When we made “Love to Love You Baby,” we knew it was somewhat innovative, but nobody knew people would jump on that bandwagon and all of a sudden the whole world would be going disco. —Donna Summer
After Saturday Night Fever, we wanted to do a poster, with the three of us in Rambo’s bodies, with machine guns, and in the background there’d be a body in a white suit, bullet-ridden, and the mirror ball all shot to pieces. —Maurice Gibb, 1987.
The disco beat was created so that white people could dance. —Bethann Hardison.
Some say the dance-club scene started in the 1960s in New York City, with discotheques—Regine’s, Le Club, Shepheard’s, Cheetah, Ondine, and Arthur, which was opened by Sybil Burton after Richard Burton left her for Elizabeth Taylor. Arthur—named after George Harrison’s quip in A Hard Day’s Night (“What would you call that hairstyle?” “Arthur”)—featured D.J. Terry Noel, who may have been the first person to play two records simultaneously to create a mix. Arthur drew the same celebrity crowd that had been slumming at the Peppermint Lounge, a hustler bar off Times Square, where Judy Garland and Jackie Kennedy did the Twist with dance instructor “Killer” Joe Piro.
Some say the 1960s Parisian club scene—Chez Castel, Chez Régine—started it all. These were sophisticated spots where, by the end of the decade, one heard such erotic songs as Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s steamy duet “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus” and Isaac Hayes’s dreamy, 12-minute version of “Walk On By.” But most agree that none of this really mattered until the early 1970s, when gay underground dance clubs in New York—the Loft, Tenth Floor, 12 West, Infinity, Flamingo, and, later, the Paradise Garage, Le Jardin, and the Saint—spawned a disco culture that brought with it open drug use, on-site sex, and ecstatic, nonstop, all-night dancing.
No one who was there then and is still here now remembers it the same way. The clubs, the music—the experience is recalled in an almost psychedelic haze. Flashing strobe lights, amyl nitrite, quaaludes, swirling sweating bodies, and a pulsating, four-to-the-floor (boom-boom-boom-boom) high-energy rhythm—all energized by the music that became known as disco.
Disco music is funk with a bow tie. —Fred Wesley, James Brown’s trombonist.
Nile Rodgers, songwriter, guitarist, producer, co-founder—with bassist Bernard Edwards—of Chic (“Le Freak,” “Good Times”): Bernard and I were typical R&B and funk musicians, and we knew that if we could get people on the dance floor we could get a record deal. It was exactly that calculated.
Vince Aletti, disco columnist, Record World, 1974–78; author, The Disco Files: The Loft was the first club that I remember having this kind of blend of music. It was literally David Mancuso’s loft on lower Broadway. It was a party, it was private, it was all night, and it was only open one night a week. He had a big table of [non-alcoholic] punch, pretzels, fruits … it was very hippie in a way.
Judy Weinstein, manager of the Loft; manager of the Record Pool (a D.J. collective); founder, Def Mix Productions: In 1975, David [Mancuso] moved to 99 Prince Street, so that became the second Loft. SoHo really had nothing to do with anything fashionable, except for the Loft. The original Loft was very gay, with a sprinkling of straights. The Prince Street Loft was more mixed—black and Spanish gay boys, and girls. The white gay boys went to the Tenth Floor. 12 West came later.
Fran Lebowitz, author (Metropolitan Life, Social Studies): I remember the Tenth Floor as being one of the best places—maybe because it wasn’t packed, and it didn’t have that commercial feeling that the later clubs had. Or it may just be that I was younger and more impressionable. 12 West was all the way west, and as soon as you got near enough to hear the music, we would start dancing in the street, because it was a mania to dance. It was an appetite. We would dance for hours and hours without stopping. It was so hot in there—it was a very common sight to see boys come out of these clubs and take their T-shirts off and wring them out, and a quart of water would go into the street.
Bethann Hardison, former model, currently a talent manager and documentarian: White kids in Philadelphia could dance, they danced on American Bandstand, but disco changed the business of music. There’s a big difference between people dancing at parties, or in clubs, to becoming an international explosion.
Felipe Rose, singer, the Indian in the Village People (“Macho Man,” “Y.M.C.A.”): I danced for money in a notorious after-hours club called the Anvil. I was told that it would be a bunch of guys, [some] naked … and I couldn’t patronize with the clientele. My hair was long, and being half–American Indian, I was in tribal gear. I’d braid my hair, wear my fringed jacket, the native choker.…I was like a small urban myth in the Village.
Gloria Gaynor, singer (“Honey Bee,” “I Will Survive”): I was out in the clubs in New York City in 1971, ‘72, feeling the pulse, knowing what was going on. I saw them setting up D.J. booths in closets—taking the top half of the door off, putting in a plank of wood, and that’s what [the D.J.] put his turntable on.
Bethann Hardison: For a girl to get into 12 West, you had to be part of a posse who said you were O.K. to get in. I remember the vibe, I don’t remember the people. I could have married someone there and not remember their name. At one point I remember dancing, closing my eyes, and saying, “If I die tomorrow, I’d be fine—because I am so happy.”
Fran Lebowitz: You were always afraid to check your coat; you were afraid that the coat-check girl would steal it, and you couldn’t afford to lose a winter coat. There would always be at least one person screaming at the coat-check girl: “Yes, it was a black leather jacket!” At the Loft, people would fold their coats and put them on the floor so they could kind of keep an eye on them. Then other people would sit on them, have sex on them.… I was always very concerned about the coat situation. Even thinking about it now, I become anxious.
Disco enthusiasts, 1979. By Sonia Moskowitz.
Ian Schrager, co-founder with Steve Rubell of Studio 54; C.E.O., Ian Schrager Company: There were these gay clubs that were more creative, more energetic, more dance-oriented, more tribal, more sexual.
I want to go where the people dance I want some action … I want to live. —“I Love the Nightlife (Disco ‘Round),” Alicia Bridges.
When record companies realized that a song could break out of the clubs, D.J.’s—David Mancuso at the Loft, Tom Savarese at 12 West, Bobby Guttadaro at Le Jardin, and Richie Kaczor, first at Hollywood, then later Studio 54—had a lot of clout.
Vince Aletti: The D.J.’s became the stars, because the records came and went. There were one-hit wonders, there were major stars, there were records like Manu Dibango’s [Afro-jazz] “Soul Makossa,” but the D.J.’s were the ones who found a way to mix all this very disparate stuff and create a whole evening.
Gloria Gaynor: I was doing an up-tempo version of “Never Can Say Goodbye,” and then it became the first disco song to be played on AM radio, and went to No. 1 on the disco charts on Billboard.
Vince Aletti: Barry White hit in 1974, and that was a major change, because that was a sound that hadn’t been around before. “Love’s Theme” was one of those records that was a huge, huge club record for about six months before it went to a radio station and became No. 1.
They say that Barry White was the godfather of disco, but Barry White’s sound is a combination of romance, intimacy, educating.… People understand love. In countries where they don’t have record players they buy Barry White’s record, listen to the radio, and stare at the record. —Barry White, 1987.
Harry “KC” Wayne Casey, songwriter, founder, KC & the Sunshine Band (“Get Down Tonight,” “That’s the Way [I Like It]”): I wanted to make an album that would all be up-tempo. “Shake Your Booty” was written out of frustration, seeing people struggling with wanting to have a good time. Wanting to just feel free and be themselves. Get up off your ass and do something.
Judy Weinstein: The Record Pool started around 1975 because the record labels got tired of the D.J.’s banging on the doors looking for product. The D.J.’s met at the Loft and said, “Let them send us all the records and we’ll give them feedback.” So if you had a hundred members, you’d get a hundred copies of each record, you’d give them out to the members, and, since some of them were Billboard reporters or radio-station D.J.’s, they would play it on-air or write about it.
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