the very first disco song???

[JussiK]

Originally Posted by Paulo

Jussi
With all respect, IMHO 69 L'anne Erotique doesn't sound like disco as we got to know it around 1974...

.... Ok.... it has strings....it has a female voice.... it may have played in the clubs of the era in Europe.... .

It sure did play the clubs a lot and people went mad for it, even my mum was photographed shaking her bikini bottom while it played. As you say it's safe to agree with connoisseurs of the Serge and Jane mystique (among which I do not count myself though I do visit the shrine at Rue Verneuil each time in Paris) in that it did influence the birth of European disco. Consider the overall suggestiveness of the stuff and listen to the beat: it utilises a grinding, heavily 4/4 accented rhythm pattern as opposed to quick rock riffs or the relaxed but quite different bubblegum pop sound of Los Diablos: Un Ray de Sol for example or Sugar Sugar by The Archies. Co-Co by The Sweet comes close...now there's another eurodisco prototype along with Sugar Me by Lynsey dePaul. Titanic, that revives very well and is held in high esteem by kids in today's cooler clubs.

[QUINNY]

Originally Posted by JussiK

It sure did play the clubs a lot and people went mad for it, even my mum was photographed shaking her bikini bottom while it played. As you say it's safe to agree with connoisseurs of the Serge and Jane mystique (among which I do not count myself though I do visit the shrine at Rue Verneuil each time in Paris) in that it did influence the birth of European disco. Consider the overall suggestiveness of the stuff and listen to the beat: it utilises a grinding, heavily 4/4 accented rhythm pattern as opposed to quick rock riffs or the relaxed but quite different bubblegum pop sound of Los Diablos: Un Ray de Sol for example or Sugar Sugar by The Archies. Co-Co by The Sweet comes close...now there's another eurodisco prototype along with Sugar Me by Lynsey dePaul. Titanic, that revives very well and is held in high esteem by kids in today's cooler clubs.

Jussi: Your posts always bring a smile to my face. I just love your fantastic ideas. Only YOU could write them down and believe them to be absolutely the truth.
Your mum getting jiggy with it in Ibiza? doesn't mean a track was played everywhere. Remember, some of us have seen the playlists for that particular disco where your hippie parents (and you) hung out and by no stretch of the imagination were they anything but......let's say, esoteric.

If we're gonna start quoting Sweet's Coco, then why don't we go back to a few years before and dust off Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich's - Save Me, the blue eyedDisco sound of Love Affair - Everlasting Love (more Disco that the original?), or even Yesterday Has Gone by Cupid's Inspiration? Then we delve into a thousand and one Northern Soul records, Some of the Stax/Volt records and most of the Tamla Motown output in the mid '60s. Before that, I'm sure there are hundreds of big band tracks that could be raided, especially from the latin influenced big bands and orchestras of the 1940's onwards. Euccch! my head's spinning.

I find it rather impossible to treat this thread with any real plausibility, once the watershed years of 1973/1974 are abandoned and Shaft (used to clear dancefloors usually) or Soul Makossa are bandied forth. For once and for all, Shaft was as much proto Disco as Rubber Duckie by Uncle Ernie & the Sesame Street Cast and Soul Makossa was preceded by loads of more danceable funk tracks. Soul Makossa has absolutely nothing to do with Disco IMO. I loved it, I played it, the punters danced to it, but that's as far as it goes.

If I'm coming over as a tad crotchety, it's because I've had 3 hours good sleep.

[JussiK]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

Jussi: Only YOU could write them down and believe them to be absolutely the truth.
Your mum getting jiggy with it in Ibiza?

Well, Serge and Jane are the God and Goddess of cool, though Serge did become a bit bloated towards the end. Still, we must keep the faith. I'm sure teh Northern Soul diehards do as well.

Mum doing L'Annee Erotique in Ibiza? No, that was in St.Tropez. Ibiza became big later, circa 1972 and I rememeber they already had Pacha's open then - whether that was the same building it occupied later I have no idea, but do do recall it having a dance floor in the middle of a rising, atrium-style seating arrangement. I was forced to leave before it became crowded, though. - My parents, hippies? I'm sure no more than you were, and I don't think hippie chicks wore pink bikinis.

[Paulo]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

....Shaft (used to clear dancefloors usually)...

Maybe you played it at 78 RPM...
Just joking...

Living here in Brazil what we (radio listeners) could notice is that DISCO evolved directly from PHILLY SOUL. No hidden mysteries. It was as simple as that:

1) In the early 70's there was 'Soul', 'Funk' and the much more popular 'Philly Soul' on the radio and on our home / school / family parties.

2) As the mid 70's approached (1974/1975), the PHILLY SOUL beat naturally evolved to the early (american) DISCO BEAT.... although (in the beginning) nobody called it DISCO... It was just SOUL, because all of the elements of the PHILLY SOUL style were still there.

3) But the distinction (in name) between the 2 came quickly, still in 1975/76.

This process was very visible for pop radio listeners.
I am being the most concise I can.

Originally Posted by QUINNY

For once and for all, Shaft was as much proto Disco as Rubber Duckie by Uncle Ernie & the Sesame Street Cast and Soul Makossa was preceded by loads of more danceable funk tracks. Soul Makossa has absolutely nothing to do with Disco IMO.

We were talking about what helped the birth of disco.

Soul Makossa and a lot of more danceable FUNK tracks that preceded it, may have done the job. Funk is accepted by many to be in the foundations of DISCO. Soul Makossa is frequently mentionded because it is in the watershed of 1973/1974.

People make a connection between DISCO and SHAFT because Shaft sounds disco. It has all early-disco trademarks except for a steady beat (wha-wha guitar, the sound of the strings, etc...).

Given the year Shaft was released, then it is totally acceptable that people consider it to be on the foundations of disco. The song is even acceptable as a proto-disco song.

[JohnBoy]

What Wikipedia has to say about the history of Disco.

Disco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[QUINNY]

Originally Posted by JohnBoy

What Wikipedia has to say about the history of Disco.

Disco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What does Wickipedia know about Disco that we don't know on this site? Really!!

I'll say it again......IMO: Shaft used to clear or semi-clear dance floors and was never considered good dance music (good disco music) by me or any of my contemporaries. We all loved the record 'cos it was a cool sound, but my own perception is that people only danced to it 'cos it was in the charts (just like any other top 20 hit could almost always be guaranteed a reaction on the dance floor), NOT because it was some super duper, get outta my way and let me get on that dancefloor type of record.

[JohnBoy]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

What does Wickipedia know about Disco that we don't know on this site? Really!!

I'll say it again......IMO: Shaft used to clear or semi-clear dance floors and was never considered good dance music (good disco music) by me or any of my contemporaries. We all loved the record 'cos it was a cool sound, but my own perception is that people only danced to it 'cos it was in the charts (just like any other top 20 hit could almost always be guaranteed a reaction on the dance floor), NOT because it was some super duper, get outta my way and let me get on that dancefloor type of record.

Excuse me for participating. If everyone knows so much why was the question asked in the first place. No need to be rude.

[Simon White]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

What does Wickipedia know about Disco that we don't know on this site? Really!!

I'll say it again......IMO: Shaft used to clear or semi-clear dance floors and was never considered good dance music (good disco music) by me or any of my contemporaries. We all loved the record 'cos it was a cool sound, but my own perception is that people only danced to it 'cos it was in the charts (just like any other top 20 hit could almost always be guaranteed a reaction on the dance floor), NOT because it was some super duper, get outta my way and let me get on that dancefloor type of record.

I have to agree with you totally here Quinny. 'Shaft' is one of my very, very, very favourite pieces of music and it's innovation is without question, Isaac Hayes is a genius in my book, but personally I've never considered 'Shaft' 'Disco'.
I suppose it's 'Disco' tag has come about because of it's mood, reletive length, reletive lack of vocal and the heavy orchestration in employs, plus it has a showbiz gloss and sophistication that was lacking in Soul records of the time while still remaining a 'Black' and distinctly non pop sound. People like to pigeonhole things and "Shaft'' is difficult to pigeonhole. As it was made as a film soundtrack, I think thats where Isaac was aiming and not at the dancefloors. And that alone sets it apart..most uptempo Black music of the time was dance aimed,' Shaft, while being rthymic surely wasn't ? The fact is it's a difficult record to dance to but a fantastic piece of music none the less.

[Mixmachine]

since Simon White submited this one to the vaults

Originally Posted by Mixmachine

one of his early club hits was “Don’t bring back Memories” (‘69) by the Four Tops later redone by Ray Martinez of Amant,

I don’t think we’ll ever reach a consensus of what was the “first Disco song” especially in a board with members from around the world all sharing their very valid opinions, but "Don't bring back memories", a 1969 song that includes many of the attributes later incorporated into Disco - Latin percussions, strings section, soulful vocals- and a record that was played by Djs of the day for years, has got to be at the top of the list, the only thing lacking on this recording is a longer version.

“One monkey..” ’71 (included on the 70’s DiscoLa 500 chart @ number 452) and “Want adds” by Honey cone (previously mentioned) are early examples of the “Disco” sound that will dominate the dance floors a few years later.

[Paulo]

Originally Posted by Simon White

...I've never considered 'Shaft' 'Disco'. I suppose it's 'Disco' tag has come about because of it's mood, reletive length, reletive lack of vocal and the heavy orchestration in employs...

That was the obvious connection people made.... and it happened because of this:
All of the first early DISCO songs (1973/74) had all these same SOUL elements (heavy strings, brass, flute, wha-wha guitar).

My view about it is like this:
No one builds a skyscraper beginning by the 60th floor floating in the air, down to the 1st floor. They build the foundation upon which is built the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th... up to the 60th floor.

The elements that formed the first disco songs around 1973/1974 didn't appear out of thin air. They already existed in previous songs like Shaft and in the Gamble & Huff productions. The transformation from SOUL to DISCO happened when the soul beat became faster and steady, around 1973/74... but all the other remaining elements already existed in the first place.

So it is compreheensible that people make a connection between DISCO and songs like Shaft reffering to them as the foundations of disco, if not proto or pré or near disco songs themselves.

I'm talking about a genre (SOUL) that was slowly evolving to another (DISCO).

Things are not just BLACK or WHITE. Inbetween there are a lot of GREY tones.

And there is a blurred area in the early 70's where things were not just straight SOUL anymore, but not yet totally DISCO.

It's the tranformation period.

Originally Posted by Simon White

People like to pigeonhole things and "Shaft'' is difficult to pigeonhole....

You are right Simon.
It is difficult to pigeonhole, because it was morphing into another thing.

Based on what I wrote above, I would pigeonhole Shaft as a "soul song turning to an early-disco song".

In the same way, I would do this with all R&B, ROCK or POP songs the were just below or in the watershed years of 1973/74, but strongly forced the birth of disco:

What's Going On / Mercy Mercy Me - Marvin Gaye
Welcome To The Club - Blue Magic
Soul Makossa - Manu Dibango
Rock The Boat - Hues Corporation
Rock Your Baby - George McRae
Armed And Extremely Dangerous / The Player - First Choice
Love Train - O'Jays
Love Epidemic - The Trammps
Macumba - Titanic (a ROCK song in a disco beat and plenty of future percussive disco elements)
Wild Safari / Woman - Barrabas
Pillow Talk - Sylvia (a ballad with disco elements)
Son Of My Father - Giorgio
Pop Concerto Show - Pop Concerto Orchestra

...plus many other one-hit-wonders or flop songs that played in the early 70's, but are now forgotten in the mist of time (and memory)...

[djsonic]

Originally Posted by mixtape

what is the very first disco song??? In my opinion it would be possibly the temptations or james brown.

what about "The Electric Indian" songs? sounds like salsouls orchestra

[Paulo]

Originally Posted by JussiK

...Co-Co by The Sweet comes close...now there's another eurodisco prototype along with Sugar Me by Lynsey dePaul....

I guess all these pop songs right before the birth of Disco were big everywhere.

I had forgotten CO-CO by The Sweet. It played a lot on the radio in 1971. There was one brazilian cover version of this song with emphasis on percussion.... as well as 2 covers of the song Pop Concerto Show by awful studio carbon-copy female singers, but with all the percussion breaks.

Even Soul Makossa was covered more than once.

[transairn]

Originally Posted by mixtape

what is the very first disco song??? In my opinion it would be possibly the temptations or james brown.

Kiss - I Was Made For Lovin' You !!!! no?

[Disco Funk]

Originally Posted by Paulo

I guess all these pop songs right before the birth of Disco were big everywhere.

I had forgotten CO-CO by The Sweet. It played a lot on the radio in 1971. There was one brazilian cover version of this song with emphasis on percussion.... as well as 2 covers of the song Pop Concerto Show by awful studio carbon-copy female singers, but with all the percussion breaks.

Even Soul Makossa was covered more than once.

Hmmm....if those pop songs are going to be considered early forms of Disco, then Paul McCartney's tracks from 1970 (Momma Miss America) and 1971 (Monkberry Moon Delight) need to be put in there too!

Disco Funk

[Videoskooter]

OMG, R U guys still discussing this