| Step back on time to when disco ruled the world Imagine being a doorman at the height of the disco era standing outside Studio 54 in New York. With a dutiful nod to Northern Soul, disco emerged glittering on to the stage and, for the next few years, it could do no wrong. But it ended up as an object of ridicule: "People taking Jethro Tull seriously and heaping scorn on the Bee Gees. " Fan Mark Moore, of S'Express, showed us through his disco album record collection, which included such delights as Sesame Street Fever; and even Ethel Merman got in on the act with a disco "interpretation" of her Broadway hits. "It was ours. Quite right, too. A sample of this is cut mercifully short. The man who created I Feel Love with Ms Summer admits: "Sometimes I think I could sue the whole world. Disco proved the perfect fodder for the rising women's lib movement, Donna Summer's "anthem to sex" Love To Love You Baby – complete with its 17 minutes of moaning – and free love, with some eye-opening tales from Nile Rodgers, who seemed to have a very good time in the Studio 54 ladies' toilets. " Before you may warble the first bar of You Should Be Dancin', this programme had you pulled into a world of gay America in the early 1970s and also the birth of club culture. For a bloke who has been sampled so often, he need to be a millionaire, Giorgio Moroder is not bitter. But that was The Joy of Disco (BBC 4, 9pm). John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever dance coach, Deney Terrio popped up to show us all how to do that dance and reminisce about taking Travolta clubbing in the late '70s: "He was like Fred Astaire. Some of it was, admittedly, plain bizarre, like the silver catsuit-crossed-with-outer-space look sported by Labelle for Lady Marmalade, and others baffling: a no 1 record made by porn star Andrea True, who sang More More More. I bet I wasn't the only one who watched it tapping along and singing. "I honestly thought she was talking about the music," sighs her producer. |
Sunday 4 March 2012
Step back on time to when disco ruled the world
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