• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Turn The Beat Around
  • Vicki Sue Robinson
  • 3:24
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Shame, Shame, Shame
  • Evelyn "Champagne" King
  • 2:58
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Best Of My Love
  • The Emotions
  • 3:41
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Got To Be Real
  • Cheryl Lynn
  • 3:45
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe
  • Barry White
  • 3:44
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Never Too Much
  • Luther Vandross
  • 3:49
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • September
  • Earth, Wind and Fire
  • 3:34
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Relight My Fire
  • Dan Hartman
  • 3:43
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • It's Raining Men
  • The Weather Girls
  • 3:32
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty
  • KC and the Sunshine Band
  • 3:07
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Play That Funky Music
  • Wild Cherry
  • 3:16
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Whispering / Cherchez La Femme / Se Si Bon
  • Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band
  • 5:45
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • The Hustle
  • Van McCoy
  • 3:46
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • There But For The Grace Of God Go I
  • Machine
  • 4:44
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Boogie Nights
  • Heatwave
  • 3:40
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • I Feel Love
  • Donna Summer
  • 3:49
  • 
  
  

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Love Come Down
  • Evalyn "Champagne" King
  • 3:43
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Native New Yorker
  • Odyssey
  • 3:32
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • More, More, More Pt. 1
  • Andrea True Connection
  • 3:02
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Lady Marmalade
  • Labelle
  • 3:21
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Rock The Boat
  • The Hues Corporation
  • 3:09
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Cupid / I've Loved You For A Long Time
  • The Spinners
  • 3:55
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Love Train
  • The O'Jays
  • 3:00
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • When Will I See You Again
  • The Three Degrees
  • 3:00
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • The Love I Lost (Part 1)
  • Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Ladies Night
  • Kool and the Gang
  • 3:30
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • This Time Baby
  • Jackie Moore
  • 4:01
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Boogie Wonderland
  • Earth, Wind and Fire with the Emotions
  • 4:50
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • TSOP (The Sound OF Philadelphia)
  • MFSB featuring The Three Degrees
  • 3:36
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • The Groove Line
  • Heatwave
  • 4:18
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Instant Replay
  • Dan Hartman
  • 3:26
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • MacArthur Park
  • Donna Summer
  • 3:57
  • 
  
  

Any listener geared up to enjoy the marvelous music in the Disco Fever collection is probably prepared to stride onto the dance floor, to get caught up in the pulse of the night, to let the steady rhythm guide body movement - and undoubtedly will also be struck by the sheer joy inherent in so much of the best disco music. For the producers, writers, arrangers, musicians and singers who dreamed up all this fantastic music didn't only want to get people dancing, they aspired to lift spirits as well.

Perhaps no other group during the disco era was a better and more convincing representative for this approach than Earth, Wind and Fire, whose very foundation was built upon coupling funk rhythms with positive-message influences from Eastern religions. Formed in the late '60s by Maurice White, a veteran of the Chicago session on musician circuit, the group—sometimes featuring as many as 10 members—signed to Warner Bros, and released its first album in 1970. But after only mild success with the first few releases, White decided that Earth, Wind and Fire should leave the label and, having assembled a completely new line-up, signed the band with Columbia Records in 1972.

Over the next few years, Earth, Wind and Fire's fortunes gradually improved, and in 1975 the band finally made the big time by scoring a No. 1 pop and R&B hit with the funky and gritty Shining Star (found on Disco Fever's Young Hearts Run Free volume). Shining Star could almost serve as an anthem for the disco era, detailing as it does White's vision of the individual's potential to be a "star" in one sense or another. The philosophy that the people on the dance floor are as much stars in their own right as the artists performing the music is, of course, at the core of club culture. And once Shining Star (and its album, That's the Way of the World) hit No. 1, Earth, Wind and Fire ranked among the biggest bands in America for the remainder of the decade.

Although the band enjoyed only one No. 1 pop hit, their R&B tally was an impressive eight chart-toppers, among them 1978's September, which has remained one of the most fondly remembered of their many hits. During this golden era, White also applied his writing and production skills to other acts. Perhaps the most brilliant and certainly the most successful outcome of this was Best of My Love by the sister trio the Emotions. In pure chart terms it was a bigger pop hit than any of Earth, Wind and Fire's singles, staying at No. 1 for five weeks in 1977 and also reaching the summit on the R&B chart. No doubt some of the song's success was fueled by the lead vocal work of Wanda Hutchinson, who performed Best of My Love a whole octave higher than her usual register - small wonder that it received a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus.

In 1979 the Emotions returned the favor by providing spirited vocal accompaniment on the amazing Boogie Wonderland, trading lines with White and occasionally giving way to the energetic falsetto tones of Philip Bailey—Earth, Wind and Fire's other lead singer. Quite simply, Boogie Wonderland (a No. 6 pop and No. 2 R&B hit) was a masterful production, "stunningly encapsulating the disco experience and putting it into user-friendly dance terminology," as authors Alan Jones and Jussi Kantonen put it in their book on disco, Saturday Night Forever.

Another disco band with abundant musicianship was Heatwave. Formed by U.S. servicemen brothers Johnnie and Keith Wilder while based in Germany, this truly international band also contained members from Spain and Czechoslovakia. In the mid-'70s, Heatwave relocated to Great Britain and recruited English keyboard player Rod Temperton. He quickly emerged as the band's artistic leader, writing virtually all their songs for the first few years of their career. Heatwave struck platinum with its very first U.S. chart entry, Boogie Nights, which peaked at No. 2 pop and No. 5 R&B in 1977. just like Earth, Wind and Fire's Boogie Wonderland, Boogie Nights was a song that perfectly captured the spiritual excitement of disco—"get that groove, let it take you higher," as the lyrics phrased it.

Heatwave scored one more major hit with The Groove Line (No. 7 pop, No. 3 R&B) before Rod Temperton stepped back from being an active member of the band, although he still contributed songs. The success Temperton had achieved with Heatwave would be enough to secure him a prominent position in the story of modern dance music, but as his focus shifted completely to a career behind the scenes, he achieved the kind of rewards most songwriters can only dream of. Over the next few years Temperton wrote several songs for Michael Jackson's Off the Wall and Thriller albums, including the title tracks for both—and as most music fans know, Thriller rapidly became the world's biggest-selling album of all time.

If songs like Boogie Wonderland and Boogie Nights relayed the emotional intoxication of a night on the dance floor, another Disco Fever track seems to perfectly sum up the typical "urban disco person." At least, Odyssey's Native New Yorker (No. 21 pop, No. 6 R&B) paints an evocative picture of what one might imagine such an individual's life to be like at the end of the 70s. The lyrics depict a woman "talkin" that street talk," who's struggling to make it through the hustle and bustle of big city life - "no one opens the door for a native New Yorker" — and looking for love on the dance floor, where "everyone's dancing closer and closer." The vivid lyrics coupled with pop-funky rhythms and a "big" arrangement practically make the skyscrapers and exhaust fumes the song evokes seem genuine.

Odyssey was a New York trio consisting of sisters Lillian and Louise Lopez and Tony Reynolds. Initially guided by the song-writing team of Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell - who'd been around since the '60s, contributing many hits for groups like the 4 Seasons - the group achieved only limited chart success at home after Native New Yorker, becoming much more popular in Europe, where its next hit held the No. 1 spot for two weeks despite not even making it onto the U.S. charts.

Most of the time, artists, songwriters and producers were rewarded with both chart positions and the appreciation on the dance floor that they so rightly deserved. Like the other volumes in the Disco Fever collection, this one is chock-full with the best tracks and the biggest hits of the disco era, guaranteed to create the. perfect dance feeling at any social gathering. Donna Summer has brought two of her most famous classics to the party - the electro-disco prototype I Feel Love (No. 6 pop, No. 9 R&B) and the epic MacArthur Park (No. 1 pop, No. 8 R&B)—while funk-masters Kool and the Gang call out for a Ladies Night (No. 8 pop, No. 1 R&B) and Cheryl Lynn vows that it's Got to Be Real (No. 12 pop, No. 1 R&B). Over in the corner, Wild Cherry is urging Play That Funky Music (No. 1 pop and R&B), the Hues Corporation warns listeners not to Rock the Boat (No. 1 pop, No. 2 R&B), Vicki Sue Robinson pleads for someone to Turn the Beat Around (No. 10 pop) - "love to hear percussion!" - while Dan Hartman demands an Instant Replay of his fabulous Relight My Fire. And listeners dancing their way through this volume of Disco Fever will surely join with pleasure in the Andrea True Connection's calls for More, More, More Pt. 1!

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • He's The Greatest Dancer
  • Sister Sledge
  • 3:57
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Dance, Dance, Dance
  • Chic
  • 3:32
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Get Down Tonight
  • KC and the Sunshine Band
  • 3:44
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Disco Inferno
  • The Trammps
  • 4:16
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • I'm Every Woman
  • Chaka Khan
  • 4:44
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Dim All The Lights
  • Donna Summer
  • 5:06
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Come To Me
  • France Joli
  • 3:29
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Then Came You
  • Dionne Warwick and the Spinners
  • 4:31
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Young Hearts Run Free
  • Canti Staton
  • 4:39
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Rock Your Baby
  • George McCrae
  • 5:22
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • I Love Music (Part 1)
  • The O'Jays
  • 5:46
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Shining Star
  • Earth, Wind and Fire
  • 3:31
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Street Player
  • Chicago
  • 4:00
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Found A Cure
  • Ashford and Simpson
  • 3:54
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • The Glow Of Love
  • Change
  • 3:17
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Love In 'C' Minor Pt. 1
  • Cerrone
  • 4:19
  • 
  
  

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • That's The Way (I Like It)
  • KC and the Sunshine Band
  • 3:04
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Bad Girls
  • Donna Summer
  • 4:00
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Le Freak
  • Chic
  • 3:34
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • We Are Family
  • Sister Sledge
  • 3:35
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • In The Bush
  • Musique
  • 4:02
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Supernature
  • Cerrone
  • 3:47
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Jungle Boogie
  • Kool and the Gang
  • 3:07
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Pick Up The Pieces
  • Average White Band
  • 3:03
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Working My Way Back To You / Forgive Me, Girl
  • Spinners
  • 4:03
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Love Rollercoaster
  • Ohio Players
  • 2:53
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Shake Your Groove
  • Peaches and Herb
  • 3:27
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Ring My Bell
  • Anita Ward
  • 3:31
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Kung Fu Fighting
  • Carl Douglas
  • 3:17
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Shame, Shame, Shame
  • Shirley and Company
  • 3:54
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • You Make Me Feel Like Dancing
  • Leo Sayer
  • 2:51
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Swearin' To God
  • Frankie Valli
  • 4:01
  • 
  
  

Do you know how to do the hustle? Does your heart beat a little faster at the sight of a glittering disco ball? Do you prefer your dance music to combine its beats and rhythms with heart and soul, to be more than an electronic sledgehammer with little room for true emotion? If your answer to some or all of those questions is yes, then chances are you would also agree that the best era of modern dance music was the 70s - the Disco Years. You would probably also support the argument that just a glance at the track listing for Disco Fever's dance-a-licious beats and funk-tastic rhythms is enough to silence any argument against such a claim. For this collection is nothing less than a one-stop provider of the greatest hits of that most magical era in dance music, when pounding bass lines, pulsating drum beats, inventive musical arrangements and soulful singing combined to command even the most reluctant of hoofers to strut their stuff.

The boogie across the dance floor begins with a look at how the whole thing got started. There was no official birth of disco music - it was more a matter of several different strands in popular culture converging at a seminal moment in time. As the '60s were shifting into the '70s, soul music was gaining a harder edge and a more insistent beat. At the same time, New York clubs such as the Loft, headed by legendary DJ David Mancuso, and Nicky Siano's the Gallery were attracting ever-larger crowds. Spinning a record on a turntable was turning into an art form, and dancers responded by staying on the dance floor all night long. Quite simply, the discothéque was the place to be.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, disco was about to claim a musical birth of sorts. With writing and producing teams such as Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff at the helm, a sound called Philly soul had by the early '70s grown to be the most dominant and influential force on the soul scene, sending hit after hit to the top of the charts. Marrying the new hard-edged beat with lush strings and grandiose orchestral arrangements, Philly soul provided the blueprints for the soulfulness, the elegance and energy that was to become the trademark of disco.

Naturally, several Philly soul classics are featured throughout this volume, including one of it's most recognizable anthems, I Love Music (Part1) a No. 1 R&B and No. 5 pop hit for the O'Jays in 1975. The vocal trio, one of the most successful of the '70s, had been around since the late '50s in various configurations. However, it wasn't until they signed with Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia International label in the '70s that the O'Jays Garnered their first significant hits. They achieved their only pop No. 1 in 1973 with the infectious cattle call Love Train - a true disco prototype that was, like most of their big hits, written and produced by Gamble and Huff.

The other major Philly soul writer-producer was Thom Bell. Although he played an important part in shaping Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia International hit factory sound, he also produced act on other labels, masterminding triumphs from such groups as the Delphonics and the Stylistics. Some of his biggest successes came with the spinners, on the Atlantic label. Before teaming up with Bell, the Spinners had been signed to Motown, being one of that label's acts whose career never seemed to take off. On the recommendation of no less an authority than the soul queen Aretha Franklin, the group moved to Atlantic, at which time they also gained a new lead singer, Philippe Wynne. Under Bell's guidance they notched up a string of hits, the peak pop achievement benign their duet with Dionne Warwick on Then Came You (No. 2 R&B, No. 1 pop). The Spinners chart success continued right up until the tail end of the disco era, by which time they had gained yet another lead singer, John Edwards, as well as a new producer, Michael Zager - himself a notable figure on the disco scene with the Michael Zager Band. Under his guidance, the Spinners scored a pop No. 2 hit with a medley of Working My Way Back to You, originally a 1966 hit fro the 4 seasons, and Zager's own brand new composition Forgive Me, Girl.

Down the coast in the town of Hialeah, Florida, other pioneering steps were being taken within the world of disco music. At T.K. Records, run by Henry Stone, two ambitious young men named Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch were employed. Fooling around in the studio late one night in 1974, they concocted a rhythmic backing track for a new song they had written - and everybody involved instantly recognized that they had a winner on their hands. Once lyrics had been added, the song was given to singer George McCrae and the result was Rock Your Baby, a pop and R&B No. 1 smash in the summer of 1974. With its dry but highly percussive rhythm-box sound, it is widely regarded as on of the most important and influential songs in the history of disco music.

Casey and Finch had achieved the break they were after, and went on to top that triumph with the five No. 1 pop hits scored by their own musical congregation, the remarkably lively KC and the Sunshine Band—naturally named after lead singer Casey. Their first pop chart entry was also their first No. 1 hit, Get Down Tonight, in August 1975. Three months later they scored another chart-topping success with That's the Way (I Like It), certainly one of the most instantly recognizable disco records—its "uh-huh, uh-huh" chorus a strong contender for the title Catchiest Hook in Popular Music History.

By the end of the 70s, a New York - based writing and producing team had taken over as lead disco masterminds. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were not only the core members of their own musical group but achieved spectacular success with their songs for many other artists as well. It was in 1977 that the pair teamed up with drummer Tony Thompson and female vocalists Norma Jean Wright and Alfa Anderson to form Chic, sporting an image that was as stylish as their name. The band's success was immediate: the very first Chic single, Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah), became a top-10 pop and R&B hit. Soon afterwards, Wright left for a solo career, replaced by Luci Martin, and Chic scored an even bigger triumph with Le Freak, The single spent a spectacular six weeks at the top of the pop charts and five atop the R&B charts in 1978, shifting over four million copies to become Atlantic Records' biggest-selling single ever. Incidentally, "freak out!" replaced a different term in the original lyrics. This celebration of the hedonistic atmosphere at the famous disco Studio 54 actually began as a significantly less celebratory piece of music, after Rodgers and Edwards failed to be recognized by bouncers one night and were denied entrance to the club.

After the success of Le Freak, Rodgers and Edwards were clearly on a roll. It was hardly surprising, then, that other artists wanted to experience their golden touch. Their most successful collaboration was perhaps with Sister Sledge. The four sisters—Debbie, Kim, Joni and Kathy—had been recording since the early 70s without achieving any major hits. That situation was turned around completely in 1979, when the very first single spawned by the partnership, He's the Greatest Dancer (No. 1 R&B, No. 9 pop), provided an exceptionally convincing start, further strengthened by the second single, We Are Family (No. 1 R&B, No. 2 pop). Few would dispute that both tracks belong at the very top of any list of all-time disco classics." We Are Family was written for us by Nile and Bernard," recalled Debbie Sledge. "It summed up what they thought about us when they met us. It described our close relationship as sisters but also spoke of bonding in whatever situation." The incredibly catchy song was carried forward by the trademark Chic sound of Thompson's elegant drumming, Edwards' ingenious bass lines and Rodgers' percussive guitar playing. Its message of optimism and strength through unity transcended the Sledge family unit, striking a chord with listeners everywhere.

And that's what disco music seemed to do all over the planet by the end of the 70s. It had become the beat of the decade, influencing everyone who had anything to do with the world of music. This volume of Disco Fever alone contains no less than 12 No. 1 pop hits and 15 No. 1 R&B hits, and plenty more that peaked just a notch or two below the summit. That goes some way to proving how significant these songs were at the time, but even more astounding is the fact that three decades later these rhythmic confections sound just as fresh and irresistible as they did when they first enticed dancers to get up and boogie. They guaranteed a great party then—and still do today!

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Boogie Fever
  • The Sylvers
  • 3:30
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • It Only Takes A Minute
  • Tavares
  • 3:15
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • I'm Coming Out
  • Diana Ross
  • 3:58
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now
  • McFadden Whitehead
  • 3:41
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Heart Of Glass
  • Blondie
  • 3:24
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Chase
  • Giorgio Moroder
  • 3:40
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Theme From Shaft
  • Isaac Hayes
  • 3:18
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Disco Nights (Rock-Freak)
  • GQ
  • 3:57
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Let's All Chant
  • Michael Zager Band
  • 3:04
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Get Off
  • Foxy
  • 3:36
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Get Up and Boogie (That's Right)
  • Silver Convention
  • 3:46
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • You Sexy Thing
  • Hot Chocolate
  • 4:05
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Tell Me Something Good
  • Rufus
  • 3:32
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • You Dropped a Bomb on Me
  • The Gap Band
  • 4:05
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Do It ('Till Your Satisfied)
  • B. T. Express
  • 3:13
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • It's A Love Thing
  • The Whispers
  • 3:48
  • 
  
  

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel (Part 1)
  • Tavares
  • 3:35
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Heartbeat
  • Taana Gardner
  • 4:48
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • The Second Time Around
  • Shalamar
  • 3:44
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Never Can Say Goodbye
  • Gloria Gaynor
  • 3:01
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • The Boss
  • Diana Ross
  • 3:51
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • I Don't Love You Anymore
  • Teddy Pendergrass
  • 3:56
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine
  • Lou Rawls
  • 3:33
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • More Than A Woman
  • Tavares
  • 3:16
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Movin'
  • Brass Construction
  • 3:26
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Right Back Where We Started From
  • Maxine Nightingale
  • 3:15
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Boogie Oogie Oogie
  • A Taste of Honey
  • 3:38
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet
  • Gonzalez
  • 3:44
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
  • Sylvester
  • 3:46
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Our Love is Insane
  • Desmond Child and Rouge
  • 5:19
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Fly, Robin, Fly
  • Silver Convention
  • 3:50
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • A Fifth of Beethoven
  • Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band
  • 3:04
  • 
  
  

Anyone who was around during the second half of the 1970s will certainly remember a very special kind of life-affirming music that dominated the world at that time. Just a quick glance at the song titles included on this volume of Disco Fever - Get Up and Boogie - is guaranteed to flash any listener back to a period when it seemed the beat of a bass drum was constantly calling for attention. The forces of disco commanded dancers onto the dance floor in the nighttime, and gave life a spiritual kick that made everything seem more fun and effortless in the daytime. By the mid-'70s, its influence had spread far outside club land into all kinds of pop music and way beyond the borders of the U.S. as well—into every country on the planet where popular music was enjoyed. Disco music was a global phenomenon of unfathomable magnitude.

Inevitably, singers, musicians and record producers outside of the United States, excited by this new movement, were eager to prove that they could make credible disco records too. On this volume, for instance, is one of England's foremost contributions to dance-floor flirting: Hot Chocolate's You Sexy Thing, a No. 3 pop and No. 6 R&B hit in 1976—and later immortalized through its highly memorable inclusion in the 1996 film The Full Monty.

Producers in Munich, Germany, were also in on the game quite early, establishing a European disco music center of sorts that led to significant success for a variety of writers and producers. One of the most famous of these is Giorgio Moroder, best known for his trend-setting work with disco diva Donna Summer. This volume features his top-40 pop hit, Chase, an entrancing synthesizer odyssey taken from the soundtrack of the 1978 movie Midnight Express.

A few years earlier, the Munich-based team of Michael Kunze and Silvester Levay concocted a studio group they named Silver Convention ("Silver" was Levay's nickname). After scoring a European hit with a song called Save Me, they followed it with a tune based on a riff Levay heard in his head upon waking one morning. Kunze's original idea for a song title was the slightly grim and not very evocative "Run, Rabbit, Run." Fortunately, on the very day the vocals were to be recorded, Levay happened to hear a similarly titled song on the radio, forcing Kunze to come up with a phrase much better suited to the tune's ascending qualities. Married to an insistent, metronomic beat typical for the Eurodisco coming out of Munich, and adorned by "disco strings" that would come to characterize countless recordings in the genre, Fly, Robin, Fly was an extremely catchy record, giving Silver Connection a No. 1 pop and R&B hit in the United States.

Originally, the female vocalists featured on the Silver Convention records were unknown session singers working for scale; after the enormous success of Fly, Robin, Fly they were understandably less interested in working under the same financial arrangement. Thus a completely new line-up of the group was assembled, featuring Penny McLean (who achieved parallel solo success with Lady Bump), Linda Thompson and Ramona Wulf. With this new trio of singers, Silver Convention scored yet another major triumph with Get Up and Boogie (That's Right), which hit No. 2 on the pop charts (and No. 5 R&B) in 1976. After those successive peaks, however, the group didn't achieve any further major hits, and soon enough, Silver Convention was no more.

If disco's influence transcended the borders of its American birthplace, its stylistic characteristics also seeped into other genres, not least of which was rock. Although disco and rock were often uneasy bedmates, many of the most successful and influential rock acts sat up and took notice of the excitement of disco music. The two styles converged more successfully than ever in Blondie's Heart of Glass, a No. 1 pop hit in 1979. Formed as a punk/new wave band a few years earlier, the group teamed up with producer Mike Chapman to break new ground with their disco-rock fusion. The tune itself had been around since 1975, adorned with the highly appropriate working title "Disco Song." Spending countless hours in the studio, Chapman coaxed the band into really tightening things up, using a rhythm machine to help the group achieve metronomic perfection. Topped off with lead singer Deborah Harry's nonchalantly seductive lead vocals, the result was a fresh-sounding hybrid of disco and rock that managed to obliterate the boundaries between the two genres. Recalled Deborah Harry, "It was one of the few pieces of music of the time that was popular with the rock-pop scene and also took off in the area of urban music."

Naturally, at a time when punk fans and disco dancers were supposed to be mortal enemies, this highly commercial creation didn't go unpunished by certain parts of the disco-suspicious rock community. Blondie co-founder Chris Stein tried to point out to interviewers that Heart of Glass was "not selling out," while bass player Nigel Harrison found himself apologizing for this "compromise with commerciality." Of course, the general public simply responded to the sheer danceability of the song and couldn't care less whether or not rock critics approved. Ultimately, though, the many less convincing attempts by rock, middle-of-the-road and novelty acts to spice up their songs with dance-friendly beats were undoubtedly responsible for the ferocious backlash against disco as the 70s shifted into the '80s. No such tracks can be found on this collection, however - Get Up and Boogie contains only the best!

The absolute peak of disco's popularity happened with the December 1977 release of the movie Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta and his flare-trousered white suit. Even more successful than the movie was the soundtrack album, which is still one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, having notched up global sales of more than 25 million copies. Some of the best tracks from that album have been included in Disco Fever, on this volume are Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band's disco-classical fusion, A Fifth of Beethoven, which had already been a No. 1 pop hit in 1976, and More Than a Woman by Tavares (written by the Bee Gees), which was original to the film.

The five Tavares brothers formed their group back in 1964 - one of the seemingly innumerable black vocal groups around at the time - although it took a decade before they began enjoying chart success. One of their first major hits was It Only Takes a Minute, reaching No. 10 pop and No. 1 R&B in 1975, and the following year they scored a No. 15 pop and No. 3 R&B hit with Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel (Part 1). Both songs rank among the most memorable of the smooth-soul vocal group records to come out of the 70s. Although More Than a Woman was just as strong, the single release was significantly less successful, just missing the top 30 on both the pop and R&B charts. However, it's probably safe to say that the song's inclusion in Saturday Night Fever has made it the most widespread of all Tavares recordings.

And "widespread" could be a keyword for all the tracks on Get Up and Boogie. With pop and/or R&B No. 1 smashes such as Boogie Oogie Oogie, The Second Time Around, Movin', Theme from Shaft, You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine, Do It ('Til You're Satisfied) and Boogie Fever - along with recordings that should have reached No. 1, including The Boss and You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) - there's no shortage of disco classics to get the body moving. So pop a disk into the player, press the play button and start the party!

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • I Love The Nightlife (Disco 'Round)
  • Alicia Bridges
  • 3:10
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Take Me Home
  • Cher
  • 3:29
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Don't Leave Me This Way
  • Thelma Houston
  • 3:40
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • If I Can't Have you
  • Yvonne Elliman
  • 2:59
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • I Will Survive
  • Gloria Gaynor
  • 3:19
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Dance With Me
  • Peter Brown
  • 3:51
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • I'm Your Boogie Man
  • KC and the Sunshine Band
  • 4:03
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • I Need Your Lovin'
  • Teena Marie
  • 3:52
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Got To Have Loving
  • Don Ray
  • 3:36
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Good Times
  • Chic
  • 3:44
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Upside Down
  • Diana Ross
  • 3:41
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Hot Stuff
  • Donna Summer
  • 3:46
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Everlasting Love
  • Carl Carlton
  • 2:37
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Never Knew Love Like This Before
  • Stephanie Mills
  • 3:33
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Celebration
  • Kool and the Gang
  • 3:43
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Y.M.C.A.
  • Village People
  • 3:45
  • 
  
  

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Knock On Wood
  • Amii Stewart
  • 3:53
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Car Wash
  • Rose Royce
  • 3:16
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Get Down On It
  • Kool and the Gang
  • 3:35
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Brick House
  • Commodores
  • 3:27
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Dancing Machine
  • The Jackson 5
  • 2:37
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Love Machine (Part 1)
  • The Miracles
  • 2:56
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Love Hangover
  • Diana Ross
  • 3:50
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Circles
  • Atlantic Starr
  • 4:04
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Got To Give It Up (Pt. 1)
  • Marvin Gaye
  • 4:14
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Soul Makossa
  • Manu Dibango
  • 4:26
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Keep On Truckin' (Part 1)
  • Eddie Kendricks
  • 3:36
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Flash Light
  • Parliament
  • 4:31
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Super Freak
  • Rick James
  • 3:21
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Funkytown
  • Lipps, Inc.
  • 4:01
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • In The Navy
  • Village People
  • 3:43
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Last Dance
  • Donna Summer
  • 3:21
  • 
  
  

Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Cher, Village People, Thelma Houston, Gloria Gaynor - the artists who generated the disco hits included in this volume of Disco Fever are well known. But how many listeners take the time to consider the record labels that released these confections - caught up as they are in the excitement and urgency of the throbbing beats and catchy tunes, and busy coordinating the movement of various body parts on the dance floor? The fact of the matter is that the disco era produced its fair share of legendary record labels, which in some respects were just as important to the development of the genre as the artists and the creative teams behind the records. In fact, two labels - Casablanca and Motown - are responsible for more than half of the tracks included on this volume.

In many ways, Casablanca Records was the archetypal disco label, at least the part of disco culture that had to do with 1970s hedonism, grand schemes, explosive hits and general madness and extravagance. It was certainly the most commercially successful of the disco labels. Formed by Neil Bogart in 1973, Casablanca operated on a vision that was grandiose from the word go. Bogart and everybody else involved with the label were determined to enjoy the party atmosphere to the fullest. For example, the offices were decorated to replicate Rick's Café Américain from the movie that had inspired the label name (naturally, that idea was born out of the shared surname of Casablanca star Humphrey Bogart and the young record company owner—who in reality had been born Bogatz).

One of Casablanca's first signings, the rock group Kiss, had very little to do with disco. However, when the Germany-based writing and producing team of Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte sent Bogart a copy of a song entitled Love to Love You Baby, the record company owner pricked up his ears. The featured artist on the recording was a fairly unknown singer, Donna Summer, but the American release of the single kick-started an extremely successful run of hits, which turned the singer into the undisputed Queen of Disco. As she stated herself at one point: "God had to create disco music so that I could be born and be successful."

Born in Boston as LaDonna Andre Gaines, Donna Summer began her career in Germany, where she appeared in the musical Hair, and moved on to Porgy and Bess with the Vienna Folk Opera. Her marriage to Austrian actor Helmut Sommer gave her a new surname, anglicized to Summer when she became a recording artist. Teaming up with Moroder and Bellotte in 1974, Donna Summer was an immediate hit in Europe, and her success soon translated across the Atlantic.

Without a doubt, one of the most pioneering recordings in the Summer-Moroder-Bellotte partnership was I Feel Love, a No. 6 pop and No. 9 R&B track (and found on the Disco Fever volume Turn the Beat Around). This groundbreaking record, released in 1977, was the first synthesizer-based dance recording to become a big pop hit. With its relentless electronic pulse it paved the way for the sounds that would dominate dance music in the coming decades.

Donna next major hit came with Last Dance (No. 3 pop No. 5 R&B) in 1978. The song finally featured in the Casablanca-produced disco movie Thank God It's Friday, and went on to win an Oscar for Best Original Song. Then, in 1979, Summer reached her commercial zenith with the double album Bad Girls, which spent six weeks at the top of the charts and spawned two pop No. 1 hits - Hot Stuff and Bad Girls (also an R&B No. 1) — as well as the No. 2 smash Dim All the Lights.

Hot Stuff, which featured a scorching guitar solo by Doobie Brothers member Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, also went on to win a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Originally, Neil Bogart had actually suggested that Summer pass on the song. He felt it was better suited for another Casablanca recording artist, Cher, who had just enjoyed her first major hit in five years, Take Me Home (No. 8 pop, No. 21 R&B).

Apart from Donna Summer, Casablanca's most successful disco act was the Village People. The brainchild of French producer Jacques Morali and his song-writing partner Henri Belolo, the Village People were dreamed up by Morali as a group of gay macho stereotypes: the construction worker, the cowboy, the leather-clad, the biker, and so on. However, although there was plenty of innuendo in the group's two major hits — Y.M.C.A. (No. 2 pop No. 32 R&B) and In the Navy (No. 3 pop, No. 30 R&B) - the group, featuring heterosexual lead singer Victor Willis, hadn't risen through gay clubs. Instead, they achieved mainstream success via their upbeat, sing-along— friendly songs and fun, colorful image, for which they are still fondly remembered.

Among the other Casablanca recordings this volume are classics such as Alicia Bridges' I Love the Nightlife (Disco 'Round) (No. 5 pop, No. 31 R&B), Parliament's Fash Light (16 pop, No. 1 R&B) and Funkytown (No. 1 pop, No. 2 R&B) by Lipps, Inc.—a last I hit for the label before it was sold by Bogart to PolyGram Records in 1980.

About a decade later, PolyGram (today Universal Music) also bought the other label whose output is prominently featured on this volume: Motown Records. Founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in the late 1950s, the label emerged as the most consistently successful hit factory of the '60s: only the Beatles could compete with Motown's Detroit-based roster of writers, producers and artists for the top positions on the singles charts.

Although the popular belief is that the 70s meant a creative slump for Motown, the fact is that plenty of worthwhile music was released by the label, not least a string of first - rate disco hits. The main difference was that artistic control now rested more firmly with the creators, rather than the label itself. On this volume alone are no fewer than seven No. 1 Motown hits (pop and/or R&B) - or eight in spirit counting Rose Royce's 1977 smash, Car Wash, which was written and produced by Norman Whitfield, formerly one of the label's most successful writer - producers.

Two of the bona fide Motown No. 1 hits on this volume are performed by Diana Ross, who first achieved fame as lead singer of the Supremes in the '60s. Leaving the group for a solo career at the end of the decade, she scored some of her biggest triumphs with disco recordings. Indeed, with its long, slow intro and sudden jump into an irresistible dance mode, Love Hangover (pop and R&B No. 1 in 1976) is often held up as a milestone in the history of disco music. The recording session seems to have been touched by a bit of good-time magic, as Diana Ross recalled: "It was a spontaneous thing that we captured on record and if I had to go back in and do it again, I couldn't have. The music was me and I was the music." Four years later Ms. Ross teamed up with Chic's Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards and achieved yet another disco classic with Upside Down (pop and R&B No. 1 in 1980). (Her other major collaboration with Rodgers and Edwards, I'm Coming Out, can be found along with another Ross triumph, The Boss, on the Get Up and Boogie volume of Disco Fever)

Like Diana Ross, several of the most successful artists at Motown during the disco era had been with the label since the '60s. Among the No. 1 hits on this collection, this was true of Dancing Machine by the Jackson 5, former Temptations singer Eddie Kendricks' Keep On Truckin' (Part 1), Love Machine (Part 1) by the Miracles and Marvin Gaye's Got to Give It Up (Pt. 1). The only newcomer was Thelma Houston, whose cover version of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' Don't Leave Me This Way resulted in an instant disco classic. Motown may not have been born out of the disco era, but those years simply delivered a different kind of wonderful than their '60s output did.

Forgetting record company history for a moment, this volume offers no shortage of dance classics from other labels, for those who simply want to boogie and not concern themselves with the hard facts. Whether No. 1 hits like Gloria Gaynor's anthemic I Will Survive, Amii Stewart's Eurodisco smash Knock on Wood, Kool & the Gang's jubilant Celebration, Yvonne Elliman's tear-drenched If I Can't Have You and KC and the Sunshine Band's rhythmic I'm Your Boogie Man, or simply great songs that created magic on the dance floor, they all have one thing in common: they make life brighter for a few minutes and make everyone want to move to the rhythm. Now, what could be nicer than that?

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Got to Give It Up (Part 1)
  • Marvin Gaye
  • 4:14
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Serpentine Fire
  • Earth, Wind and Fire
  • 3:52
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Dreams
  • Fleetwood Mac
  • 4:15
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Cold as Ice
  • Foreigner
  • 3:20
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Blinded by the Light
  • Manfred Mann's Earth Band
  • 3:49
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Fly like an Eagle
  • Steve Miller Band
  • 3:02
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Southern Nights
  • Glen Campbell
  • 2:59
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Heard It in a Love Song
  • The Marshall Tucker Band
  • 3:29
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Blue Bayou
  • Linda Ronstadt
  • 3:53
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • How Deep Is Your Love
  • The Bee Gees
  • 3:38
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Handy Man
  • James Taylor
  • 3:17
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Rich Girl
  • Daryl Hall and John Oates
  • 2:22
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • The Things We Do for Love
  • 10cc
  • 3:32
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Year of the Cat
  • Al Stewart
  • 4:36
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • It's So Easy
  • Linda Ronstadt
  • 2:27
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Feels like the First Time
  • Foreigner
  • 3:29
  • 
  
  
• • 17
  • I'm in You
  • Peter Frampton
  • 4:10
  • 
  
  
• • 18
  • So in to You
  • Atlanta Rythm Section
  • 3:17
  • 
  
  
• • 19
  • Stayin' Alive
  • The Bee Gees
  • 3:42
  • 
  
  
• • 20
  • Slip Slidin' Away
  • Paul Simon
  • 4:43
  •