eponymous debut LP was released in December 1976. It made little of an impression, and first single X Offender sank without trace, despite them supporting Iggy Pop on tour. However, the follow-up In the Flesh became a number two hit in Australia after being played by accident on TV (they were supposed to be showing X Offender).
Blondie decided to buy back their contract and switched to the British label Chrysalis Records. Blondie was re-released on Chrysalis in October 1977 and the critics began to take note. Nevertheless Valentine left the group and they recorded second album Plastic Letters as a four-piece, released in 1978.
The first single from the album Denis (a cover of a 1963 song by Randy and the Rainbows) finally saw their commercial stock rise – all the way to number two in the UK, where the music papers made a story out of Harry battling it out for the top spot with another strong female pop star, namely Kate Bush, who won out with WutheringHeights. Denis did reach the top spot in the Netherlands and Belgium though, and when the next 7-inch, (I’m AlwaysTouched by Your)Presence, Dear peaked at 10 in the UK, it seemed Blondie were here to stay. They were.
Hiring Frank Infante on guitar and British bassist Nigel Harrison, the six-strong Blondie toured the UK and became one of the first new wave acts to hit the mainstream. Here at last was a rock group in which the men stayed out of the spotlight. It shone fully on Harry, who had star power like few others at the time.
In a clear attempt to really leave their mark on the pop scene, Blondie worked with a big-name producer. Australian Mike Chapman had been half of ‘Chinnichap’ with Nicky Chinn. Together they wrote and produced glam rock number 1 classics by The Sweet, Mud and Suzi Quatro. The latter proved particularly appropriate, as Chapman had experience in helping female rock stars climb the charts with catchy commercial pop songs.
Blondie’s Chapman-produced third album Parallel Lines was released in September 1978. first single Picture This climbed to 12 and Hanging on the Telephone peaked at five. Their first number 1 was next.
Heart of Glass was one of Blondie’s earliest tracks. Originally known as Once I Had a Love, it was written by Harry and Stein and 1974 and demoed a year later. Although slower and funkier than the released version, It had a disco influence right from the start, having been influenced by one of the genre’s earliest hits – The Hues Corporation’s Rock the Boat (1974). Harry later recounted that the lyrics to Heart of Glass weren’t directed personally to a former love of hers, it was written as a ‘plaintive moan about lost love’. They tried it as a ballad and even reggae over the years, but it never quite worked.
Blondie remained in thrall to disco, to the consternation of some rock die-hards, over the years, occasionally adding dance floor hits to their setlists. Harry expressed her love of the work of producer Giorgio Moroder in the NME early in 1978, and the band surprised a CBGB crowd with a cover of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love later that year.
When it came to meeting Chapman to start work on Parallel Lines, the producer asked Blondie to show him what they could record. At the end he asked if there was anything else, and the band sheepishly decided to perform Heart of Glass. Despite their reticence, Chapman loved it and saw a potential hit. Blondie began to agree, but having also become fans of Kraftwerk, wanted to recreate the futuristic sounds of the German innovators as well as Moroder’s hits.
The six-piece assembled at the Record Plant in New York in June 1978 to record Heart of Glass. Unusually at the time, a rock band chose to build the song around a drum machine. The Roland CR-78 had only been released earlier that year, and it was Stein and Destri who introduced it to the studio, having bought one from a store in Manhattan. Destri in particular had a lot to do with the sound of Heart of Glass and brought in some synthesisers. Other technology used in the production included the Roland SH-5 and Minimoog.
Review
Heart of Glass is one of my favourite number 1s of the 70s and one I’ll never tire of. It never dates either. You could argue the 80s began right here and it certainly had an influence on music over the next few years. It’s icy, cool as fuck and one of the greatest disco tracks of all time – despite not actually being that easy to dance to. I love the lyrics, which suit Harry’s ‘not arsed mate’ attitude. Yes, she was once in love. She’s not any more, and you only have to listen to the first few lines to know she’s totally over it.
The lyrics to Heart of Glass are fascinating. What actually is a heart of glass? Does she have a heart of glass or does he? If it’s him, does she mean she’s cut herself because of him? Or does she mean she’s discovered her heart is fragile and he broke it into pieces? Hard to tell, because although she’s given the impression she’s moved on, the choruses suggest otherwise. In the second one Harry suggests he’s cheated on her, and she sings ‘I’m the one you’re using, please don’t push me aside’. ‘Mucho mistrust’ also suggests infidelity.
It’s worth noting that, as far as I can tell, Heart of Glass is the first chart-topper to contain a swear word of sorts. Blondie decided to try and get away with one instance of ‘Soon turned out, it was a pain in the ass’ in both the single and album mixes. It soon got replaced on the radio with another ‘heart of glass’, but good on them for trying! The song then ends on that catchy-as-hell, resigned ‘Ooh ooh ooh, ah-ah’, which comes across as another ‘ah, fuck it’.
With Heart of Glass, Blondie and Chapman really melded those influences of Moroder and Kraftwerk together to create something unique. Like I Feel Love, it feels like it could go on forever and that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I listened to 45 minutes of different versions of this in one go and I only began to tire towards the end. And like Kraftwerk, its machine-like, but scratch the surface and there’s human emotions underneath.
For the single, Chapman beefed up the sound and accentuated the double-tracked bass drum. For me, the best version is the 5:50 ‘Disco Version’ released as a 12-inch. Unlike a lot of 12-inch mixes of the time, it doesn’t sound like bits have been unnecessarily tacked on. It sounds like the natural version, just for letting the rhythm stretch out that bit longer.
The promo video to Heart of Glass was directed by Stanley Dorfman, a British director who did just that on the very first edition of Top of the Pops. The film begins with aerial shots of New York, slowly revolving like a mirrorball, before showing the streets of the city and landmarks including the Ed Sullivan Theatre and Studio 54. Although we’re meant to get the suggestion the latter is where this is filmed, it was actually made in a long-forgotten, short-lived club.
The rest of the video alternates between close-ups of Harry miming and mid-distance shots of the rest of the band ‘performing’. Harry looks particularly drop-dead gorgeous here, her hair slightly dishevelled, in a silver dress with one shoulder strap. Her bored, slightly pissed-off performance really suits the song and apparently came about through a genuine sulk. Harry wanted to dance but she was told to stay still. She wasn’t keen on Dorfman after that and didn’t appreciate all the close-ups. Nonetheless, it’s an iconic performance.
After
Heart of Glass was a deserved global smash and number 1 in most countries, including the US. Harry became a pin-up and hero to millions of teens and were a breath of fresh air. With this song toppling Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick, 1979 was shaping up to be a hell of a year for pop.
The Info
Written by
Debbie Harry & Chris Stein
Producer
Mike Chapman
Weeks at number 1
4 (3 February-2 March)
Trivia
Births
13 February:Labour MP Rachel Reeves
2 March:ComedianJocelyn Jee Esien
Deaths
14 February:Conservative MP Reginald Maudling– 14 February
19 February:Comedian Wee Georgie Wood
Meanwhile…
9 February: Trevor Francis signed for Nottingham Forest. He was the first player to sign a deal worth £1 million.
12 February: The Winter of Discontent continued, with more than 1,000 schools closed due to the heating oil shortage caused by the lorry drivers’ strike.
14 February: Talks between unions and the government, known as the ‘Saint Valentine’s Day Concordat’ marked the end to the Winter of Discontent.
15 February: However, the damage was done. Opinion polls showed the Tories up to 20 points ahead of Labour.
22 February: Saint Lucia became independent of the UK.
1 March: Scotland voted for a Scottish Assembly in the devolution referendum. However this was less than 40% of the electorate, which meant it wasn’t followed through. Also on this day, Wales voted against devolution.
An unmistakeable blast of brass from an enduring classic heralds the start of one of the best years for number 1s the UK has ever seen.
Before
Village People sprang from an idea formed in the heads of French producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo. As Can’t Stop Productions, they had enjoyed a few hits in Europe in the mid-70s. Getting a taste for success they decided to set their sights on the US.
Moving to New York City in 1977, the duo were working on music when Morali was handed a demo tape by an actor and singer called Victor Willis, who had starred in the original Broadway production of The Wiz. Apparently Morali said to Willis ‘I had a dream that you sang lead vocals on my album and it went very, very big’. Willis agreed to be lead on the 1977 album Village People, which featured songs by Phil Hurtt and Peter Whitehead to backing by the studio band Gypsy Lane.
The name ‘Village People’ was used to pay tribute to Greenwich Village, an area of Manhattan famous for its large gay population. Morali was gay and had attended a costume ball there. He greatly admired the outlandish outfits used to portray American male stereotypes. Perhaps he and Morali could do similar with Willis and their new group?
Morali’s first recruit was Felipe Rose. He claimed indigenous American descent so he was chosen to dress as a Native American. Willis picked Alex Briley, who eventually settled on a GI uniform. Others chosen were Mark Mussler (construction worker), Dave Forrest (cowboy) and Lee Mouton (biker). Joined by Whitehead, they were used to promote the first Village People hit San Franciso (You Got Me).
Morali and Belolo decided they needed a more permanent line-up to promote the next album Macho Man, released in 1978. They took out ads in New York theatre trade magazines which read ‘Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance and Have a Moustache’. Randy Jones replaced Forrest, Glenn Hughes was the new leather biker and David Hodo replaced Mussler. The classic line-up was formed, and they enjoyed their first hit with the title track of their second album.
What does YMCA stand for? While working on the third LP Cruisin’, Morali apparently asked Willis. The Young Men’s Christian Association had been founded in 1844 with the aim of putting Christian principles into place by promoting a healthy body, mind and spirit. In the US of the 1970s, typical YMCA residents were often homeless or people with other life issues. In the gay community, the YMCA was a popular cruising spot.
Willis could see Morali thought it would be a great idea for a Village People track. However, Willis has also since claimed he wrote the song and it was totally innocent and not intended as a gay anthem, but rather a promotion of a place black young men could enjoy sport.
Review
It’s interesting to note that Boney M, a manufactured disco group, were toppled in 1979 by another manufactured disco group. However, where Boney M were soulless and tacky, Village People’s number 1 has some fire in its belly. Willis really belts it out, turning the YMCA into a religious experience. The backing music is lively – there’s the brass, of course, but it’s the disco bass I like most.
How do you review a song like Y.M.C.A. though? It’s one of those cheesy anthems that’s played to death, almost too famous to clinically dissect. It’s also now lost of its original meaning, played at every party, wedding, any event where an instant floorfiller is needed. And you just know the floor will be full of people who can’t dance, doing the embarrassing spelling out of the chorus.
Apparently the dance originated on an episode of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on the day it reached number 1 in the UK. After they performed the song, Clark showed the group the audience spelling the initials out and they decided to use it. Jones commented years later that it may have sprung from a misunderstanding – the Village People used to raise their hands above their heads and clap to the chorus but the crowd may have thought they were spelling ‘Y’.
The memorable video was filmed in July 1978. Featuring the group miming and dancing around New York City, it’s a pretty fascinating look at the city during pretty gritty times.
After
Y.M.C.A. went to the top pretty much everywhere, though stalled at two in the US. They followed it up with In the Navy, which is pretty much the same song but simply swaps one institution for another. It’s good though, and Willis is in fine form again. It reached number 1 across Europe but peaked at two here. Then came Go West, later a number two smash for Pet Shop Boys but only a number 15 hit for the Village People in 1979.
It was the last single to feature Willis, who left during the pre-production of the group’s doomed loose biopic Can’t Stop the Music, co-written and co-produced by Allan Carr, one of the men behind the smash-hit Grease. Willis was replaced by Ray Simpson, brother of Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson fame.
In 1980 the title track of the movie climbed to 15 in the UK, but it was their last hit. Disco was on the wane and the Village People were starting to look like a fad. The movie was a critical and commercial flop. By the end of the year Forrest had left, replaced by Jeff Olson. The following year Morali and Belolo had taken notes that new wave was more popular and they made the Village People ditch their outfits and make them look more like a Spandau Ballet support act. Nobody was interested in a new-look Village People and their album Renaissance.
Willis rejoined briefly to work on the next album Fox on the Box, released in 1982. The outfits returned but Hodo and Simpson left and were replaced by Mark Lee and Miles Jaye. Their last proper album for 33 years was SexOver thePhone, released in 1985.
There was a resurgence of interest in the Village People as the 90s began, but Morali died of AIDS-related complications in 1991. Three years later they recorded Far Away in America with the German national football team for their World Cup campaign. Hughes left in 1995 and was replaced by Eric Anzalone. The biker from the classic line-up died of lung cancer in 2001.
Willis was arrested in 2007 on drugs and weapons-related charges but his life picked up when he married that same year. He also began to perform live for the first time in 28 years and 2012 he won a landmark case, recapturing writing credits and a 33% share in the Village People’s Y.M.C.A, In the Navy, Go West and Magic Night. Eventually he also managed to get Belolo’s name removed from the credits. Then in 2017 he won the license for the name of the group and the characters, returning as their lead singer and with a brand new line-up behind him. The following year the festive album A Village People Christmas was released. A year later, Belolo died.
The Outro
The Village People remain much-loved, a beacon of light during the Winter of Discontent and a happy reminder of disco and, despite their comical appearance, were actually good for the gay movement. Y.M.C.A. is their biggest legacy and has been used time and again and spoofed just as much, in the media. Weirdly, its history took a dark turn when, for reasons unknown, US president and all-round evil Nazi bastard Donald Trump began using it at rallies when trying to be re-elected in 2020. Initially Willis was fine with this but then relented and demanded he stop. Whether it was his own decision or he felt the understandable pressure from the Black Lives Matter movement, we don’t know, but he was happy enough for Trump to use it at first, unfortunately.
Luckily for the whole world, this story has a happy ending as Y.M.C.A. is now remembered as the soundtrack to Trump finally fucking off as he left the White House in January 2021.
The Info
Written by
Jacques Morali, Henri Belolo & Victor Willis
Producer
Jacques Morali
Weeks at number 1
3 (6-26 January)
The Info
Births
20 January:Singer Will Young 21 January: Journalist Johann Hair
Deaths
16 January:Actor Peter Butterworth 23 January: Liberal MP Frank Owen
Meanwhile…
Prime Minister Jim Callaghan made the Winter of Discontent 10 times worse when he returned from an international summit to the industrial unrest. The Sun newspaper reported him as saying: ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’. He didn’t actually say it but many think this the beginning of the end for Labour.
15 January: Rail workers began a 24-hour strike.
22 January: Tens of thousands of public-workers, including hospital workers, rubbish collectors, school caretakers, gravediggers and airport staff, began the biggest mass strike since 1926.
So we reach the end of 1978. Finally, the singles chart and pop in general has become important to the public once more. Singles by Wings, Boney M and John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John remain among the biggest sellers of all time. Punk may have never officially had a number 1, but its presence had shaken pop up, and god was it needed. As the 70s draws to a close, the chart-toppers take on a whole new freshness and 1979 is the most exciting year for pop number 1s in over 10 years.
Before
But first, this. Manufactured disco quartet Boney M capped off an enormously successful year with the festive number 1. Rivers of Babylon had been number 1 for five weeks in the spring/summer of 1978. It was the bestseller that year and is still the seventh best-selling single of all time in the UK. The album it came from, Nightflight to Venus, was also huge and also spawned Rasputin. Number 1 across Europe, it stalled at two here, and unlike most of their oeuvre, I can enjoy that one. Maybe.
In November, the mastermind behind Boney M, Frank Farian, assembled the group to hastily record a Christmas single. He decided to cover Mary’s Boy Child, which had been the UK Christmas number 1 for US singer Harry Belafonte in 1957.
If you read my review of that single when it was live here, or have since read my book Every UK Number 1: The 50s, you’ll know it was composed by Jester Hairston. His friend, who he was at the time sharing a room with, asked Hairston to write him a song for a birthday party. He came up with the calypso tune He Pone and Chocolate Tea but it was quickly forgotten about. But when the composer Walter Schumann asked Hairston for a festive song for Schumann’s Hollywood Choir to perform in 1956, he reworked He Pone and Chocolate Tea and it became Mary’s Boy Child. Belafonte heard the choir’s rendition and recorded it that year, before releasing a longer version the following year. It was the latter which took the Christmas top spot.
Farian, the opportunist that he was, decided to tack a new song on the end, therefore ensuring he and Fred Jay would receive royalties.
Review
Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Love may be the 12th biggest-selling UK number 1 of all time, but it leaves me as cold as the weather that winter. This is the weakest Christmas number 1 since Little Jimmy Osmond in 1972. Farian takes a stately festive ballad and gives it the cheesy disco-lite touch. He keeps it similar enough to the original to perhaps encourage record buyers ready for some 50s nostalgia, while making it disco enough for the young at the time. The result is a tacky, boring affair. And if it wasn’t already too long, the Oh My Lord section then starts up and it seems as though Boney M are never going to stop. I love Christmas tackiness, but I find it very hard to think of any positives here.
After
Boney M’s huge sales dropped from here on in. In 1979 they reached 10 with Painter Man. But Hooray! Hooray! It’s a Holi-Holiday peaked at three that summer and remained a kids’ holiday club staple well into the 80s. Their next album Oceans of Fantasy spawned double A-side Gotta Go Home/El Lute, which reached 12 and I’m Born Again, which went to 35. Their last new song to reach the top 40 was the interestingly named We Kill the World (Don’t Kill the World). It only got to 39 in 1981. That same year, the dancer Bobby Farrell, who mimed to Farian’s vocals, was sacked for being too unreliable.
In 1982 Reggie Tsiboe replaced Farrell but it made little difference to Boney M’s decline. Farrell eventually returned but in 1986 Farian had got bored and pulled the plug on Boney M after their eighth LP Eye Dance. For the rest of the 80s, various incarnations of Boney M existed, with or without Farian’s approval. In 1988 the ‘classic’ line-up reunited without him briefly.
There was a renewed interest in the group in 1992, thanks to Mega Mix, a number seven hit which also featured a remix of Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord. The only noteworthy member of Boney M at this point was singer Liz Mitchell, who Farian once described as the only irreplaceable member of the group. The following year Brown Girl in the Ring (Remix) took them to 38. Another remix, Ma Baker (Somebody Scream), is their last hit to date, peaking at 22 in 1999.
In 2010 Farrell died of heart failure, aged 61. Mitchell tours as Boney M, featuring Liz Mitchell (well you would, wouldn’t you?). Marcia Barrett, who sang the a cappella intro to Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord, lives in Berlin. Maizie Williams, who never sang on any original studio recordings by Boney M, now performs them live.
The Outro
Farian was the man behind another manufactured group. He formed the duo Milli Vanilli in 1988. Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus never sang a note but they became one of the biggest names of the era. He promised them he’d cover their backs but when the miming scandal broke, Farian fired them and announced they never sang for real on their records. Something that hadn’t bothered the pop world when Boney M were at large destroyed Milli Vanilli, and Pilatus was found dead in 1998 of a suspected drink and drugs overdose.
The Info
Written by
Jester Hairston, George Reyam, Frank Farian & Fred Jay
Producer
Frank Farian
Weeks at number 1
4 (9 December 1978-5 January 1979)
Trivia
Births
16 December:Actor Joe Absolom 23 December: Model Jodie Marsh
Deaths
23 December: Academic Malcolm Caldwell (see ‘Meanwhile…’)
Meanwhile…
14 December 1978: The Labour minority government narrowly survives a vote of confidence.
21–22 December: BBC One and BBC Two are taken off air when the BBC members of the ABS union decide to strike over pay. The following day, the union calls its radio members out on strike. This leads to the merging of BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4 into one national radio network. From 4.00pm that day, the management runs a schedule of news and music. BBC One controller Bill Cotton begins to panic that the strike will ruin ratings over the all-important Christmas period. He prepares two Christmas schedules for BBC One, one if there is no strike, and one filled with repeats and films if there is. Luckily for him, the BBC and ABS go to the government’s conciliation service ACAS, and a deal is reached by 10pm on 22 December, with the unions getting a 15% pay rise. All BBC TV and radio services return to normal service by lunchtime on 23 December.
23 December: Marxist writer Malcolm Caldwell is shot dead in Cambodia shortly after meeting Pol Pot.
5 January 1979: Lorry drivers go on strike, causing new shortages of heating oil and fresh food. With terrible freezing conditions damaging the economy at the same time, Labour’s ‘Winter of Discontent’ had begun.
Rod Stewart was derided by many for jumping on the disco bandwagon with Da ‘Ya’ Think I’m Sexy? and it began his transformation into a figure of fun. However, it’s one of the more enjoyable of his six number 1s.
Before
After his fourth chart-topping single kept The Sex Pistols from number 1 (so we’re led to believe – seeFirst Cut Is the Deepest/I Don’t Want to Talk About It) in 1977, he remained in the upper reaches of the singles chart. One of his most popular tunes, the love song You’re in My Heart (The Final Acclaim) peaked at three. It was the first release from his eighth album, Foot Loose & Fancy Free.
Next up was Hot Legs/I Was Only Joking, a number five hit in 1978. The former, a Rolling Stones-style raunchy blues number, hasn’t aged well, with lyrics like ‘Are you still in school?’ and ‘Hot legs oh you’re pussy’s whipped/Hot legs I just love your lips’. He later wisely changed these last lines.
A huge football fan (and former player), Stewart then teamed up with the national Scotland squad for their 1978 World Cup song Ole Ola (Mulher Brasileira). It fared better than the team’s performance in the tournament. Despite manager Ally MacLeod’s bold claims, they were unable to get past the first round. The song climbed to four.
Setting to work on his ninth LP, Blondes Have More Fun, Stewart developed an increasingly outlandish look. With his peroxide bouffant and tight spandex, he began to resemble a prostitute. Seeing an ever-growing number of fellow rock stars adopting disco (best of the bunch was The Rolling Stones’ sleazy Miss You), Rod the Mod went full throttle down the disco avenue.
Released on 10 November, a week before the album, Da ‘Ya’ Think I’m Sexy? was co-written by Stewart with his drummer Carmen Appice (formerly of Vanilla Fudge) and producer and musician Duane Hitchings. However, several other names should be on those credits, really. The chorus is remarkably similar to Brazilian singer Jorge Ben’s 1972 track Taj Mahal. A lawsuit ensued which ended in Ben’s favour. However, in a potentially sly move to avoid him making royalties from the track in the future, Stewart donated them all to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Stewart claimed in his 2012 autobiography that it was an unconscious steal on his part and Taj Mahal had stuck in his brain after hearing it at the 1978 Rio Carnival. He did admit to purposefully stealing from elsewhere though. The yearning synth line in Da ‘Ya’ Think I’m Sexy?, which is the highlight of the track, came from Bobby Womack’s 1975 soul song (If You Want My Love) Put Something Down On It. Now that’s a great title, isn’t it?
https://youtu.be/Hphwfq1wLJsn
Review
As we all know, Da ‘Ya’ Think I’m Sexy? has become synonymous with Stewart’s image as an egotistical, leopard-skin-wearing joke. There’s been countless spoofs – perhaps the most memorable being from Kenny Everett in the early 80s. A friend of Stewart’s, he performs this song glammed up as him, strutting around in the same stupidly tight spandex Stewart wears in the real video. His arse grows ever bigger, eventually causing the DJ to fly off into the sky.
It’s worth noting though, and it hadn’t really occurred to me before, that the song isn’t about him. It’s another of his character studies and it only takes a read of the first verse to realise this. A guy in a nightclub wants to try his luck with a girl, but ‘He’s so nervous, avoiding all the questions/His lips are dry, her heart is gently pounding’. As if Stewart would be nervous in that situation! Come the second verse he’s worked up the courage to ask her back to his ‘high-rise apartment’. We even get a porn-style saxophone interlude, which is clearly there to symbolise them getting it on. Come the last verse, it’s dawn and it sounds like he may have talked up his situation as he confesses he has no milk or coffee for a pick-me-up after their night of passion but, in a nice play on words ‘Never mind sugar, we can watch the early movie.’
Da ‘Ya’ Think I’m Sexy? has been in my mind for decades as a song to laugh at. So it came as a surprise to find myself enjoying it upon this review. It’s a lot more fun and less ‘worthy’ than his earlier number 1s and the third-person narrative adds a new dimension to the song. Also, Phil Chen’s disco bass is great and the aforementioned synth line is even better, despite beingstolen. Not so good when the sax mirrors it at the climax, though, and Stewart’s voice isn’t the right type for the chorus, I’d argue. He rather bludgeons it.
I’d say the video is a big reason for this song and Stewart himself becoming a joke. He stars as the guy in the song, sat with his prey, watching himself and his band on a little TV on the bar. Inbetween the footage on stage, in which Stewart’s outfit is somehow actually more ridiculous than Everett’s, we cut to Rod the Mod and the girl, about to get it on, while watching him and the band on TV. In case you’re not sure what the song is about, Stewart gets on the floor and humps thin air. The interplay between him and the band is good knockabout fun though. For the dawn scene, they remain clothed and the band are still on TV, which suggests either Stewart gets off on a looped performance of himself, or they’ve just fallen asleep for a minute or so.
After
This, Stewart’s last UK number 1 of the 70s, also went to the top around the world. In 1997, UK dance act N-Trance released a cover version, featuring Rod the Mod’s vocal on the chorus, which peaked at seven. It’s not a patch on their best work, Set You Free.
The Outro
Written by
Rod Stewart, Carmen Appice& Duane Hitchings
Producer
Tom Dowd
Weeks at number 1
1 (2-8 December)
Trivia
Births
6 December:Screenwriter Jack Thorne 7 December: Historian Suzannah Lipscomb
Boney M were one of the most popular disco acts of the 70s and scored one of the biggest number 1s of all time with this cover of a Rastafari song by The Melodians. In a year in which the singles charts were returning to importance after years of dominance by albums, Boney M were the most popular. And they were the first of several pop acts to spring from the mind of Frank Farian.
Before
Farian, born Franz Reuther in Kirn, Germany on 18 July 1941 had trained as a cook before moving into the music industry. As Frankie Farian he released his first single, Will You Ever Be Mine in 1967.
He wasn’t really making much of an impression until he recorded Baby Do You Wanna Bump in 1974. It was a remake of Jamaican ska singer-songwriter Prince Buster’s Al Capone from 1964. However, in the first of many performance and songwriter controversies from Farian, there was no mention of Prince Buster within the credits.
Farian provided all the vocals and when deciding on an alias for the release, he was inspired while watching an episode of Australian detective drama Boney. He just stuck an ‘M’ on the end for added mystery.
Slowly, the single picked up steam in the Netherlands and Belgium. Farian decided to put a group together to promote it on TV. The first line-up of Boney M in 1975 consisted of Montserrat-born model-turned-singer Maizie Williams, her Jamaican friend Sheila Bonnick and a dancer called Mike. Several changes took place before the group settled down in 1976 with Williams, Jamaican-British singer Liz Mitchell, Aruban exotic dancer Bobby Farrell and Jamaican Marcia Barrett.
Farian set to work on Boney M’s debut LP, Take the Heat Off Me. It became apparent that he couldn’t use either Williams’ or Farrell’s voices and would instead use his own along with Barrett’s (who had already recorded solo with Farrell) and Mitchell’s. Again, the response was initially lukewarm but Farian pushed them to tour constantly, performing at discos, clubs and even country fairs.
The breakthrough occurred when they appeared on West German TV show Musikladen in September wearing outlandish outfits during a performance of Daddy Cool. It shot to 1 in several European countries and peaked at five in the UK. Follow-up Sunny rose to number three over here. Disco was peaking and Boney M had come along at exactly the right time.
In 1977 they released second album Love for Sale and it spawned two hits – Ma Baker (number two) and Belfast (eight). Undertaking their first major tour, Farian lined up live musicians known as The Black Beauty Circus to provide backing.
Boney M’s first release of 1978 was taken from forthcoming third album Nightflight to Venus. Rivers of Babylon was written by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of rocksteady Jamaican act The Melodians. Released in 1970, the lyrics were adapted from the texts of Psalms 19 and mainly 137 in the Hebrew Bible. The latter expressed the thoughts of Jewish people in exile after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC. It contains the line ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.’
Rivers of Babylon was a big hit in Jamaica once the government lifted a ban on it and it became famous internationally after it appeared in the 1972 film The Harder They Come.
Featuring Mitchell on lead vocal and Barrett and Farian on backing vocals, the Boney M version showcased Farian’s standard disco-lite sound, removing all Rastafarian language from the lyrics. The initial single mix featured extra ad-libs from Mitchell and all single versions feature extra vocals from Farian as well as a different fadeout to the LP version. Initially, Dowe and McNaughton didn’t receive any songwriting credit until they rightly kicked up a fuss.
https://youtu.be/HTq7vE_5un4
Review
I’ve never liked Boney M and I can’t see that ever changing. This blog has helped shift my attitude to realise how good ABBA actually were, for example, but I think Boney M are so cheap, tacky and throwaway and re-listening now has made little difference.
There are disco versions of every style of song going but I find taking a song about Biblical plight in poor taste, or maybe that’s just down to my inbuilt dislike of Boney M. I guess though that it’s more respectful than other Boney M hits. Mitchell is a great singer, so there is that, but Farian’s vocals are awful, which makes me wonder how much worse Farrell’s must have been.
So here is another example of the madness of British record buyers. Not only was Rivers of Babylon the biggest-selling single of 1978 but it’s the seventh biggest-selling single OF ALL TIME. What the fuck?
After
After five weeks at the top, it was slipping down the charts and was at 20 when DJs began playing the B-side, a cover of traditional Caribbean nursery rhyme Brown Girl in the Ring. It became a hit in its own right and took the single all the way to number two. This seems highly unfair to me but it at least partly explains why something so poor could sell so well.
The Info
Written by
Frank Farian, George Reyam, Brent Dowe & Trevor McNaughton
Producer
Frank Farian
Weeks at number 1
5 (13 May-16 June)*BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*
Trivia
Births
14 May: Scottish field hockey defender Emma Rochlin 22 May: Model Katie Price 6 June: The Libertines singer Carl Barât 9 June: Muse singer Matthew Bellamy
Death
18 May: Conservative MP Selwyn Lloyd 7 June: Nobel Prize laureate Ronald George Wreyford Norrish
Meanwhile…
16 May: 40-year-old prostitute Vera Millward is found stabbed to death in the grounds of Manchester Royal Infirmary. It is believed that she is the 10th woman to die at the hands of the Yorkshire Ripper and the second outside of Yorkshire.
17 May: Charlie Chaplin’s coffin, stolen 11 weeks previously, is discovered in a field near the Chaplin home in Corsier near Lausanne, Switzerland.
25 May: Liberal Party leader David Steel announces the Lib-Lab pact is to be dissolved at the end of the Parliamentary session by mutual consent, which would leave Britain with a minority Labour government.
3 June: Airline entrepreneur Freddie Laker is knighted.
8 June: Naomi James becomes the first woman to sail around the world single-handedly.
13–16 June: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena make a state visit to the United Kingdom. He is made a Knight of the Order of the Bath and she becomes an honorary professor of the Polytechnic of Central London. How lovely.
The first ever number 1 by a female duo, Yes Sir, I Can Boogie is also one of the best-selling songs of all time.
Before
Spanish duo Baccara had only formed the year previous. Mayte Mateos (born 7 February 1951 in Logroño) graduated as a teacher at the Royal Spanish Academy for Arts, Drama and Dance. She started at a television ballet company, where she met fellow performer María Mendiola (born 4 April 1952 in Madrid). They bonded and formed variety show singing and dancing duo Venus and left the company.
Venus garnered a few TV and nightclub appearances but they decided to relocate to the Canary Islands. In Fuertaventura, they were performing flamenco dance and Spanish songs for mostly German tourists at the Tres Islas Hotel. Among the guests was Leon Deane, manager of the German subsidiary of RCA Records. He invited them to Hamburg to meet producer and composer Rolf Soja.
Soja remodelled Venus, developing their stage act, recruiting backing musicians and renaming them Baccara. This was a reference to the black rose, which Soja compared the duo to due to their dark Spanish looks. He took their flamenco stylings and updated them for the disco era, which was growing ever more popular. By suggesting Mateos, who would normally sing lead, in black and Mendiola in white, he created a striking image. Together with their sexy groans, Baccara fitted in nicely with the era in which Donna Summer had released the filthy epic Love to Love You Baby.
Soja co-wrote their debut single Yes Sir, I Can Boogie with Frank Dostal. In the 60s, Dostal had been singer with German rock group The Rattles.
Review
I was very surprised to see this single ranked so highly among the bestselling of all time. In my mind, Yes Sir, I Can Boogie was a minor entry in the canon of 70s disco hits, but it was very popular around Europe, reaching the top of the charts in Ireland, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
It’s not the most inspiring of tracks. The steamy moans at the start bring to mind Summer’s classic and the music is almost a complete lift of Don’t Leave Me This Way by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Baccara’s number 1 is a low rent combination of the two.
The lyrics, written only the night before the duo recorded, are rather seedy and desperate, depending on how you read them. Is this some kind of dirty game, with the ‘Sir’ in question in charge, and ‘boogie woogie’ meaning something rather less innocent? Incidentally, I hate the words ‘boogie woogie’, which doesn’t help my enjoyment. Unless we are meant to take them on face value and Baccara really are just exclaiming about how great they are in the disco. The way Baccara sing this in a broken English makes it both grubby and rather comical at the same time.
Having said that, there are a couple of lines which are genius: ‘Yes sir, already told you in the first verse and in the chorus/But I will give you one more chance…’. The chorus, particularly the string stabs, are pretty memorable. But for me there are plenty of other better disco tracks out there.
After
Baccara’s eponymous debut LP followed and next single Sorry, I’m a Lady (great title) was another hit, reaching number 1 in many European countries and peaking at eight in the UK. Third single Darling did OK in Europe but the hits then dried up. Their second album Light My Fire was released in 1978 and one single, Parlez-vous Francais? was selected to be Luxembourg’s entry in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest, where it placed seventh. Baccara appeared weekly on French singing star Sacha Distel’s TV series in the UK. Third album Colours failed to chart anywhere in 1979.
Such was Baccara’s fall from grace that their final album Bad Boys didn’t even get released here in 1981. Disco was dying and tensions were high after a disagreement between Mateos and Mendiola over the vocal mix of the single Sleepy-Time-Toy the previous year. As a result of the fall-out neither Soja or Dostal were involved in Baccara’s last album. They decided to go their separate ways.
Following the split Mateos began working with Soja on solo material. She reformed Baccara in 1983 with Marisa Pérez. This pairing was short-lived and Mateos went through umpteen partners across Europe’s light entertainment circuit. In 1999 Mateos and Cristina Sevilla released a reworked version of Yes Sir, I Can Boogie and recorded an album, Baccara 2000. This version attempted to enter Eurovision in 2004 but didn’t get selected. In 2008 Mateos recorded another Baccara album with Paloma Blanco (?) Satin …in Black & White was produced by Soja and Dostal and featured yet more reworked back catalogue material.
In 1985 Mendiola teamed up with vocalist Marisa Pérez and they became New Baccara. Two years later they had a Spanish top five hit with Call Me Up and their Hi-NRG songs went down well in European clubs. Towards the end of the 90s they confusingly dropped the ‘New’ from their name. In 2004 they appeared on UK reality show Hit Me Baby One More Time. To make matters even more confusing, Pérez left in 2008 and was replaced by Sevilla from Mateos’s Baccara. In 2016 they released yet another version of their UK number 1, with the band Plugin.
The Outro
Yes Sir, I Can Boogie was reworked and improved on by Goldfrapp in 2003. Yes Sir turned up the sleaze and dropped any mention of ‘boogie’. In November 2020 the original made the top 60 again after members of the Scotland football team posted online videos of them dancing to it. Sounds bloody awful.
Mendiola’s death was announced on 12 September 2021. She was 69.
After a very successful comeback in the late 60s, Elvis suffered a slow, ignoble decline throughout the 70s. It took his demise for him to achieve his 17th UK number 1, which pointed the way to what could have been if he had returned to form once more.
Before
A live recording of The Wonder of You was Presley’s final chart-topper in his lifetime in 1970. Soon after he was the subject of documentary film and accompanying album Elvis: That’s the Way It Is. It was during this time that he first began to wear the jumpsuits that would become an emblem of his fall from grace. He also began moving away from the roots sound of his Memphis sessions to less inspirational material. Not that it had any impact on his UK sales at that point – he continued to chart in the top 10 for a few years yet. Presley ended the year meeting President Nixon. Both paranoid men at this point, ‘The King’ slated The Beatles, something that still upset Paul McCartney decades later, who felt betrayed after the band had met him back in 1965 and got on well.
In 1972 another documentary film, Elvis on Tour, won the Golden Globe for Best Documentary Film. It was to be his final cinema release before he died. The single Burning Love became his best known song of the final stretch of his career and reached seven in the UK. The same year, he and Priscilla separated. To some who knew him, it was a blow from which he never recovered.
1973 began promisingly. The TV special Aloha from Hawaii was a global smash and the accompanying album his last US number 1 in his lifetime. But his health was deteriorating dramatically. He was hospitalised twice and spent three days in a coma the first time. That October his divorce was finalised. Despite all the drama, he was committing to an ever-increasing run of live shows.
In 1974 he arrived for a concert at the University of Maryland by falling out of his limousine to his knees. Heavily drugged, he spent the first half an hour of the performance holding his mic stand like it was a post and slurred so badly, members of his band were crying. Increasingly garish in his outfits and singing to an ever-ageing generation, he became rock’n’roll’s answer to Liberace. The supercool Presley of his comeback in 1968 was a distant memory. His pop material began slipping from the charts as his waist expanded. Despite this, he did have some hit singles – Promised Land in 1974 (number nine) and My Boy in 1975 (number five).
In 1976 came Presley’s penultimate LP. From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee featured the single Hurt, an acclaimed cover which hinted at the turmoil behind the tragic, bloated man he had become. RCA had sent a recording studio to Graceland and he recorded enough material that year for one more album. Moody Blue‘s title track was a country hit in the US. But as 1977 came around, he was rapidly getting worse. Concerts were cut short, if they happened at all, and Presley slurred so badly he was intelligible at times.
Review
Despite the concern over the state of Presley, nobody knew Way Down would be the last single released in his lifetime. So that title proved rather ironic. It’s a strange beast, because the opening is really promising. It sounds as if The King was about to discover disco! The lyrics are pretty exciting too. Presley is about to get it on with someone and is likening the passion he’s feeling to a sin, so the ‘way down’ in question isn’t about him being buried but associating sex with the devil. Which is still an appropriate way for Elvis to go out considering his faith in God running parallel to his love of women. Girls in fact, if all the stories are true. Yes another musical icon, one of the biggest of all time, was allegedly a paedophile.
Way Down is ultimately a disappointing farewell thanks to how disjointed it is. The disco boogie of the verses is replaced by a boring chorus that’s rather hollow and symbolises the emptiness of the Vegas years. JD Sumner’s deep ‘Way on down’ sounds like a spoof of the backing vocals of The Jordanaires that appeared on many of Presley’s greatest work. It’s fascinating in the way it signifies where he may have headed next though. And for another clue, consider the fact Mungo Jerry’s Ray Dorset wrote disco classic It Feels Like I’m In Love with Elvis in mind. Kelly Marie took it to number 1 in 1980.
After
The same month Way Down was released, Presley was filmed at two concerts, to be made into a TV special, Elvis in Concert, broadcast after his death. He was in such bad shape it was only aired once and is unlikely to ever be officially released. On 26 June he performed for the last time, at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. On 1 April Elvis: What Happened? was published. This book, written by three fired bodyguards, was the first time his drug addictions were made public. He had offered money to the publishers to halt its release. By this point, he was suffering glaucoma, high blood pressure, liver damage and an enlarged colon, each possibly caused and definitely made worse by his drug abuse.
On 16 August, Presley was scheduled to fly out of Memphis to start another tour. That afternoon his girlfriend Ginger Alden found him lying dead on his bathroom floor. She later said it appeared he had fallen off the toilet and not moved from the spot. The official cause of death given was cardiac arrest. Over the years opinions have differed to what happened but some believe it was a phenomenon known as the Valsava manoeuvre – he basically was so constipated he suffered a heart attack while straining. What a way to go.
The world went into mourning. There had never been a pop star like Presley but he spawned millions of imitators. Two days after the death of Elvis Presley, his funeral was held at Graceland. Outside the gates a car hit a group of fans, killing two. Way Down began to climb the charts and was soon number 1, remaining there for five weeks.
The Outro
It feels like I’ve spent years writing about Elvis. I started this blog in 2017 and when I reached the year of 1957 I was so relieved. Not exactly what you’d call a hardcore fan, it gave me a new sense of understanding of the seismic shift he caused in music and pop culture. He’s come back on and off ever since, for better or worse. And he’ll be back again posthumously eventually – though not for a while.
And yet his star is fading. His fans are dying and his significance lessens with every passing year. Stories of his fondness of teenage girls not exactly helping matters. And nearly 10 years of glitzy Vegas shows while still alive have remained the archetype of the fallen hero.
4 September:Gymnast Zita Cusack 8 September: Freestyle swimmer Gavin Meadows 12 September: Singer-songwriter James McCartney 15 September: Actor Tom Hardy
Deaths
4 September: lllustrator Lynton Lamb 6 September: Mathematician John Littlewood 14 September: Conductor Leopold Stokowski/Welsh rugby league player Jim Sullivan 16 September: T-Rex singer-songwriter Marc Bolan 25 September: Sculptor William McMillan
Meanwhile…
16 September: The UK had another star to mourn. Glam rock icon Marc Bolan of T-Rex died in a car crash in Barnes, London, two weeks before he turned 30. See here for more information.
19 September: FA Cup holders Manchester United were expelled from the European Cup Winners’ Cup after their fans rioted in France during a first round, first leg game with AS Saint-Etienne five days previous that ended as a 1-1 draw.
26 September: Entrepreneur Freddie Laker launched his budget airline Skytrain. The first single fare from Gatwick to New York City cost £59 compared to the normal price of £186. Also on this day, UEFA reinstated Manchester United to the European Cup Winners’ Cup on appeal. But they were ordered to play their return leg against AS Saint-Etienne at least 120 miles away from their stadium at Old Trafford.
3 October: Undertakers went on strike in London, leaving more than 800 corpses unburied.
‘Queen of Disco’ Donna Summer sold hundreds of millions of records in the 70s and 80s. Her sole UK number 1, I Feel Love, is to put it mildly, one of the greatest, most influential records of all time. Pointing the way towards the future of pop, this collaboration with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte will never, ever grow old. It is as important to music as The Beatles’ She Loves You.
Before
Summer was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on 31 December 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts. The third of seven children, her father was a butcher and her mother a schoolteacher. Her performing debut took place at church when she was aged 10, replacing another child who failed to appear. A popular child, at high school she performed in school musicals. In 1967, weeks before graduation, Gaines left Boston for New York, where she joined blues rock group Crow. Allegedly the band split when they failed to be signed due to the label only showing an interest in her.
Gaines remained in New York afterwards, where she auditioned to be in counterculture hit musical Hair. She agreed to take the role of Sheila in the Munich production. Her parents were reluctant for her to move to West Germany, but she did. In 1968 as Donna Gaines she released her first single Wasserman, a German cover of Hair‘s Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, on Polydor. Over the next few years she became fluent in German and starred in several musicals.
In 1971, Gaines moved to Vienna in Austria, where she married the native actor Helmuth Sommer. She got work as a backing singer, going under the name Gayn Pierre. While flitting between this work and being a part-time model, she got to know Moroder and Bellotte in Munich during a recording session with Three Dog Night at their studio. She signed with them in 1974, releasing their first fruits together, Denver Dream, as a single. Due to an error on the demo’s cover, Sommer decided to keep the name Donna Summer instead. Debut LP Lady of the Night came out that same year. This mix of rock, folk and pop performed respectably in the Netherlands, where it was initially released.
Then a year later Summer approached Moroder with a sketch of a song called Love to Love You. Raunchy and explicit, she was unsure she wanted her name putting to it, but agreed to record a demo. Moroder loved it and insisted her version be released. It reached 13 in the Netherlands, but Moroder knew this was just the start. He sent a tape to Casablanca records boss Neil Bogart in the States. Bogart was a lively hedonist and would play Love to Love You at his wild parties. He loved it, but told Moroder it needed to be longer. This was because people would end up having sex to it at his parties and he got sick of having to put the needle on the record again when it ended too soon. A reticent Summer eventually threw herself into the job, laying on a near-dark studio floor to record a vocal the like of which had never been heard in mainstream pop before. Over 16 minutes long and according to the BBC featuring 23 orgasm sounds, Love to Love You Baby introduced the world to Summer. This filthy disco classic, renamed by Bogart, reached two in the US and four in the UK in 1975.
Summer, Moroder and Bellotte wasted no time in capitalising on the success, with an album of the same name following, then two more, A Love Trilogy and Four Seasons of Love in 1976. These were disco concept albums, featuring lengthy dance floor epics on one side and shorter tracks on the flip. Summer had by now earned herself the nickname ‘First Lady of Love’. Sales dropped in the UK, although Winter Melody climbed to 27 in the UK singles chart.
That October, the trio set to work on another concept album. I Remember Yesterday was planned as an LP showcasing Summer’s ability to put her voice to varying music styles from the past, as well as her trademark disco stylings. The final track, it was decided, would be set to what they envisioned as the music of the future. That future was I Feel Love.
Although Moroder had spent several years developing his string-laden disco epics, he had history with the future of music. His song Son of My Father became the first number 1 to feature a synthesiser when covered by Chicory Tip in 1972. For I Feel Love, Moroder borrowed the Moog Modular 3P from classical composer Eberhard Schoener, who had been something of a Moog pioneer. Schoener’s assistant Robby Wedel proved integral in the recording process. Bellotte later called him the unsung hero of the track as he was able to control the Moog in a way nobody, including Robert Moog himself, thought possible.
The large unwieldy instrument, looking like a small TARDIS, was brought into Musicland Studios in Munich. The first line was laid down and Wedel taught Moroder and Bellotte how to synch tracks. It was he that produced the most distinctive and initiated bassline in electronic music, thought up by Moroder. Each note of the baseline was doubled by a delay effect, with the original note coming through the left channel and the delay through the right, creating that hypnotic strobing sensation. Moroder would alter the key at regular intervals to add variety. The recording process was laborious, with the unpredictable Moog going out of tune every 20 or 30 seconds. For the hi-hat sound they took white noise generated by the machine’s envelopes and cut it up. There was however one human element added to the instrumentation. Because they were unable to get a large enough kick drum sound from the Moog, they used their regular session drummer Keith Forsey, who added seven minutes of thump. Forsey later co-wrote Flashdance… What a Feeling with Moroder.
Summer and Bellotte were supposed to work together on the lyrics. Bellotte headed over to her house one night and got started while Summer was on the phone. It was three hours later before she finally came down, apologising for being on the phone to her astrologer, who was helping her decide between two men she was dating. Bellotte had finished writing the song. Summer made up for the wait by eventually recording her vocal in one take.
Review
There simply aren’t enough superlatives to describe this song. It’s far too big to even be called a song. It’s a cultural touchstone. A landmark in music. And unlike some of the greatest songs of all time, I think it’s actually impossible to tire of it. While researching it I fell down a rabbit hole and listened to over 90 minutes of this one song and the many remixes through the years. I could have gone on, too. It’s also an understatement to say no number 1 before it had ever sounded like this. The Moog fades in, shimmering, before the bass and its delay creates a totally addictive, motorik arpeggio, used on countless tunes ever since. It’s alien, electronic, magnetic. And you can feel blissed-out even before Summer comes in. But when she does… total ecstasy. She glides over the retro-futuristic electronic soundscape like an angel.
Understandably when I Feel Love is discussed it’s the backing that gets most of the attention. Summer’s one-take vocal, though, is fantastic. It takes George McCrae’s orgasmic falsetto on that earlier dancefloor revolutionary number 1, Rock Your Baby to another level. The only criticism I could possibly give this single is that it’s too short. The album version, 5:53 long, is hacked down to 3:45, with the fade-in happening too quick, and it fades out before the third verse. If ever a song deserved to stretch out, it’s this.
And yet, Casablanca didn’t seem so sure about I Feel Love. Moroder later recalled that Bogart enjoyed it but not as much as he’d hoped. Bellotte also says that nobody involved in the making of it seemed to realise just how special it was. It was initially tucked away as the B-side to the ballad Can’t We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over), released 1 May 1977. But it gained traction in nightclubs, particularly in the UK. Casablanca switched sides and I Feel Love became the single here and then internationally. It became huge. The 12″ version, at 8:15, is even better than the album version.
After
Summer followed I Feel Love with the beautiful Theme from “The Deep” (Down, Deep Inside), co-written by John Barry. It peaked at five. Love’s Unkind, also from I Remember Yesterday, went to number three. Summer, Moroder and Bellotte followed up that LP with Once Upon a Time… a double album based on Cinderella. In 1978 she acted in the modestly received disco comedy film Thank God It’s Friday. Her song from the soundtrack, Last Dance, saw Summer win her first of five Grammys, for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Also that year, she notched up her first US number 1 with a live recording of MacArthur Park. Her final album for Casablanca, released in 1979, was Bad Girls. This double LP was the biggest selling and most acclaimed of her career. Moroder brought in Harold Faltermeyer to contribute. Hot Stuff and Bad Girls were both US number 1s, making her the first solo artist to have two songs in the Billboard top three. When her duet with Barbra Streisand, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) also went to number 1 there, she became the first female artist to achieve three chart-toppers in one calendar year.
Casablanca wanted Summer to continue to record disco only but she had other ideas and as the 80s began she signed with the new Geffen Records. Her album The Wanderer was its first release. Despite a more eclectic sound, the album didn’t have the same impact in the UK as her Casablanca material. The next collection, Donna Summer, was released in 1982. A pregnant Summer sang at the funeral of Bogart, who died during recording sessions. The eponymous album was a success, with State of Independence a number 14 hit in the UK. It was produced by Quincy Jones, ending her long and fruitful relationship with Moroder and Bellotte.
This was followed by an I Feel Love (Mega Mix) by Patrick Cowley. The American producer, like Moroder, is now considered a disco and hi-NRG pioneer. But he was virtually unknown while alive. Shortly before he died of AIDS in November that year, Casablanca released this 15:43 version of I Feel Love that Cowley originally produced in 1978. Stretching the song out even further than before by looping the bassline, he laid new effects and synth work over long instrumental passages. Allegedly, Moroder isn’t a fan. This could be because Cowley somehow managed to better the original. This is the definitive version of I Feel Love, and made the song a UK hit once more, climbing to 21.
In 1983 Summer recorded the album She Works Hard for the Money to settle her contract dispute between Geffen and Casablanca. It was her bestselling album of the 80s and the single Unconditional Love, featuring Musical Youth, was her last UK chart hit for four years. She returned there with Dinner with Gershwin, which peaked at 13 in 1987. Two years later she worked with the UK’s biggest production team of the era – Stock Aitken Waterman. They were untouchable at the time and it paid off. The album Another Place and Time featured This Time I Know It’s for Real, which peaked at three, and I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt, reaching seven.
The 90s were a leaner time for the Queen of Disco but she was still doing well. In 1994, Melody of Love (I Wanna Be Loved) reached 21. Not bad for a new song tacked on to a greatest hits. The following year a new mix of I Feel Love was released and soared to eight. Featuring a new vocal from Summer and remixes by Masters of Work and Rollo & Sister Bliss from Faithless. I’ve heard many great remixes of the track and these are not among them – but they’re very ‘mid-90s’. Remixes of State of Independence followed in 1996 and gave Summer her final chart hit (13).
The Outro
In 2003 Summer released her autobiography Ordinary Girl: The Journey. Five years later came her first original album in 17 years – Crayons. It would be her last. She died on 17 May 2012 of lung cancer. A nonsmoker, she blamed the 9/11 attack for causing toxic fumes she inhaled, as she had an apartment near Ground Zero. Many of the world’s top singers, influenced by her, paid tribute. She had many hits in her lifetime but non compare to I Feel Love. Few things do.
An early glimpse of the biggest pop star of the 80s. But not early enough, in a way. The Jacksons, when known as The Jackson 5, were one of the most exciting and successful acts of the late 60s and early 70s. And yet despite their first four singles becoming number 1 in the US, it took until 1977 for them to reach the pinnacle of the charts here.
Before
The Jackson 5, like it or not, began with Joe Jackson in Gary, Indiana. The strict disciplinarian who allegedly put his family through years of physical and mental abuse, couldn’t make it as a professional boxer. He then failed to become a pop star after a stint in the 50s as a guitarist in the Falcons. And so he became a crane operator instead and raised a family with his wife Katherine. Rebbie came first and went on to become a singer in the 70s. Then came Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya, twins Marlon and Brandon (Brandon died shortly after birth), Michael and Randy.
Joe returned home one day in 1964 to discover Tito had been playing with his guitar without permission. Although initially furious, he wondered if his children could achieve what he couldn’t. He became the manager of The Jackson Brothers – Jackie, Tito and Jermaine, with childhood friends Reynaud Jones and Milford Hite playing keyboards and drums. Within a year Michael, then only eight, was added to the line-up on congas. Soon after Marlon joined on tambourine and Joe renamed them The Jackson Five Singing Group. In 1966 they won their first talent show. That same year Janet, the youngest of the family, entered the world.
Jones and Hite were replaced by Ronnie Rancifer and Johnny Jackson and the band performed at talent shows around the region, soon also performing paid gigs. Little Michael began to outshine Jermaine and replaced him on lead, wowing crowds with his dance moves, mimicking the likes of James Brown. He later said he paid for his talent because Joe focused his strict ways specifically on him, helping to turn his own son into a superstar but permanently damaging his own child in the process.
Allegedly a gig by the band at Harlem’s Apollo Theater earned them their first celebrity fan. Gladys Knight was impressed and sent a demo tape to Motown Records, which was rejected. As was a recording of Big Boy, which became their debut single when Joe signed them to Steeltown Records in 1968. That July they supported Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers. Taylor was blown away my Michael and arranged a taped audition with Motown. Founder Berry Gordy Jr refused to sign any more ‘kid acts’ after Stevie Wonder, but he too couldn’t deny they had something special. They finally signed with Motown as The Jackson 5 in 1969.
It was decided that The Jackson 5 had a better chance to make a big first impression by claiming they were discovered by Diana Ross from The Supremes. Michael was billed as being eight, even though he was 10. Gordy had high hopes for his latest signing, even going so far as to assemble a crack team of songwriters specifically to create hits for The Jackson 5. He dubbed them The Corporation. And they certainly achieved their aim.
Their debut single, I Want You Back, was released that October. This effervescent funk and pop was one of the last great songs of the 60s, eventually topping the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1970. It peaked at two in the UK, which is criminal. Their debut LP, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, didn’t need Ross’s name to sell it after all. Second album ABC‘s title track was another stone cold classic and another US number 1, as was The Love You Save and ballad I’ll Be There, which came from their imaginatively titled Third Album. No act had ever achieved four number 1s with their first four singles before. And before the year was out they released a fourth album, Jackson 5 Christmas Album, featuring their energetic take on Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.
Jacksonmania was everywhere, and they overtook The Supremes as Motown’s bestselling group. The label made the most of it, licensing all manner of merchandise, including stickers, posters, colouring books and even a Saturday morning animated series. Michael’s star appeal was too big to limit to just the group and so he also began a solo career in 1971, reaching the top in the US with his ode to a rat, Ben. To a lesser degree of success, Jermaine followed.
Unfortunately, this tied in with the start of The Jackson 5’s commercial decline. Never Can Say Goodbye and Sugar Daddy went top 10 in the US in 1971 but after that their singles hovered around the bottom reaches of the top 20 in the US. In the UK they had two singles reach nine in 1972 – Looking’ Through the Windows and Doctor My Eyes. The Corporation split in 1973, which hardly helped matters. The title track to Dancing Machine in 1974 marked their foray into the emerging disco scene, and earned them a number two in the US. But the slide continued afterwards.
In 1975 The Jackson 5 released their final LP on Motown – the ominously titled Moving Violation. Joe and his sons were tired of low royalty rates and wanted greater creative control. They announced their decision at a press conference to garner interest from other labels. It worked. In June 1975 they signed with Epic Records for a much greater royalty rate. Well, most of them did. Jermaine had married into the Gordy family so decided not to rock the boat and remained with Motown. Joe replaced him with Randy, the youngest of the Jackson boys. As they were under contract with Motown until 1976, Gordy threatened to sue over the use of their group name, so they became known as simply The Jacksons.
Their eponymous album came out in 1976, and it looked like they’d made a wise move. They were teamed up with expert hitmakers Gamble and Huff and signed to their subsidiary, Philadelphia International Records. First single Enjoy Yourself was their biggest hit in two years, and then came Show You the Way to Go. Written and produced by Gamble and Huff, it featured Michael on lead and he joined the others on backing vocals too. Tito played guitar, Randy played bass and the rest of the music came from their label’s house band of session musicians, MFSB (meaning Mother Father Sister Brother).
Review
How strange that of all those initial massive pop hits by The Jackson 5, it was this more subtle track that gave them their only UK number 1. On first listen, you’d be forgiven for thinking, this is an album filler at best. But Show You the Way to Go is, for me, fascinating. It’s a strong sign The Jacksons were growing up, and Michael in particular. No longer the squeaky voiced cute little boy, he was maturing into just as talented an adult star and the others were fading into the background. Michael makes tentative steps into his signature sound, with the yelps and improvising pointing the way. Showing the way he’d go, in fact.
But then the song has this weird structure, where it sounds as though it’s coming to a natural end, but carries on. It’s even in the single edit and it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard in a number 1 before. It should make for a total mess, but Michael saves it with his interjections. The yelping on the fade out is of note too. It surely can’t have been performed in one take, which means it must be studio trickery – so is it early sampling? It almost sounds like 90s techno. So yes, what on first listen is far from an obvious chart-topper, makes for an intriguing listen. The other Jacksons deserve mentioning too. Those backing vocals, warm and comforting, work so well with the tenderness of the tune.
After
In a curious reversal of fortunes, this period in the Jacksons saw greater chart success than in the US. Their 1978 classic Blame It On the Boogie was a number eight hit here, didn’t even crack the US top 50. By this point they had been given total creative control, and the parent album Destiny was a huge success. It also featured the excellent Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground), written by Michael and Randy. And soon after the former’s solo career really took off thanks to 1979’s Off the Wall album.
In 1980 The Jacksons’ album Triumph lived up to its name, especially thanks to the disco epic Can You Feel It (number six in the UK), written by Michael and Jackie. But there was no escaping the fact that Michael had become a superstar and the rest of the brothers couldn’t match his talent and magnetism. Not that there appeared to be any bad blood. In 1983 on the US TV special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, The Jacksons reunited with Jermaine. It was the show on which Michael’s ‘Moonwalk’ to Billie Jean made headlines around the world.
In 1984, with Jermaine back on board, they recorded their bestselling album yet, Victory. However, it was essentially a collection of solo recordings. Their final UK top 20 single, State of Shock, was mainly a duet between Michael and Mick Jagger. Despite the success, this proved a tumultuous year for the group. Famously, while filming a Pepsi commercial with his brothers, Michael suffered burns to his scalp. Their tour was marred by Jackie suffering a leg injury, ticket issues and friction within the family.
Understandably, Michael felt it was time to concentrate purely on his own career. Marlon left soon after to go solo too, before quitting music entirely. One more album followed in 1989. The remaining four released 2300 Jackson Street and the title track featured Michael and Marlon as well. But it sold poorly and the brothers went on hiatus.
And that was it until September 2001, when all six reunited for two concerts filmed for TV, celebrating Michael’s 30th anniversary as a solo artist. Then in 2009, Jackie, Jermaine, Tito and Randy began filming a reality TV show centred around their plans to reform and record a new album to celebrate 40 years in showbiz. Everything changed a few days after filming in June when Michael died. It was turned into a series and named The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty. The surviving Jacksons recorded backing vocals for Michael’s previously unreleased This Is It, intended as the title track to his big comeback. Instead it became his epitaph.
There was talk of a reunion tribute tour and album from The Jacksons but it never transpired. Jermaine and Jackie released new music though. Then a tribute concert was in the running, to the extent Jackie, Tito and Marlon appeared alongside Katherine and LaToya for press conference. But Randy and Jermaine issued their own statement denouncing the idea as it was planned to coincide with the manslaughter trial of Michael’s doctor Conrad Murray. It went ahead anyway and in 2012 Jermaine joined the trio for the Unity Tour, which ended in 2013. In 2018, Joe died.
Although Michael had at times publicly spoken about the abuse suffered at his father’s hands, his brothers are always quick to jump to his defence. Whether this is a case of joint Stockholm syndrome, we’ll never know. At time of writing, Jermaine, Jackie, Tito and Marlon are publicising a political reworking of Can You Feel It.
The Outro
Obviously, there will be plenty more Michael Jackson to follow in due course, but I’ve decided to give The Jackson 5/The Jacksons and relevant solo careers a deeper listen. Forever overshadowed by Michael, for good and bad reasons, I feel it’s time the band’s career was reappraised away from the controversy of their most famous member’s life.
The Info
Written & produced by
Gamble and Huff
Weeks at number 1
1 (25 June-1 July)
Meanwhile…
26 June: Jayne McDonald is found battered and stabbed to death in Chapeltown, Leeds. Police suspect she is the fifth person to be murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper. McDonald was a 16-year-old shop assistant, not a prostitute, which brought a new level of revulsion to the Ripper’s crimes from the media.
1 July: Virginia Wade won the Women’s Singles title at Wimbledon.
