Where did DISCO start?

[pepper1dancer]

After reading all the blogs about music, I was just curious where Disco started. I've always heard that Europe likes more dance music than the USA.
I know Disco started in the 70's but who ran with the phrase of "Disco" first? Didn't Europe start with Punk and New Wave (my favorite) in the 70's and 80's and USA with Rap in the late 70's.

[KoolChris]

USA, Baby, USA...! You started hearing that sound blossom from funk & soul in the early '70s, gain strength and character in the mid '70s, and explode in the last years... Of course, the Europeans caught on quickly, and brought with them a more electronic sound (Italo)...

The topic has been discussed before, so wait awhile, and I'm sure other voices will rise to contradict or complete this statement...

[garrybcoston]

Originally Posted by KoolChris

USA, Baby, USA...! You started hearing that sound blossom from funk & soul in the early '70s, gain strength and character in the mid '70s, and explode in the last years... Of course, the Europeans caught on quickly, and brought with them a more electronic sound (Italo)...

The topic has been discussed before, so wait awhile, and I'm sure other voices will rise to contradict or complete this statement...

Yepper, the good ole USA. We birthed it and we killed it (we're famous for doing this), we build em, then tear em down! And Kool Chris is right, it evolved from soul, r&b, and some funk in the 60's and early 70's, with people spinning these records in clubs which became known as discoteques (where you spin dancing records), then Tom Moulton came on the scene with rehashing and renovating these sounds into more dance oriented mixes, remixes and lengthening the time, the Europeans caught on and added some electronic flavor to their version of this new type of music, thus disco was born and the word, phrase, fashion and trend was used worldwide for nearly a decade (if you count from the early 70's to 1980).

Garry

[Disco Funk]

Disco started with the release of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack!!!

It's really hard to say who started disco. It's a mixture of Motown, late 60's Philly, James Brown, and Latin. There's so much debate as to which track was the first disco tune. I think the first true disco tune (by true, I mean, it could be mixed into a set of songs from later years and not sound out of place) came out of Philly. Something from early 73, like Waiting For The Rain b/w Don't Depend on Me by Fantastic Johnny C, which was released in Feb 23, '73, according to the liner notes on the Philly Steps CD.

Disco Funk

[White Raven]

Let me take You to the 40’s of the last century America… So, first of all I’d like to thank Glen Miller because, he was one of the first who made the JAZZ POP’uular. Of course, he wasn’t the creator of JAZZ, but made the changes up to the JAZZ, that it can be understood for the mass culture: the JAZZ like the music for dancing. Than I want to thank Frank Sinatra, and not only him, but all associated with him musicwave of composers and singers of the 50’s of last century. They became the further in the chain of forming the DISCO. They made the MUSIC-HALL style of sounding and adapted the JAZZ much more to the “ears&legs” of people. I can hear how the strings and brass section of those times came through the works of Ray Conniff, Paul Mauriat, James Last, Ennio Morricone to the 60’s and formed the main feature in the sounding of American and European PSYCHEDELIC ROCK bands from 1967 to 1971 years. Today we know such rock division of late 60’s like PROTOPROGRESSIVE. I think that exactly these bands formed the base of DISCO. But here I must note about the Jimmy Hendix and James Brown works which breathed to PROTOPROG the elements of real R’n’B and SOUL too. Exactly here I can see the birth of such fusion of R’n’B, SOUL and JAZZ, which will be further called like FUNK. So exactly PSYCHEDELIC ROCK bands of late 60’s formed the FUNK and so made possible the birth of DISCO like the poppy-style of FUNK.

Here let me present you to hear some short-cuts of the music (that I love very-very much!!!) to make the proof of my words:

RARE_EARTH-1971.ogg
VANILLA_FUDGE-1969.ogg
HAIR-1969.ogg
AFFINITY-1969.ogg
BIRTH_CONTROL-1972.ogg
ARTHUR_BROWN-1967.ogg

And some few words to say more, please. Exactly progressive rock scene formed the DISCO. For example, being very strong in 70’s by symphoprogressive rock, Italy formed ITALODISCO by the mighty of keyboard synthesizers sounding in 80’s. Please look at the Italian progressive rock New Trols and Il Volo, for example. Now lets look at the British rock scene and hear, for example, the band from 1969 called Affinity. Legendary Mo Foster played in this band and we know his bass in works of the 80 ‘s from Don Ray and Alec Constandinos. And what about the drummer from Giorgio Moroder’s projects? We all know Keith Forsey, which came to play DISCO after 1975 from German progressive rock band called Rolland Kovach Set. And now I coming back from Europe to the point from which I began my telling, I mean America. Yes, this land is the creator of the DISCO.

[nrgbeat]

Here's how disco started:

In NYC circa 1974, a group of multicultural gay guys were bored and looking for something to do. One of them suggested throwing a a block party for a bunch of their friends. Another member of the group just came back from Philly and picked up a bunch of r&b records that he would play at the party.

The party was such a success that they started having them every week and people came from miles around to dance to the latest sounds.

One of the guys vacationed in England that summer and visited his cousin in Southampton and turned him on to the grooves they were playing in NY. Soon all of Southampton and eventually all of England were boogying down in their bowler hats.

That's how disco got it's start. The gay community.:icon_r azz:

[discokicks]

Originally Posted by nrgbeat

The party was such a success that they started having them every week and people came from miles around to dance to the latest sounds......

And remicks was there ...Marky too ...Sylvester, Patrick Cowley and eventually Elton John joined in on the fun (Paul wanted to but couldn't decide ) and they danced, danced, danced until a bunch of straight guys showed up and said...

"You stupid queers...we've been dancing to this stuff for a couple of years now so don't go tellin' everyone that you started it 'cause it just ain't true"

...and this started the historic NY rumble cleverly described in MJ's music video Beat It.

[Videoskooter]

I'll think I'll go with the first 5 posters in this thread. Especially White Raven who gave a very interesting view on the development of Dance music! There's a great possibility that it really went that way.

I'm not so sure about post 6 and 7 but I'm willing to believe 'em

I'm always a bit confused in topics like this. Where did Disco start?

Are we talking about the origins of Disco music? Or are we talking about the Disco movement (clubs, fashion, attitide, etc....). Mentioning Philly, I really say it goes back to Mozart and Strauss! No? Listen to their complete works and you'll find all the patterns in those (without the beats of course).

Remember when Quinny is slammin' Cerrone and Midney and always says that he doesn't like this artificial Dance with semi-classical input? And like I've already written a dozen times: Costandinos is the evolution of the ancient Eastern (Arabia) vibes!

And what about the fact that Earl Young really started Disco with his legendary Hi-hat drumming???? As mentioned in:

http://www.discomusic.com/cds-more/4890_0_3_0_C/

[garrybcoston]

Originally Posted by nrgbeat

Here's how disco started:

In NYC circa 1974, a group of multicultural gay guys were bored and looking for something to do. One of them suggested throwing a a block party for a bunch of their friends. Another member of the group just came back from Philly and picked up a bunch of r&b records that he would play at the party.

The party was such a success that they started having them every week and people came from miles around to dance to the latest sounds.

One of the guys vacationed in England that summer and visited his cousin in Southampton and turned him on to the grooves they were playing in NY. Soon all of Southampton and eventually all of England were boogying down in their bowler hats.

That's how disco got it's start. The gay community.:icon_r azz:

WRONG!!!!!!!

[garrybcoston]

Originally Posted by Videoskooter

I'll think I'll go with the first 5 posters in this thread. Especially White Raven who gave a very interesting view on the development of Dance music! There's a great possibility that it really went that way.

I'm not so sure about post 6 and 7 but I'm willing to believe 'em

I'm always a bit confused in topics like this. Where did Disco start?

Are we talking about the origins of Disco music? Or are we talking about the Disco movement (clubs, fashion, attitide, etc....). Mentioning Philly, I really say it goes back to Mozart and Strauss! No? Listen to their complete works and you'll find all the patterns in those (without the beats of course).

Remember when Quinny is slammin' Cerrone and Midney and always says that he doesn't like this artificial Dance with semi-classical input? And like I've already written a dozen times: Costandinos is the evolution of the ancient Eastern (Arabia) vibes!

And what about the fact that Earl Young really started Disco with his legendary Hi-hat drumming???? As mentioned in:

http://www.discomusic.com/cds-more/4890_0_3_0_C/

I think everyone saw that the music was gearing up and becoming successful and then the movement (fashion, fad, etc.) was created to accomodate the music; that's my take.

Garry

[pepper1dancer]

Lot of interesting theories here. I remember when i was a youn lad, i bought alot of 45's and i remember dancing for the very first time to one of my 1st "disco er dance records i ever bought. That would have to be "Rock the Boat". Good-bye Helen Reddy and Elton John! Hello, DISCO!!!

[Disco Funk]

Originally Posted by Videoskooter

And what about the fact that Earl Young really started Disco with his legendary Hi-hat drumming???? As mentioned in:

http://www.discomusic.com/cds-more/4890_0_3_0_C/

If you're referring to the flying/bouncing hi-hat which we hear at the beginning of The Trammps 'Zing', that could be true, although the drummer for Sly & The Family Stone played that way on 'Are You Ready' and 'Life' both from '68. I'd say it was the hi-hat and four on the floor drumming combination that Earl Young used on Waitin In The Rain from Feb 73 that really set the disco sound.

While the psychedelic songs of the late 60s and the prog rock tracks of the early 70s featured funky beats, they weren't really proto-disco tunes. If anyone playing 'psychedelic music' that influenced disco it would have been Sly & The Family Stone. The use of the dance beat, and fuzz guitars, certainly influenced some of the early examples of disco from Philly on tracks like Do The Robot by The Family, and You Are My Sun Sign by Nat Turner.

The dance beat was more of a characteristic of pop dance music in general. You can hear that across many genres of music, not just in disco. Disco was just a type of funk groove that compacted and streamlined the beat into a perfect groove for dancing to music at higher BPMs. There was some disco songs with sycopated beats, like Got To Be Real, but even that song gives in to the true Disco beat during the bridge sections ("oooh...you're loves for reeaaal...")

In the end, it was James Brown who created the funk that became disco, so James was the original disco man (sorry Remicks).

Disco Funk

[remicks]

Originally Posted by Disco Funk

In the end, it was James Brown who created the funk that became disco, so James was the original disco man (sorry Remicks).

Disco Funk

Hey!
Don't we have a specific thread to duke this one out on !!!!
Your error Disco Funk ....if I may .... is in your desire to overly attribute disco's roots to funk.
Funk and disco do cross ... but its just a sliver of the total disco pie. (well, unless if maybe you were in England )

Motown is a thousand times more deserving to be credited as a direct link to disco than is funk ......particularly over James Brown funk.

Put it this way ... how many Motown songs were easily and successfully reinterpreted as disco songs? .... Answer: many ...plenty ... lots !

Now ....................how many James Brown tunes were sought out for disco interpretation ??? ?
Hmmmmm ????
......yep, that's right ... Say it loud .....zero ...NADA ...NUNCA ... NONE !!!


****

yes, trying to sound like Marky at the end there .... ......

[QUINNY]

Erm, were any of you guys actually there DANCING/DJing IN A DISCO at the time????????? Therefore, may I humbly suggest that most of what has been written is mere hypothesis.

It's an impossible question to give any definitive answer to, but if I had to put a finger on it I'd probably run with the Philly and Funk angles. At the time '72/'73/early '74, just before 'Disco' truly evolved, Philly music was a prime mover of people's butts alongside dirty, gritty, pumping 4/4 Funk. There were hundreds of danceable records prior to and during this same time frame, but they simply didn't have the same 'feel' and so, to an extent can be ignored, except they did make people dance. Without Philly especially, being THE tour de force that it was AT THAT TIME/ THE pre-eminent dance music of the day, Disco wouldn't have happened in the same way. IT would have leant in a different direction, maybe more funky, maybe more commercial (yes, it could have been!!), maybe less or more stylised...who knows?

Let's see, what DID most UK DJs, playing to fairly average (mostly hetero) Disco crowds play back in '72-early '74?

Philly,
Funk (lotsa James Brown trax),
Early experimental proto P Funk,
Northern Soul type oldies,
Old Motown and current Motown,
Old Stax, Volt, Atlantic,
One-off danceable Chart records,
Old Ska, Rock Steady & Reggae,
One-off dance grooves of all kinds (e.g. Blues/Latin/Jazz),
the odd Rock track (Edgar Winter/Johnny Winter for example),

BUT it was probably at least 75%-90% Black music of some kind and Philly and 4/4 Funk comprised 40%-50% of that.

[remicks]

*****


Quinny ....interesting input. And for the record I agree ... of course the Philly angle was monumental (although sometimes I wonder if unintentional ?? Another thread ..... another day )

BUT it was probably at least 75%-90% Black music of some kind and Philly and 4/4 Funk comprised 40%-50% of that.

and it would appear .... 100 % "Made in the U.S.A. " ??

One thing I've noticed that seems never to get mentioned is the playing of your own homegrown stuff ... No Stones? No T-Rex? No David Bowie?? Hollies??

Whaddup???




*****
bang a gong get it on