Night Moves: Pop Music in the Late '70s

by Don Breithaupt, Jeff Breithaupt

Overview

The late 1970s brought us an eclectic mix of popular music--everything from big hits (and even bigger hair) to cult favorites, along with the dawn of disco and punk, the coming of corporate rock, the rise of reggae and new wave, and some of the most progressive, inventive songwriting of the century.

Whether you cranked up your radio for Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Supertramp, the Bee Gees, Talking Heads, Rickie Lee Jones, or Earth, Wind and Fire, you'll relive those heady days with this compulsively readable, behind-the-scenes account of the "Frampton years," an era when pop became very big business. It's all here, from ABBA to Zevon. Night Moves by Don Breithaupt and Jeff Breithaupt is a feisty, funny volume that will leave pop fans of every stripe feeling Reunited, Afternoon Delight-ed, and Still Crazy After All These Years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466871380
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/13/2014
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Don Breithaupt and Jeff Breithaupt remember exactly where they were when the KISS Army invaded. Don, a three-time Juno Award nominee, is a musician and journalist; he lives in Bolton, Ontario. Jeff is a freelance writer and arts fundraiser; he lives in New York City.

Don and Jeff are coauthors of Precious and Few: Pop Music of the Early '70s and Night Moves: Pop Music in the Late '70s.

Don Breithaupt, a three-time Juno Award nominee, is a musician and journalist. He is the coauthor of Night Moves: Pop Music in the Late '70s.  He lives in Bolton, Ontario.
Jeff Breithaupt is a freelance writer and arts fundraiser, and the coauthor of Night Moves: Pop Music in the Late '70s. He lives in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

Night Moves

Pop Music in the Late 70's

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By Don Breithaupt, Jeff Breithaupt

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2000 Don Breithaupt and Jeff Breithaupt
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-7138-0

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CHAPTER 1

Bar Wars

DISCO

"Get Up and Boogie (That's Right)" • Silver Convention (Midland I., 1976)

"Turn the Beat Around" • Vicki Sue Robinson (RCA, 1976)

"(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" • K.C. and the Sunshine Band (T.K., 1976)

"Love Hangover" • Diana Ross (Motown, 1976)

"Boogie Nights" • Heatwave (Epic, 1977)

"Last Dance" • Donna Summer (Casablanca, 1978)

"Y.M.C.A." • Village People (Casablanca, 1978)

"Le Freak" • Chic (Atlantic, 1978)

"Disco Inferno" • The Trammps (Atlantic, 1978)

"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" • Michael Jackson (Epic, 1979)

"Yowsah, yowsah, yowsah." The phrase comes from They Shoot Horses, Don't They? — Sydney Pollack's film about the grim, grueling dance marathons of the thirties. When Chic used it on their 1977 debut single ("Dance, Dance, Dance [Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah]"), it suggested America had become one big, smoky, loud, interminable, joyless party. The idea was not without merit; a look inside any of the country's ten thousand discos presented a superficially celebratory but ultimately dispiriting picture. Surrounded by flashing lights, dry ice, and jackhammer-level sound, humanoids in genital-crushing designer jeans whirled and bobbed in predetermined patterns, blowing their tiny "disco whistles" at intervals as though officiating at some cybernetic sporting event. An endless stream of drum and bass information left room neither for conversation nor contemplation. Above the antiseptic din, a detached female voice chanted an ironic reprise: "I feel love, I feel love ..." Disco, the century's most popular dance music, seemed the opposite of fun.

Or not — there are those who remember the disco era as a time of explosive release, peopled by free spirits sharing the communal joy of rhythm. Cocktails came with umbrellas, suits came with vests, and strangers came together.

Certainly disco had, in its formative days, produced some of the best pop singles of the mid-seventies — "Bad Luck," "Love's Theme," "Once You Get Started," "The Love I Lost," "T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia)" — but most of those had come under the heading of "Philly soul," the highly orchestrated, rhythmically intoxicating style that by decade's end was disappearing faster than cocaine on a mirrored tabletop. (After 1976, only scattered gems like McFadden and Whitehead's "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" and the Jacksons' "Enjoy Yourself" hinted at the undiluted Nixon-era greatness of Philly gurus Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.) Standard-issue disco was, by contrast, predictable.

From the emotionless drone of the Andrea True Connection's "More, More, More (Part 1)" to the intolerable pseudointensity of Patrick Hernandez's "Born to Be Alive," disco seemed irredeemably dull, attracting two detractors for every supporter. K.C. mercilessly exploited his "booty"/"boogie" formula. Boney M (brainchild of future Milli Vanilli creator Frank Farian) declawed Caribbean music. Meco added standard-issue thump to sci-fi movie themes. And, in what may well turn out to be pop culture's darkest hour, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" went to number one.

Of course, there were individual records that resisted or transcended disco's oppressive formalism. Michael Jackson's first Quincy Jones collaboration (1979's Off the Wall, including "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and the sparkling "Rock with You") was the very model of a modern major general-interest album. The Emotions, a former Stax/Volt trio whose artistic rebirth was overseen by Maurice White, cut "Best of My Love," disco's happiest hit. Diana Ross imbued "Love Hangover" with palpable morning-after lust and a killer fade (later appropriated by Gamble and Huff for Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way"). The Trammps, fronted by Philly session vet Earl Young, spurred record smoke-detector sales in 1977 with "Disco Inferno," a four-alarm party record that was equal parts MFSB and EWF.

Part of the de-Philly-fication of disco was the music's return to its natural center, New York City. In addition to local acts like Chic, the Village People, GQ, Brass Construction, and Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band, and tributes like "Native New Yorker" and "N.Y., You Got Me Dancing," New York was home to the swankiest, starfuckingest disco in the world, Steve Rubell's Studio 54. With its celebrity-studded guest list and impenetrable velvet rope, '54 represented the disco lifestyle at its excessive, elitist best. Infamous for its laissez-faire attitude toward nudity and drug use, it became the target for all who hated the D-word — a kind of boogie bogeyman. Not that the denizens of '54 were concerned; the upstanding citizens of Middle America lay outside the 212, and were, by definition, invisible.

Chic, disco's critical darlings and one of a handful of acts who mixed muscular, R&B-style playing with their hypnotic two- and three-chord vamps, were the kingpins of the New York sound. Guitarist Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards crafted a string of hits not only for Chic ("Le Freak," "I Want Your Love," "Good Times"), but also Sister Sledge ("We Are Family," "He's the Greatest Dancer") and Diana Ross ("I'm Coming Out," "Upside Down").

On the camp side, there were the Village People, a gaythemed act whose gold hits included the barely grooving "Y.M.C.A.," "Macho Man," and "In the Navy," and Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band, a faux swing group that later evolved into Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Donna Summer, the Boston-born chanteuse who turned out to be disco's biggest star, lent her name to dance-floor fodder as uninspired as "Heaven Knows," and as beguiling as "Last Dance." (Note to seventies purists: Summer's best single, "On the Radio," came out in 1980.)

Both Summer and the Village People recorded for Casablanca Records, the New York label that, true to its name, was the White House of disco. Due south, outside Miami, T.K. Studios was home to another empire — that of K.C. and the Sunshine Band and related artists like Jimmy "Bo" Horne and George McCrae. Though McCrae's 1974 proto-disco hit "Rock Your Baby" was undoubtedly the most interesting record Harry Wayne Casey (K.C.) and partner Richard Finch ever produced, the duo exerted an almost Beatles-like hold on the pop and R&B charts from 1975 to 1977: "Get Down Tonight," "That's the Way (I Like It)," "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty," and "I'm Your Boogie Man," while monozygotically alike, were popular in the extreme.

Disco was booming, especially in the U.S. The Recording Industry Association of America began certifying platinum (2 million–selling) singles in 1976, beginning with Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady" and continuing with "Boogie Nights," "Le Freak," "Bad Girls," "Stayin' Alive," "Boogie Oogie Oogie," and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." All-disco radio stations appeared and prospered. (" ... And now, for a change of pace, a little something at one hundred and twenty-one beats per minute!") Disco cinema's great trilogy — Thank God It's Friday, Can't Stop the Music, and Saturday Night Fever — brought the nightclub into the movie theater, with Fever and the Bee Gees de-ghettoizing the music, and Friday showing us the single most uncomfortable, herky-jerky performance of the era: decathlete-cum-actor Bruce Jenner getting down to the Village People. Rock stronghold Rolling Stone featured Donna Summer, the Village People, and the Bee Gees on its covers. In 1979, disco songs accounted for more than half of Billboard's number one records.

Dan Rather called the whole phenomenon "another episode of silliness," and indeed discomania had some bizarre side effects: disco records by Cheryl Ladd, Ethel Merman, and Charo; roller disco, disco jazz, and disco reggae; wraparound skirts; power-mad doormen; Grace Jones. But, on the bright side, the genre brought public attention to the producer's role in pop music. Rodgers-Edwards, Casey-Finch, Quincy Jones, Maurice White, and techno-godfather Giorgio Moroder became, in some cases, as important as the artists they produced.

Moroder's groundbreaking work with Donna Summer in the field of breathing to the beat was not anomalous; in the era of Looking for Mr. Goodbar, sexual themes were plentiful. Propositions ("Kiss You All Over"), primers ("In the Bush"), even warnings ("You Can't Turn Me Off [In the Middle of Turning Me On]") made the charts, and pre-AIDS (heck, pre-herpes) promiscuity was the order of the day. Bumping and hustling fell by the wayside as a new, crotch-grinding dance called "the freak" took hold. Album titles included French Kiss, Bodyheat, Long Stroke, Nice 'n' Naasty, and Eargasm.

Where could established stars go for a piece of this action? To the front of the line, of course. Steely Dan's acknowledged disco influence revealed itself engagingly on singles like "Peg" and "The Fez." The Rolling Stones had their biggest hit in five years with the disc-otinged "Miss You." Adult-contemporary icon Barbra Streisand teamed up with adult-content icon Donna Summer for the self-descriptive "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)." James Brown hung up his "Godfather of Soul" title temporarily to become The Original Disco Man. Other disco dabblers included:

• Rod Stewart — "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?"

• Elton John — "Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance!)"

• KISS — "I Was Made for Loving You"

• Isaac Hayes — "Juicy Fruit (Disco Freak) Pt. 1"

• Earth, Wind and Fire — "Boogie Wonderland"

• Cher — "Take Me Home"

• Dolly Parton — "Baby I'm Burnin'"

• Isley Brothers — "It's a Disco Night (Rock, Don't Stop)"

• Ohio Players — "Feel the Beat (Everybody Disco)"

• Boz Scaggs — "Hollywood"

• The Undisputed Truth — "Let's Go Down to the Disco"

• Queen — "Another One Bites the Dust."

Lest we conclude that disco was a strictly American phenomenon, it's worth noting that its practitioners also came from Germany (Silver Convention, Heatwave), the West Indies (Hot Chocolate, Boney M), France (Cerrone), Jamaica (Eruption), Cuba (Foxy), Italy (Giorgio Moroder), England (Gonzalez), Canada (Gino Soccio), and Japan (Pink Lady).

For rock fans, the music's country of origin was not the point — listening to disco from anywhere was comparable to having a tooth filled by Sir Laurence Olivier. Rockers from Joey Ramone to David Gilmour were unflinching in their condemnation. Frank Zappa, composer of "Disco Boy," wrote: "Disco entertainments centers make it possible for mellow, laid-back, boring kinds of people to meet each other and reproduce." The success of the chart-topping, grimly unfunny spoof "Disco Duck" was an indication of just how desperate the world was to have a laugh at disco's expense.

Unlike Paul Masson, which, according to then-pitchman Orson Welles, would "sell no wine before its time," record labels were signing anything with a beat and rushing it into the marketplace. When millions of hair dryers were recalled in 1979 because of harmful levels of asbestos, the blow-dried, hirsute music industry should have recognized it as some kind of omen: record sales would drop almost 20 percent by the end of the year. Despite the unbroken stream of low-maintenance best-sellers foretold by Saturday Night Fever, the crash had come, and major-label rosters were crowded with quick-buck, go-nowhere acts whose market value (and growth potential) was nil. As good as singles like Vicki Sue Robinson's "Turn the Beat Around," Evelyn "Champagne" King's "Shame," and Cheryl Lynn's "Got to Be Real" were, they were not the stuff of long-term careers; only a handful of disco types (Michael Jackson, Kool and the Gang, and a born-again Donna Summer) made it past the first few years of the 1980s.

The Japanese auto industry had embraced cybernetics, but the American record industry had discovered it couldn't use robots to manufacture its product. Disco deservedly vaporized at decade's end, and the more danceable chart-toppers of 1980 and 1981 were fuelled by goofy synth effects ("Funky-town"), pseudo hip-hop ("Rapture"), proven hooks (Stars On 45's "Medley"), or unstoppable trends ("Physical"). The now jaded, recession-plagued pop audience that had willingly taken a ride in the stretch limo called disco would no longer be fooled by strangers in passing cars soliciting a quick buck.

Toot toot.

Hey!

Beep beep.

Roll Over, Beethoven: Disco Discovers Covers

• "A Fifth of Beethoven" — Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band (Ludwig van Beethoven, 1805–1807)

• "Whispering/Cherchez la femme/Se si bon" — Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band (Paul Whiteman, 1920; Eartha Kitt, 1953)

• "If It's the Last Thing I Do" — Thelma Houston (Tommy Dorsey, 1937)

• "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" — Tuxedo Junction (Glenn Miller, 1941)

• "Tangerine" — Salsoul Orchestra (Jimmy Dorsey, 1942)

• "Brazil" — The Ritchie Family (Xavier Cugat, 1943)

• "Short Shorts" — Salsoul Orchestra (Royal Teens, 1958)

• "Dancing in the Street" — Boney M (Martha and the Vandellas, 1964)

• "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" — Santa Esmerelda (The Animals, 1965)

• "Knock On Wood" — Amii Stewart (Eddie Floyd, 1966)

• "MacArthur Park" — Donna Summer (Richard Harris, 1968)

• "I Can't Stand the Rain" — Eruption (Ann Peebles, 1973)

• "Uptown Festival (Part 1)" — Shalamar (medley of Motown hits)

• "Discomania (Part 1)" — Cafe Creme (medley of Beatles hits)

Take the Money and Run

POP

"Don't Go Breaking My Heart" • Elton John and Kiki Dee (Rocket, 1976)

"If You Leave Me Now" • Chicago (Columbia, 1976)

"Show Me the Way" • Peter Frampton (A&M, 1976)

"Silly Love Songs" • Wings (Capitol, 1976)

"Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" • Rod Stewart (Warner Bros., 1976)

"Afternoon Delight" • Starland Vocal Band (Windsong, 1976)

"Moonlight Feels Right" • Starbuck (Private Stock, 1976)

"Rich Girl" • Daryl Hall & John Oates (RCA, 1977)

"Jet Airliner" • Steve Miller Band (Capitol, 1977)

"Dancing Queen" • ABBA (Atlantic, 1977)

When Howard Hughes died in 1976, the fortune hunters started coming out of the woodwork. Armed with forged versions of the late tycoon's last will and testament, the alleged former lovers and illegitimate children staked their claims (one woman, obviously underprepared, swore she was Hughes's manicurist). The unassuming Melvin Dumar, who swore to having given Hughes a ride in his truck, had a story compelling enough for Twentieth Century–Fox to get involved (Melvin and Howard, 1977).

Hughes's estate wasn't the only game in town: there was a lot of money up for grabs in the late seventies. With sixties idealism slipping into darkness, the entertainment industry became energized by mechanical sharks and high-powered talent agents (also mechanical sharks). Into this economic arena — sorry, stadium — stepped Peter Frampton, whose double album Frampton Comes Alive! became the first of several infamous late-seventies musical blockbusters. A true live album — you could hear the hall's echo, and the performances were overdub-free — Alive! featured Frampton's mellifluous, "talkbox"-enhanced guitar solos and winning pop songs like "Baby, I Love Your Way" and "Do You Feel Like We Do." Although Frampton would soon find his star descending, due largely to the sodden studio follow-up I'm In You, he had changed the economics of rock.

Rod Stewart, for one, took full advantage. Although he'd had other hits — "Maggie May," his ode to an older lover, had spent five weeks at number one in 1971 — he was in the midst of a four-year dry spell when he followed Frampton's lead and came alive himself, with "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" in 1976. This time Stewart spent a whopping eight weeks atop the charts, with the song reversing the (Maggie) May-December romance and walking a thin line between lechery and tenderness as the singer invited his "virgin child" to spread her "wings" and let him "come inside." It wasn't subtle, but it was lucrative. Rod's subsequent string of hits, though often verging on self-parody (well, come on, da ya think he's sexy?), was by turns solemn and campy ("The Killing of Georgie [Part I and II]," "Hot Legs").

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Night Moves by Don Breithaupt, Jeff Breithaupt. Copyright © 2000 Don Breithaupt and Jeff Breithaupt. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Acknowledgments,
Epigraph,
A New Preface,
Foreword by Joe Jackson,
Introduction,
Bar Wars • Disco,
Take the Money and Run • Pop,
Wild and Crazy Guys • Novelty Records,
Last Tango • Early Seventies, Continued,
Mr. Bill • Billy Joel,
Sweathog Nation • Bubblegum,
Boogiespeak • Buzzwords,
Family Feud • Fleetwood Mac,
The Six Million Dollar Tan • West Coast Pop,
A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Rock and Roll • The Eagles,
Artificial Heart • Corporate Rock,
Bicentennial Blues • Bruce Springsteen,
Logical Songs • Progressive Pop,
Future Legend • David Bowie,
Wavelengths • Singer-Songwriters,
Carly's Angel • James Taylor,
Coolsville • Rickie Lee Jones,
The Girls in the Plastic Bubbles • Divas,
Platinum Bland • MOR,
The Wonder Years • Soul,
Movin' On Up • Corporate Soul,
Sgt. Pepper's "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" Club Band • Bee Gees,
The Linen • Soft Rock,
Dazed and Confused • Rock,
No Static At All • Steely Dan,
Sax and Violins • Corporate Jazz,
The Clinton Administration • Funk,
Funk the World • Earth, Wind and Fire,
The Doobie Brother • Bob Marley,
Meltdown • Punk,
A Flock of Haircuts • New Wave,
Revenge of the Nerd • Elvis Costello,
Conclusion,
Appendixes,
Bibliography,
Artist Index,
Also by Don Breithaupt and Jeff Breithaupt,
Copyright,

Editorial Reviews

Night Moves is the kind of affectionately humorous trip through the musical landscape of the late '70s that could come only from someone who came of age to the sweet sounds of Peter Frampton, Fleetwood Mac, Barry Manilow, and Earth, Wind & Fire.

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