PAUL MCCARTNEY...THE ONLY DISCO BEATLE?.DON'T SAY GOODNIGHT

[discodisco]

I LIKE THE TRACK..."DON'T SAY GOODNIGHT TONIGHT" THE 12'MIX ON THE COLUMBIA LABEL...YOU NEVER HEAR IT ON THE RADIO THOUGH, AT LEAST I HAVEN'T...IAM GONNA HAVE TO GIVE JOE CAUSI OF MIX 102.7 IN N.Y...A CALL...AND REMIND HIM OF THIS TUNE..

[Paulo]

I am not a fan of Paul McCartney, but I know many of his records and like 1 or 2 of his songs. He has another pop-song with some early disco influences (specially on the bass + horn section). It's called SILLY LOVE SONGS released in 1976. This along with GOODNIGHT TONIGHT played a lot on the radio here. The last one played a lot at discos. The first one I don't know cause I was only 16 and had no interest in going to nightclubs at that time (and couldn't).

Ringo Starr also recorded some 3 minute pop-disco songs in his album Ringo The 4th (I think). One of them is Can She Do It Like She Dances? plus other forgetable stuff.

[Disco Funk]

I think John was the first Beatle to record a disco/dancefloor tune. 'Whatever Gets You Thru The Night' from 1974 has all of the elements of a rock-disco tune. Sadly, the last tune he would be working on when he was murdered was 'Walking On Thin Ice', which is another club classic.

I think Silly Love Songs is a better tune than Goodnight Tonight. At least with Silly Love Songs, he got the R&B aspect of disco right. Goodnight Tonight is more pop and sounds more like a misinterpretation of disco music. I don't know if Listen To What The Man Said could count as a dancefloor tune. It's got a slight groove working for it.

Disco Funk

[discotom73]

This is interesting to bring up Paul McCartney recording some disco songs. Here is a great question for debate: Had the Baetles stayed together, would they have survived making disco music? And if so, then would the Bee Gees had ever been huge during the 70's? Go even deeper: would disco ever make it to mainstream Top 40 radio? I honestly thought that the one reason disco was big in the 1970s was because the Beatles broke up. Once John, Paul, George, and Ringo went their separate ways, it open up the music field wide open for new things and sounds of music. The Motown sound gets some credit for the disco movement, but maybe things would have been different if the Beatles had stayed together. I'm curious in all responses of what you think.

[Disco Funk]

I think the Beatles would have recorded quite a few dance tunes had they stayed together into the late 70s. Disco evolved separately from the Beatles. If there was no Motown or James Brown, then you could argue funk and disco would not have existed. The Beatles did influence certain soul, R&B and jazz artists to record covers of their tracks like 'Come Together' or 'Hey Jude'. Even Gary Tom did a cover of 'Drive My Car', although it wasn't so great.

John and Paul would probably have been the most interested in doing cross-over material. Paul had already started experimenting with world beats with Obla Di Obla Da and in the early 70's C-Moon and a small section of Live & Let Die. Those were before Bob Marley really broke reggae onto the scene (sure, there were hits by Desmond Dekkar (Israelites), and Dave and Ansel Collins (Double Barrell). Plus The Beatles had recorded a bluebeat influenced version of John's I Call Your Name, the guitar solo section of which was edited into the released version of the track.

In terms of dance and R&B oriented material, the Beatles did recorded songs with certain R&B flavors. Got To Get You Into My Life which was written by Paul was directly influenced by the Motown sound. It even found new life in the mid 70s when it was re-released, and then subsequently recorded by Earth Wind & Fire. I forgot to add in my earlier post that Paul had done another R&B-influenced tune - Arrow Through Me from the Back To the Egg LP. And John had been leaning more to dance and R&B in the mid 70s with not only Whatever Gets You Thru The Night and his appearance on David Bowie's Fame. Some of the tracks on the Walls & Bridges LP, which had included WGYTTN, had funky grooves as well. Also, that throwaway track the Beatles recorded called You Know My Name Look Up The Number, which was recorded mainly by John and Paul, was full of different styles of arrangement ranging from soul to mambo to jazz, illustrating how open minded they were to different rhythmic styles.

I think it would have been a little harder convincing George to play along. His tracks would probably have stuck to the introspective, and spiritual songs he put out during the 70s. Ringo would have been along for the ride.

Its possible that they would have even expanded to permanently include Billy Preston. He not only played on the Get Back sessions, but they also invited him to play the gospel organ on I Want You from Abbey Road.

If anything would have been affected by the Beatles still being together, I think we may not have seen Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of The Moon', which was recorded at Abbey Road. Unless the Beatles had decided to establish their own recording studio by that time, which is quite possible.

So after that bleedin' long reply, my conclusion is 'yes', they would have recorded dance tracks during the 70s. They wouldn't have gotten into the polyester suites and platform shoes thing, but they would have still recorded albums with tunes ranging from rock ballads to r&B dance tunes like they'd always done.

Disco Funk

[remicks]

*****

Very interesting Disco Funk .
No one back then knew music was converging into this thing to be called disco ... and from so many musical angles … until it just all jelled and there it was.
Many rock artists of the day took to it quite easily . As you point out ...David Bowie flirted with it ....... So did the Rolling Stones and The Kinks .

The Beatles had soulful leanings from day one .... taking their cues from American R&B acts such as the Isley Bros. And they had no trouble adapting themselves to the changing sounds of music ..... including rock's psychedelic period.... which they in fact championed . So they were quite good at responding to ( and advancing) the latest trends in music.

Your mentioning of Billy Preston is especially interesting ....because had they kept him in the fold ... there surely would have been some funkier stuff that would have resulted . Perhaps that association would have been just the thing to have kept Billy's fire better ignited . When I listen to some of his early 70's music .... such as OUTTA SPACE ....and SPACE RACE ... he was thisclose to shifting into disco.
Much of Ringo's solo efforts were also upbeat and more slick and more production oriented .... songs such as ..."PHOTOGRAPH" and ""BACK OFF BOOGALOO " .... I'm certain "YOUR SIXTEEN " was a big American Bandstand dance tune. So yes .. . I too guess he'd have been on board ... might've even given Earl Young a run for his money !! :P :roll:

I think another comparable lineage could be that of the BEE GEES ...who did stick it out .... and sure enough , wound up doing disco. Like the Beatles , their writing abilities embraced many influences..... especially R&B .... so that by the mid-seventies they were becoming increasingly soulful with songs like "BOOGIE CHILD " and " , YOU STEPPED INTO MY LIFE , & JIVE TALKIN'" .... and when disco merged with the soul scene .... The Bee Gees were already there and easily shifted right into it ...... As you suggest .... the Beatles probably would have had little difficulty doing so as well.



*****




RE: Arrow Through Me from the Back To the Egg LP----- this is one of my faves ….

And DF , give Gary Tom’s DRIVE MY CAR another listen ! :D

[Disco Funk]

Thanks for the great reply Remicks. Yes, I should have pointed out the Beatles did have a thing for R&B and rock and roll fusion, covering everyone from Little Richard (Long Tall Sally) to the Isley Brothers (Twist & Shout) to Smokey Robinson (You Really Got A Hold On Me). The Beatles dabbled not only in R&B and world (I should point out I Feel Fine with it's latin flavoured drums) beat, but also a little country on the Beatles For Sale album.

The Bees Gees did maintain their pop rock roots with many of the cuts on their LPs, but it was the R&B dance oriented ones that really stood out. You Should Be Dancing, to me, is their most impressive disco workout. David Bowie and Elton John, both of John's close friends, were experimenting with dance and R&B as I mentioned with other tunes like Golden Years and Philadelphia Freedom, but its hard to say if the Beatles would have done a lot of pure disco tunes.

During the 60's they were trailblazers not followers. I would like to think they would have still been pushing the musical envelope in the 70s.

Disco Funk

[remicks]

*****

I think it's kind of fun to "imagine" some of this stuff .... :)


Certainly John would've been the leading catalyst for a Beatles late 70's urban sound . ..... He was living a NYC lifestyle and he and Yoko had an active involvement with the artsy fartsy crowd there. Some of Yoko's music is evidence of that ..... as you 've mentioned ... songs like WALKING ON THIN ICE ...

About this time Paul and Linda were milking cows on the farm .... so not sure how that would have played out in this . ( Heavy on the cow bells sound !! ? :lol: )
Ringo had gone more LA/ Hollywood .... so he'd have been fine ....
George probably would have been the stickler .

Of all the assorted artists and musical types at the time, look at who Paul ultimately does choose to do a project with : Stevie Wonder . Appears as though Paul's interest here was to explore a more soulful/ funky direction. ..... ( the same reason for the inclusion of Billy Preston's earlier Beatles involvement?) . Although unfortunatley, the result of this union was a schmaltzy pedigree worthy of neither.... ( who dragged down who ?? ? )
Too bad he waited so long ... but , Paul does finally create a disco number ... another collaboration , this time with Michael Jackson ..... again an interesting choice of whom to work with .... the result of their joint effort being --- SAY SAY SAY 12" ... a dancefloor success remixed by Benitez .....( again ... though with this composition ... a question of who deluted who??? )

Not sure where SAY SAY SAY peaked on the Disco/Dance chart in 1983 .... but I believe it was Top 10 ... ? .... ( Marky!? )

*****

[Disco Funk]

I don't know about the Dance chart, but I think it did make it to the top of the Billboard pop chart. This was actually the second time they did a song together, with The Girl Is Mine from Thriller being their first.

Soon after, Paul and Michael parted ways for good when Michael outbid Paul for the Lennon/McCartney catalog.

Disco Funk

[Nano]

"What's that you're doing", the Macca-Stevie Wonder OTHER duo song in Paul's Tug of War album, was played in Argentine discotheques. Same for the not-so-disco "Coming up", from the earlier McCartney II (first non-Wings record in a decade).
Of course Paul was the prime soul music fan in the Beatles (you can guess it just by hearing his voice), so it's basically fair that he was the most "related" to the soul-disco scene at the time.
Both John and George had just been sued (and lost) for plagiarising their idols (Chuck Berry and The Chiffons, respectively) so they probably weren't too keen about doing dance records by then.
However, George had a dance hit in 1987 with a cover version of Rudy Clarks' oldie "Got my mind set on you", produced by former "Last train to London" penner Jeff Lynne.

[Disco Funk]

Both John and George had just been sued (and lost) for plagiarising their idols (Chuck Berry and The Chiffons, respectively) so they probably weren't too keen about doing dance records by then.

I know this is going off on a tangent but I wanted to clarify that the suit happened in the early 70s and was settled before he recorded dance-oriented tunes Whatever Gets You Thru The Night and Fame. It was over the tune 'Come Together', and the person suing wasn't Chuck Berry, but the guy who had bought up his song catalog. Apparently this guy was a shady character who swindled a lot of poor black singers out of their song rights. He sued over the lyric "Here come ole flat top" and apparently a song riff. John settled out of court (probably because he had been in and out of court so much because of all the suing going on when the Beatles broke up), agreeing to record a bunch of cover songs of Chuck Berry's material and letting the guy suing him sell that record. So while some may interpret it as an admission of guilt, you could also argue that John didn't want to spend any more time in court, plus spending all that money on lawyers.

Disco Funk

[dvdjamm]

i remember having a remix of paul maccartney's "no more lonely nights" back in the day....i think it was done by either arthur baker or john robie

there are some john lennon remixes floating about,but i think they all came out after his death....

[Marcio**]

Some dj (Larry Levan?) played 'Here Comes the Sun' as last song :) .

[Nano]

Hi Disco Funk,

I know this is going off on a tangent but I wanted to clarify that the suit happened in the early 70s and was settled before he recorded dance-oriented tunes Whatever Gets You Thru The Night and Fame.

True, but now let's think about this for a moment: both "Fame" and "Whatever gets you thru the night" were collaborations with other singer-composers, David Bowie and Elton John respectively. Now these guys DID have a taste for disco music and both did record disco-like songs later on. Lennon instead stopped to record for 5 years and then came up with an album where the most danceable song is not his, but Yoko's ("Kiss kiss kiss"). His more danceable contribution on that record was "(Just like) Starting over", musically an homage to the 50's.

My guess: his contribution to songs like "Fame", "Whatever gets you...", "Kiss kiss kiss" and "Walking in thin ice" was minimal. Two of them were Yoko vehicles, and the others were friends' intents to keep him in the right track during his infamous L.A. "lost weekend" of drugs and booze.

[remicks]

*****

Here's a fine McCartney disco tune :
LET 'EM IN as done by Billy Paul in 1976 ....with a classic TSOP rhythm section and full horns a slammin' .

*****

[Disco Funk]

Hi Disco Funk,



True, but now let's think about this for a moment: both "Fame" and "Whatever gets you thru the night" were collaborations with other singer-composers, David Bowie and Elton John respectively. Now these guys DID have a taste for disco music and both did record disco-like songs later on. Lennon instead stopped to record for 5 years and then came up with an album where the most danceable song is not his, but Yoko's ("Kiss kiss kiss"). His more danceable contribution on that record was "(Just like) Starting over", musically an homage to the 50's.

My guess: his contribution to songs like "Fame", "Whatever gets you...", "Kiss kiss kiss" and "Walking in thin ice" was minimal. Two of them were Yoko vehicles, and the others were friends' intents to keep him in the right track during his infamous L.A. "lost weekend" of drugs and booze.

Sorry for not replying to this observation a year ago!

I think John loved dance/funk music, deep down. I don't know if he like the escape-ist quality of it. I don't know if it was connected to his sexuality (he seemed to gravitate towards sexually ambiguous people like Jagger, Nilsson, Elton John, and David Bowie) and their life style. But he did like the sound of a good funky rhythm. I think he made Yoko's tracks the dance ones because he wanted to appeal to his fans, which expected him to do rock and roll type music. Through Yoko, he could explore his alter ego - the dance music fan.

If you hear the earlier Yoko Ono recordings, if you strip off the nagging vocals, you come up with some really cool, funk jams. They were more like Weather Report grooves than the prog rock guys of the day.

Disco Funk

[the disco kid]

Ringo Starr did a disco song "drowning in the sea of love" it's a promo only atlantic disco 12"

i remember hearing "don't say goodnight" at Studio 54 when Roy Thode was DJing there, the crowd reaction made me like this song even more.

[disco-disc]

What a great tune...IT WAS BIG IN UK, and on the radio !!
It was a nice cross-over track by a respected artist.
Macca started with Hi Hi Hi, and the other track C'moon ..simple ditties, but with a nice lilt.....they were like FEELER tracks ?

[originalbigm]

As I recall Paul mcCartney did a house tune back in the mid-late 80's .It had a Spanish title.I have a 12" version of it somewhere in my collection.I'll post it when I find it.

[Bernie]

As I recall Paul mcCartney did a house tune back in the mid-late 80's .It had a Spanish title.I have a 12" version of it somewhere in my collection.I'll post it when I find it.

You're talking about Qu Est Le Soleil?, which is quite good. The Disconet remix is here:
http://www.discomusic.com/cds-more/2194_0_3_0_C/

[ol'skinflint]

*****

Here's a fine McCartney disco tune :
LET 'EM IN as done by Billy Paul in 1976 ....with a classic TSOP rhythm section and full horns a slammin' .

*****

Remicks: everyone's aware of the "Ebony and Ivory" McCartney/Wonder duet but it seems far fewer are aware of its "ebony" counterpart. The duet called "What's That You're Doing?", on th same McCartney album "Tug of War" is, in my opinion, the funkiest tract ANY Beatle has ever been associated with. I read that McCartney got angry at Stevie Wonder because Wonder said McCartney's drumming wasn't funky enough...I don't know which of them played drums on the final recording but it now sounds funky enough to me, and even McCartney's vocal is pretty funky on that song. It's a hot song, should have gotten more attention. Check it out if you can....

[Disco Funk]

Remicks: everyone's aware of the "Ebony and Ivory" McCartney/Wonder duet but it seems far fewer are aware of its "ebony" counterpart. The duet called "What's That You're Doing?", on th same McCartney album "Tug of War" is, in my opinion, the funkiest tract ANY Beatle has ever been associated with. I read that McCartney got angry at Stevie Wonder because Wonder said McCartney's drumming wasn't funky enough...I don't know which of them played drums on the final recording but it now sounds funky enough to me, and even McCartney's vocal is pretty funky on that song. It's a hot song, should have gotten more attention. Check it out if you can....

Arrow Through Me is a great little R&B number that McCartney did in '79. I think I posted a link to the youtube video of it a while back.

McCartney was a pretty good drummer. He played all of the instruments on his first self-titled 1970 LP (AKA 'Bowl of Cherries') and McCartney II from 1980 (the one with Coming Up). The Beastie Boys sampled the drums from one of the cuts on that Bowl of Cherries album. Paul also was the drummer on Why Don't We Do It In The Road, Back In The USSR and Dear Prudence on the Beatles' White Album.

Disco Funk

[originalbigm]

You're talking about Qu Est Le Soleil?, which is quite good. The Disconet remix is here:
http://www.discomusic.com/cds-more/2194_0_3_0_C/

Thanks Bernie.I see it was French not Spanish.I have the vinyl 12" that when I find it I'll post it in the vault.:icon_smile:

[ladyboygrimsby]

Further to what discofunk says about Walls & Bridges, there was actually another track on that albumn that got some play in NY discos at the time: What You Got. Again, very funky and in a similar vein to Whatever Gets You Thru The Night.

Also, don't know if you know the 12-inch Temporary Secretary, but the B-Side to that Secret Friend is also very cool and reminds me a bit of Moodymann. That, and another funky tune called Check My Machine, were both from the McCartney II sessions and I think they're both included in the reissue on CD.