Disco inferno!
Dig out your flares for a journey into the history of a musical phenomena...
From the gritty warehouses of New York to the release of Saturday Night Fever, the story of disco is told in a new sequin-filled series about the phenomenon.
Across three episodes, music stars such as Candi Staton, Pete Waterman and Jessie Ware trace the emergence of disco and how it conquered the charts.
‘Disco started as an unintentional movement,’ explains DJ Colleen Murphy, a one-time regular at New York City’s infamous Loft parties.
‘It started with people dancing together. It was about building a community that recognised the civil-rights movement, gay rights and women’s liberation, and bringing people from all these different walks of life together to dance.’
In 1974, the underground dance culture got its first mainstream hit, Rock Your Baby by George Mccrae, which has since sold 11 million copies and took disco to the masses.
Then came disco divas such as Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer and Candi, who had a chart-topper with Young Hearts Run Free.
Positive change
‘Disco freed me, it saved me – we broke the glass ceiling for women,’ says Candi. ‘Disco was wonderful – good music, good lyrics and songs that had meaning to them.’ But it wasn’t until 1977 and the release of the film Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta that the disco craze exploded. The soundtrack, featuring the Bee Gees and other artists, became one of the bestselling soundtrack albums in music history. ‘Saturday Night Fever broadened the spectrum of music,’ explains Candi. ‘A lot of people who weren’t into disco embraced it after that!’