Disco finally gets some respect

[Greg Wilson]

JUST FOUND THIS POSTED ON ANOTHER BOARD:

Fly Life
by Tricia Romano (Village Voice)
Dance! Dance! Dance!
Disco finally gets some respect: an annual Hall of Fame Awards show
September 27th, 2004 1:15 PM

Nothing is more soul-destroying than Fashion Week, and there's nothing like being immersed in dance music history to save one's soul. Luckily, last Monday, the first annual Dance Music Hall of Fame Awards took over Spirit, the former Twilo/Sound Factory space, now a multilevel spiritual fun house.

It was like a post-high-school reunion for the fortysomething crowd, with mini DJ sets from Nicky Siano, Jackie McCloy, and Pete Jones. The night's best performance: Evelyn "Champagne" King, who didn't look old enough to have been around in 1977 when her hit "Shame" was released.

My date was my own editor and the original disco critic Vince Aletti, who I knew was a Big Deal before the event, but didn't realize exactly how big until we got to the venue and were immediately besieged by famous and important people from the disco industry, including Randy Jones (the Cowboy from the Village People) and Tommy Boy's Tom Silverman, who co-founded the Hall of Fame (along with Daniel Glass, John Parker, and Eddie O'Loughlin). I just about had to bow down before my editor—who was set to present an award to Loft legend David Mancuso—when we heard that none other than Chic's Nile Rodgers would be introducing him! Of course, Aletti had to tell his young protégée who most of the people were, since I wasn't even born when disco began. When I asked, "Vince, who are the Ritchie Family?" he sighed with the air of a father talking to his small child, "Oh, you're too young."

All night long, geriatric jokes abounded. Rodgers, who wore shades, explained that he wasn't wearing sunglasses at night for style reasons (even though he was sporting a dashing red suit), but that the lenses were actually prescription. "I ain't trying to be cool. I really can't see," he quipped. When DJ John Luongo seemed to have trouble getting his set started, his Boston buddy DJ Joey Carvello yelled up to the booth with some helpful advice, "You put the needle on the record!"

In the crowd, Lady Bunny hopped near Danny Tenaglia, who said he hadn't heard about the first ever awards show honoring dance music until the last minute. "I wish they'd told me, I live for this. I'm over 40." (Another old-person joke.) His complaint was valid. Many people didn't even know about the induction ceremony, and the lack of organization showed. It's a miracle anything ever happens in clubland at all, really. Host KTU DJ Al Bandiero was quite good and took all the false starts and technical difficulties in stride. "Do you get the feeling that we're flying by the seat of our pants?" he cracked. "Why would we rehearse this?"

Denise Rich had a table right up front, and watched as Frankie Knuckles shared the stage with West End Records founder Mel Cheren to induct the famous Paradise Garage DJ, Larry Levan, who passed away in 1992. Their tribute was the most touching. "His talent was so much bigger than most people can imagine," said Knuckles. "I'm here today because of that genius." "Larry's love for lyrics helped to entertain and educate at the same time," said Cheren, who then went for another old-person joke: "He gave me a lot of the gray hair I have."

Cheren encouraged the dance community to work with Robbie Wootton, the enigmatic Irishman who owns Spirit, and who donated the club rent-free. "Please support this man," said Cheren. "He's brought this great spirit back to New York nightlife."

RuPaul inducted Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, the illustrious production team behind "I Feel Love" and countless other disco hits, informing the crowd, "The whole electroclash thing is based on the work they did." After Moroder—one of the only major stars actually alive and present—accepted his award, saying, "They call it dance music now, but it'll always be disco to us," RuPaul introduced a segment honoring "our queen," Donna Summer, at night's end. (Her daughter, Amanda Sudano, appeared in her place.) But by then, the spirits at Spirit had taken over the boisterous crowd, which seemed drunk and giddy with the possibilities of the night. Lifetime Achievement inductee Henry Stone, who signed KC and the Sunshine Band, proudly told the crowd, "You turned nothing into something. This is really something."

The list of 2004 Dance Music Hall of Fame Inductees:
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The Class of 2004
Artist Inductees
Barry White

Barry White delivered a powerful dose of romance with hard, hypnotic rhythm, wrapped in a gorgeous swath of orchestration. One of the first dance-R&B artists to sell major amounts of albums to both the pop and R&B markets, White used his singular, penetrating voice to combine seduction with the gospel of togetherness and communication. His cultural influence was acknowledged by Lisa Stansfield, Soul II Soul and many other young R&B artists in an early-Nineties revival that rippled through all of urban music -- as well as in the apt invocation of his name and music as an idealized metaphor for manhood, in the television dramedy Ally McBeal.


Bee Gees

The Australian brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb, whose rock ballads earned a long hit streak as talented songwriting popstars, were transformed by their mid-Seventies work with Arif Mardin in a rhythmic R&B vein. A career renewal, with the hits "Jive Talkin'" and "You Should Be Dancing," led to their scoring of Saturday Night Fever, the 1977 film that defined disco for a worldwide audience. Their suite of five soundtrack songs, performed by themselves, Yvonne Elliman and another family group, Tavares, fired the greatest sales of any album to that time.


Donna Summer

In partnership with Munich producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, Donna Summer proved that "disco" and "artist" were terms that were made to go together, in an unparalleled streak of all-format hits lasting from 1975 to 1980. Her voice was by turns seductive, emotive and powerful, and her songs, launched in what was once a mysterious dance underground, now play as standards of the American songbook in supermarkets and diners and on light-music radio stations everywhere. Her versatility is reflected in Grammy Awards spanning four categories: rock, R&B, inspirational and dance.


Producer Inductee


Giorgio Moroder & Pete Bellotte

Based in the Musicland Studio in Munich, Germany, Moroder and Bellotte built an impeccable profile for their marquee artist Donna Summer, in a series of atmospheric and innovative concept albums. Starting with Summer's "Love To Love You Baby," their productions advanced dance music in every direction, pushing technological, stylistic and cultural envelopes with every new release -- all while keeping the artist in the spotlight. Selected credits: "I Feel Love," "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls," "MacArthur Park Suite" and "Last Dance" by Donna Summer; "Get on the Funk Train" by Munich Machine; "Trouble Maker" and "Zodiac Lady" by Roberta Kelly. Giorgio Moroder (solo): "The Chase" and "Evolution" by Giorgio Moroder; "Call Me" by Blondie; "Harmony" by Suzi Lane; "Beat the Clock" by Sparks; "Flashdance (What a Feeling)" by Irene Cara.


DJ Inductees


David Mancuso

Mancuso began hosting his seminal after-hours parties on lower Broadway in 1970. His legendary Loft was a membership club that upheld, above all, a connoisseur's sense of quality in music, presentation and atmosphere. The combination of warm, unpretentious family vibe, food and soft drinks, moderate sound volume and impeccable sonics defined the underground club experience for the first time anywhere. Mancuso co-founded the first DJ association, the New York Record Pool, and housed it at his 99 Prince Street location.


Larry Levan

From decorating at Nicky Siano's Gallery with Frankie Knuckles, Levan moved to his first regular DJ spot in 1971 at the Continental Baths. From its opening during the boom of disco, to its closing in the era of house, Paradise Garage was the definitive club experience to many, for its penetrating sound system, and Levan's telepathic relationship with the crowd and the music. Among Levan's remixes: Peech Boys' "Don't Make Me Wait," Instant Funk's "I Got My Mind Made Up," Gwen Guthrie's "Padlock," "Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But the Rent" Imagination's "Changes."


Tee Scott

Scott started one of the longest-running DJ residencies in 1972 at the midtown New York club Better Days. His choice of soulful music was put together for a working-class crowd that looked forward to dancing stress away on the weekend. The intimate and always welcoming Better Days proved nightly that the music and the crowd, and not the glitter and glitz, made a club. Tee's remixes include First Choice's "Love Thang," Junior Giscombe's "Mama Used To Say," NorthEnd's "Happy Days," and Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway's "Back Together Again."


Remixer Inductee


Tom Moulton

Moulton's work for Scepter Records and DCA Productions wrote the rulebook for every remix consultant and DJ/producer to the present day. Among concepts originated by Moulton: extending the high frequencies and tightening the bottom for better sounding play at high volume; lengthening tracks for greater musical and emotional impact by repeating key passages. Selected Credits: "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "Casanova Brown" album medleys by Gloria Gaynor; Philadelphia Classics album, including 1977 MFSB "Love is the Message" remix; "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)," "Express" by B.T. Express; "Disco Inferno," "That's Where the Happy People Go," "Hold Back the Night" by The Trammps; "Do It Anyway You Wanna" by People's Choice; "More, More, More" by Andrea True Connection; "Hold Your Horses" and "Doctor Love" by First Choice.


Record Inductees


Don't Leave Me This Way - Thelma Houston (Tamla, 1976)
Writers: Kenneth Gamble, Cary Gilbert, Leon Huff
Producer: Hal Davis
Motown regularly paid tribute to Philadelphia in album-track covers, but rarely released them as singles: when they did, as in the case of "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" and "Don't Leave Me This Way," they were massive hits. Supercharged rhythm playing, a breathtaking tambourine-driven break and an inspired performance by Houston, carried her from being a well-regarded industry secret to a Number One hitmaker.


I Feel Love - Donna Summer (Casablanca, 1977)
Writers: Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte
Producers: Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte
Donna Summer was already the biggest pop star to come out of disco when "I Feel Love" single-handedly ushered in the era of sequenced dance music and transformed pop forever. In it, a simple tape delay added to a classic Munich bass line created a gripping, dizzying new effect, doubling the tempo and ponging from speaker to speaker. At once primal and futuristic, "I Feel Love" remains one of the most influential and singular records in pop history.


Love is the Message - MFSB featuring The Three Degrees (Philadelphia International, 1973/1977)
Writers: Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff
Producers: Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff
The best intentions and the highest calling of music are expressed in this timeless classic of danceable jazz-flavored R&B. Already a dance floor classic in its original album version, the 1977 remix by Tom Moulton added a critical improvised keyboard solo by Leon Huff, along with breakdown sections that have proven definitive to every subsequent form of dance music.


Shame - Evelyn "Champagne" King (RCA, 1978)
Writers: John Henry Fitch, Reuben Cross
Producer: T. Life
Young Evelyn was only sixteen when she was discovered singing a Sam Cooke song while cleaning at a Philadelphia studio. Instant Funk played the unconventionally fast rhythm, and King sang from a deep well of precocious emotion. David Todd, the first working DJ to be employed in promotion by a record label, directed the remix, adding a wicked whiplash echo to the handclaps. Other producers and artists copied "Shame," but King never did, instead taking dance music and R&B another stylistic step forward with her groundbreaking electronic hits of the early Eighties.


(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real - Sylvester (Fantasy, 1978)
Writers: Sylvester, James "Tip" Wirrick
Producer: Harvey Fuqua
With his outsize personality, image and talent, Sylvester was the living embodiment of disco's eclectic, all-inclusive underground of devotees, styles, and music. Powerfully euphoric and frankly aphrodisiac, "(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real" is a quintessential dance music statement. This transformative hybrid of top 40 pop, R&B and gospel also introduced the innovative synthesizer post-production of Patrick Cowley.


The Board of Directors Award for Lifetime Achiement (Non-Performer)


Henry Stone

Henry Stone has long been known around the world as one of the pioneers of the record industry. In his almost six decades in the business he has discovered talents that have sold millions of records and become international stars, and he has formed record companies with hits so big and meaningful that they created new categories in music.

Stone was born in the Bronx, New York. He was one of the first to record Ray Charles, James Brown, Wilbert Harrison, Sam & Dave and Hank Ballard’s “The Twist”. His first million selling hit was The Charms’ “Hearts of Stone” in 1955. Henry launched a dozen more Miami based record labels in the 50s. He also founded Tone Distributors which became one of the most successful independent record distribution companies.

Stone’s greatest worldwide successes came during the seventies. With Tone Distributors and a little label called TK Records, he exploded with what became the number one independent record label in the world. Stone had let two kids who were working in the warehouse experiment in the recording studio. KC and Rick wrote the number one “Rock Your Baby” which George McCrae sang, and soon, as KC and The Sunshine Band, released their own string of number one hits such as “Get Down Tonight” and “That’s The Way I Like It”. With hits that kept dance floors and film soundtracks hopping all over the world, Henry Stone’s TK Records helped create and lead the disco phenomenon.

At the same time that he spearheaded the disco era, Henry Stone and label VP Steve Alaimo, himself a former teen idol and hit recording artist, had created another new category in music idolized around the world - “The Miami Sound.” In addition to KC and The Sunshine Band and George McCrae, TK’s recording artists included Betty Wright (“Clean Up Woman”), Timmy Thomas (“Why Can’t We Live Together”), Clarence Reid (“Nobody But You Babe”), Little Beaver (“Party Down”), Peter Brown (“Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me”, “Dance With Me”), Bobby Caldwell (“What You Won’t Do For Love”), Anita Ward (“Ring My Bell”), Beginning of the End (“Funky Nassau”), Foxy (“Get Off”), T-Connection (“Do What You Wanna Do”), Gwen McCrae (“Rockin Chair”) and Latimore with such greats as “Let's Straighten It Out”, “Keep the Home Fire Burnin'”, “Something 'Bout 'Cha”. Henry Stone is indeed a living legend.
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