Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution

[Indistinct chatter] How would I define disco?

Um...oof!

["Disco Inferno" by The Trammps playing] Man: It means the happiest time in my life, celebrated by the best music I ever loved.

Woman: When you could be who you wanted to be.

Good times, good feeling.

Different woman: The disco era encouraged the diva to be brought out, guns blazing, feathers blowing, sequins spinning.

Different man: It was release and it was fantasy.

Was like being out of yourself.

The Trammps: Burn, baby, burn... Man: It brings people joy, but people need to know where the joy comes from.

Trammps: Burn, baby, burn Burn, baby, burn Jimmy Ellis: To my surprise... Different man: You had disco really starting from the underground and marginalized people finding sort of solace and home in the music.

Ellis: People... Woman: Disco freed me.

It saved me.

Ellis: You hear?

Man: Everything.

It meant everything to me.

Different woman: These clubs were places for Black and Latin and queer people to go to feel safe, and they created art that has influenced the world from nothing.

Ellis: I heard somebody say The Trammps: Burn, baby, burn Disco is a phenomenon.

It's the hottest thing that has hit the music business.

Ellis: Burn the mother down Different man: It was something that became loved by everybody.

Ellis: Disco inferno Woman: I think of the Village People.

Different woman: ABBA... Ellis: Satisfaction Donna Summer.

John Travolta in a white suit on the lit dance floor.

The Trammps: Burning The Bee Gees... Ellis: I couldn't get enough Man: clubs like Studio 54.

There's no way in a million years you're gonna get in.

Listen, just go home.

Ellis: The heat was on Disco was the greatest thing in the world, but in every successful thing, it has the seeds of its own destruction.

Ellis: Everybody goin' strong And that is when the spark... Man: The Christian right or the Bible-thumping people were like, "Mmm," trying to press it down.

Ellis: Disco inferno Trammps: Burn, baby, burn Different man: There was a great deal of resentment.

They damn near killed it.

Trammps: Burn, baby, burn Ellis: Disco inferno Man: Who has the last laugh today?

Disco, because disco is back.

Trammps: Burn, baby, burn Different man: In order to really understand the glitz and the glamor, you have to go through the build of what happened.

Ellis: Disco inferno Disco has a history.

Ellis: Burn the mother down The Trammps: Burn, baby, burn Ellis: Oh, baby!

Trammps: Burn, baby, burn Ellis: Burn the mother down Trammps: Burn, baby, burn... [Distant siren blaring] "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" by The 5th Dimension playing] [Car horn honks] Marilyn McCoo: When the moon... Man: I had just come out of military service in the Navy.

I was living a very straight life, strait-laced, married, children, worked hard.

I was living the American dream.

McCoo: ...planets and love Rosner: I was not aware that other people could not access the dream.

5th Dimension: This is the dawning Of the age of Aquarius Age of Aquarius News archive narrator: ...and living through one of the greatest revolutions in history, the birth of a new civilization.

Collective protest shattered the structure of the old.

[Man shouts indistinctly] 5th Dimension: Harmony and understanding Man, voice-over: The United States was a divided nation.

It was power to the people, the Black Panther Party, and stuff like that.

5th Dimension: ...crystal revelation And the mind's true liberation, Aquarius... Woman: All of us must stand up together and say, "No more."

Man: No area of male-dominated American culture is fair.

Wansel: It was fighting for women's rights, fighting for peace.

You know--heh heh heh heh!-- the flower power, you know.

5th Dimension: ...is in the Seventh House And Jupiter aligns... Man: It was mostly, back then, about the anti-Vietnam War movement.

We were burning our draft cards, and we were all getting arrested and there was an awful lot of energy.

5th Dimension: This is the dawning of the age Of Aquarius... There was a new attitude among a lot of people.

Younger people, generally.

5th Dimension: Aquarius Riley: The establishment was serious about squashing this level of dissent because they knew it could bring about fundamental change, and that was something that they didn't want to hear out of hippies and they didn't want to hear out of Black people and they didn't want to hear out of gay people.

Man: If any one of you have let yourself become involved with an adult homosexual or with another boy, and you're doing this on a regular basis, you better stop quick because the rest of your life will be a living hell.

Man: I realized I was gay, like, when I was...13.

There were many things that were illegal on the books: sodomy, cross-dressing... two people of the same sex dancing together.

Man: There were gay bars, all illegal.

Most were operated by the Mafia, which paid off the police.

Most gay bars did not allow dancing because...that was pushing the limit.

Siano: The Stonewall was one of the first dancing bars.

Even though it didn't have a disc jockey, it had a jukebox.

People were rabid, wanting to dance.

[Police radio, indistinct] [Siren blaring] Ashkinazy: What did happen at Stonewall is that when the police came to raid the bar, that night, people decided not to take it anymore.

[Crowd clamoring] Man: The Stonewall Riot broke out, and there I was, outside the raid on Stonewall.

[Camera shutter clicking] Man: They knocked out the windows and threw in Molotov cocktails, and then commenced three days of vigorous rioting, and it took the police that long to control these homosexuals.

Roskoff: It was the first uprising of gay people showing any sort of pride and, um, and power.

Siano: Everything that happened at the Stonewall that night happened because people were dancing.

Stonewall and the whole dance music, disco movement is entwined forever.

Diana Ross: Surrender Your love, baby Surrender... Man: It's a really interesting thought, gay liberation being... born out of that desire for us to be able to dance with one another.

Ross: Surrender... Shears: Being able to dance and being able to dance together is part of what makes us human.

Ross: Don't you know that I'm taking... Riley: Stonewall was a watershed moment for people who were seeking freedom at that time, and the following year was when David Mancuso gave his first party.

[Distant siren blaring] [Car horn honks] Man: New York in the early seventies was kind of falling apart.

There were whole blocks that were completely devastated.

Ashkinazy: Manufacturing and factories were leaving the city.

Whole neighborhoods that were becoming empty, including Soho, including the West Village.

There were these large, warehouse-sized buildings that were empty.

[Distant car horns honking] They became great opportunities.

Ann Peebles: Gotta find me ["Part Time Love" playing] Gotta find me a part time love Gotta find... Woman: David Mancuso's loft was at 647 Broadway at the corner of Bleecker Street.

Peebles: ...part time love, yeah Woman: David was an orphan.

He grew up in the orphanage.

Once you do that, you learn to make your own family.

There was Sister Alicia, who ran parties on Sundays for the children.

She always had balloons, and she always had music and records, and he took a cue from that.

Peebles: ...part time love, yeah I gotta find... Woman: Disco started almost as an unintentional movement.

It started with parties.

It started with people dancing together.

Peebles: Next time, the next time he leaves me Oh, oh, oh, I need a part time lover Murphy: David Mancuso opened his doors for the first time on February 14, 1970.

Peebles: They're not all alone The significance of that date is it's also Valentine's Day.

[Laughs] All about love.

[Patrons cheer] Peebles: But I would rather Be dead, six feet in my grave Siano: It was his house, and you had to have an invitation.

Peebles: ...this morning Asked him where he'd been He said, "Don't ask me no questions" Ana Matronic: And it was a private party, and it couldn't get busted by the police, and so anybody could dance.

Peebles: Oh, oh, got to... Murphy: The Loft was about building a community that kind of recognizes civil rights movement, gay liberation, women's liberation, and bringing all these people together from different walks of life to dance together.

Mancuso: If you can mix the economical groups together, that's where you have social progress.

That's very important to me.

Peebles: Oh, I suffer the whole time he's gone Siano: The majority of the people at The Loft were people of color.

I'd say... 75%, 80% were African American and Spanish, Hispanic, and maybe 20% White.

Peebles: Oh, oh, I need a part time love Man: The Loft welcomed everyone.

Young, old, doctors, cooks, White, Black, gay, straight.

It didn't matter.

Peebles: But I would rather be dead, six feet in... David said, "Music is wonderful.

Let's play all kinds."

Peebles: Each and every minute... Siano: No one called it disco.

It was called danceable R&B.

Peebles: "Don't ask me no questions, woman" Siano: One track that captures the essence-- "Girl You Need a Change of Mind" by Eddie Kendricks.

[Scratchy record playing] Kendricks: Ooh, la la la La la la Baby Want to tell you Girl, you need a change... Eddie Kendricks going, "Girl, you need a change of mind."

That will always be the song for me.

You would hear the first few notes, and the room would just go crazy.

[Patrons cheering] Kendricks: Now I'm for women's rights I just want equal nights Help, baby... Siano: It moves like a roller coaster, goes down, up, down, up to that final peak.

Kendricks: Oh, oh, oh, baby Siano: There's a break, where there's nothing but a little tambourine, but you couldn't hear it.

It was the catalyst for David creating a smashing sound system.

Kendricks: And I won't chain you up Mancuso: The technology wasn't there.

You know, necessity is the mother of invention.

It was a necessity.

Background singers: Yes, you do Kendricks: Baby What you say to that?

Rosner: Before, uh, David Mancuso, the sound systems in clubs were mostly mid-range speakers that looked sort of like this, and they contained bass, mid-range, and highs.

In a club and the background noise that's there, it masks the high frequencies.

David Mancuso wanted high-frequency tweeters which, uh, could shoot the sound in all directions--north, south, east, and west-- and I thought the-- it was not such a terrific idea.

I thought that it would be too much.

He said, "Never mind, just do it," so I had built this kind of configuration, and it turned out wonderful.

Kendricks: ...a change Oh Girl, you got to change Hey Rosner: Now, there's no tweeters at all.

Kendricks: All right!

[Richer, sharper tones] Background singers: Oh, oh I know I can Kendricks: Yeah Everybody copied it from, uh... in every club, they copied it all over the world.

Siano: When the sound is better, you want to dance harder, you want to dance more.

Woman: Oh, yeah, oh!

Riley: It was if that entire dance floor had become this living organism, and everybody kind of had a commonality, a purpose, which was to dance.

Siano: And then the mirrored ball just turns on--boom!-- like that, and everyone screams!

[Crowd cheering] Woman: Dance floors unite people through sound in a way that our governments and religions try to separate us.

It's the great equalizer.

[Crowd cheering] Woman: No one cares, you know, who you are or what you are, and everyone just is about celebrating life and celebrating music.

Kendricks: I know I can Rosner: This kind of environment offered hope, and it was wonderful.

It was, um... freedom.

My going to The Loft and being associated with David definitely...transformed my life for the better.

["(Baby) Turn On to Me" by The Impressions playing] Siano: I would consider David Mancuso the father of clubbing because he created an atmosphere within an environment that would blow your mind while dancing....

The Impressions: Baby, turn on to me Siano: And I said, "I want to do what he's doing."

The Impressions: Baby, turn on Murphy: People started going to David Mancuso's Loft parties every week, and word got around New York City, and other places started popping up.

Nicky Siano famously started The Gallery.

A lot of DJs went to The Loft.

They became inspired and started their own nights because of what David was doing in his own home week after week.

He was really the foundation building block for the disco movement as we knew it.

Man: There are marginalized cultures that find a home at clubs.

Once they stepped foot in the club, they were safe and it was their place.

I think they took their lives in their hands, getting from their apartments to the club, you know.

[Distant siren blaring] Edwin Newman: But these are men, and for men in this society to hold hands in public is at least shameful and, more often, offensive.

I was one of the people that was oppressed by all that was going on.

There were so few of us at that point that were willing to be public.

I was teaching at a private school in Manhattan, and I went out on a Friday night.

I was holding hands with another man, we went to see a movie, and one of the assistant principals from the school saw us, and the following Monday, the principal fired me.

You gave up a lot career-wise, family-wise, friend-wise by coming out of the closet and being-- being known as homosexual, and it was terrifying.

[Police radio, indistinct] Depino: There were always murders.

Sometimes they made it to the news, and most of the times they didn't.

It would be like, "Next."

It was horrible.

Aletti: We can't depend on the police to protect us, so there was this-- at the same time, a sense with gay men looking out for each other.

Roskoff: I went to a meeting of the Gay Activists alliance.

It was in an old firehouse, and as soon as I got in there, my whole world opened up.

Man: Been here for a while, you've heard me talking incessantly about this directive thing, directive that would prevent the police from using pejorative slang against gay people.

[Crowd cheering] Roskoff: The Gay Activists Alliance kept gay rights in the news constantly.

We had demonstrations.

We disrupted people's offices.

We disrupted institutions.

With security precautions heavier than those provided, President Nixon, Secretary-- Man: Many people are protesting CBS' policy!

[Test pattern tone] Ashkinazy: Now, how did the Gay Activists Alliance fund its operation?

Back in the day, nobody in the gay community would write a check because a check is a paper trail that can lead to your being outed.

["Popcorn" by Hot Butter playing] [Patrons cheering] Ashkinazy: The firehouse was this great big, open space, perfect for a discotheque, and so Saturday nights at the firehouse was turned into a discotheque.

Roskoff: I think it cost $2.00 to get in on a Saturday night and phenomenal.

I mean, it was the best dancing in New York because it was ours.

Ashkinazy: There was a sense of joy and celebration there that did not exist other places.

Ashkinazy: In the very early days of the Gay Activists Alliance, we were trying to find examples of, you know, of discrimination, which was hard to do because, since people were so closeted, they wouldn't report it.

[Distant sirens blaring] Riley: In 1971, New York City made it legal for same-sex couples, male and female, to dance together in a public space, but it was not accepted by wider society.

[Car horns honking] Man: Well, that's the way it was.

They didn't want guys dancing with other guys.

They didn't want that back then.

Ashkinazy: The Rainbow Room was a dance venue that did not allow two men dancing.

It was not a discotheque.

It was a very fancy dance establishment with a-- with an orchestra.

Roskoff: It's on the top of Rockefeller Center, and I put together a group of us to go down there.

We were going to challenge the regulations and see what happens when the management sees us dancing.

Ashkinazy: One of them was my partner at the time, Lew Todd, and this was a challenge to see if they would be stopped.

Roskoff: I arranged for Earl Wilson, who was a very prominent journalist, to be there when we did our same-sex dancing.

I'm wearing a suit and tie.

The women wore dresses.

Ashkinazy: And they got up on the floor and just started dancing.

Roskoff: The middle of a song, we switch partners, and it was male-male, woman-woman, and we danced.

The other people on the floor were, like, stopping and staring at us.

Management came over.

[Hushed voices speak indistinctly] Roskoff: They came to stop us, but we had the press there.

They didn't know what the hell to do, but they did not throw us out.

Ashkinazy: Earl Wilson, who was a very important newspaper columnist, they got a lot of publicity.

Roskoff: The newspaper had a column saying, "Gays Win In A Waltz."

Dancing brought gay people together as a community.

We knew we were making history.

It was so exciting.

["What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye playing] Aletti: I always had the sense that New York was a dance culture.

Aside from the fact that I knew gay people were always looking for a place to dance, I knew that there were all these other cultures that were-- dancing was a key to their entertainment.

There were all these Latin clubs and, you know, it was also a Black thing.

Gaye: To bring some loving here today, yeah Man: Equal rights of everybody was basically just a statement.

It wasn't for real.

Gaye: Mother, Mother... [Siren blaring] George McCrae: Mother, Mother Gaye: There's too many of you crying McCrae: There are too many of us crying Brother, brother, brother Gaye: Brother, brother Brother McCrae: Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On."

Gaye: There's far too many Of you dying McCrae: I call it the truth.

They're sending a message and they're telling the truth.

Segregation by law was over, but that doesn't mean subjugation was over.

Gay: Father, Father... Walter Cronkite: In our first special report on America's cities, we observed that their crisis was no overnight thing.

Part symptom, part cause is a swirling movement of populations around the inner core of the cities, Whites moving out toward the suburbs.

The result is that the makeup of the inner cities has become increasingly poor, increasingly Black, increasingly explosive.

Roskoff: A Black family would move into a home, and all the White people on the block would leave.

There was white flight at that point, moving out to the suburbs, moving away from the city.

Gaye: Talk to me... DJ Hollywood: They didn't want us on an equal measure, and I understood that, but we didn't let that stop us from doing what we do.

["I'm Doin' Fine Now" by New York City playing] Hollywood: People gave private parties, and we were playing music with beats that made people just want to dance.

Riley: The party could be up on Tremont in the Bronx, the party could be out in Bed-Stuy, in Brooklyn, just not in Manhattan.

Hollywood: Party is jumping, crazy, people having a good time.

What was happening in the country, though, the money was slowing down.

TV news anchorman: Right now, everything you buy costs more.

Not just food, not just fuel, but most things.

Man: The manager of this spaghetti restaurant says he is down to his last meatball.

At a restaurant called The Whopperburger, you can't even get a miniburger.

Riley: A lot of the people that cooked were Black people in these restaurants.

And the beef crisis, it meant they didn't have anything left to cook, and the venues were paying decent rents at that time, so they needed to make some money.

Hollywood: Restaurants weren't popping.

They weren't getting that crowd, so they started to rent their venues out.

["Funky Stuff" by Kool & the Gang playing] [Whistle blows] Hollywood: At night, they'd move the chairs and tables out the way and let music come in and rock for the rest of the night.

That was really the first time that Black people were allowed to go into venues and give parties in the central core of Manhattan.

Hollywood: Here I am.

I'm in a restaurant below 57th Street.

Unheard of.

["Funky Stuff" continues, whistle blowing] Hollywood: People came to our parties, basically joined our network to party in.

It wasn't a disco sound, and at the same time, it was a disco sound, but it was all marinated into a groove, and that groove that we provided was right down their alley.

Kool & the Gang: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah Riley: Those places, they spawned an entire movement.

The Black club scene and the gay clubs, they kind of grew up in parallel with each other, but there was not all that much commingling.

Eventually, these different groups of people began to recognize each other and come together around music and around dancing, and there was a particular song that transcended every level of partying.

["Soul Makossa" by Manu Dibango playing] Dibango: Makossa Siano: I heard the first 8 drumbeats.

Dibango: Makossa Atteele Siano: Wow.

Dibango: Makossa Siano: I knew right away.

Hollywood: Oh, yeah, as soon as I heard it.

Uh, I'm feeling that... [Imitating bass beat] Dibango: Makossa Hollywood: I'm there.

It's got me.

Hey, it's glued me, soon as I'm hearing that.

Atteele, Makossa Matronic: You just hear that groove-- heh heh!--and just that little--that-- Dibango: Makossa Matronic: whisper.

Makossa Here we go.

It's coming.

Makossa Matronic: You just know that it's lightning in a bottle.

Dibango: Mama ko mama sa mama makossa Mama ko mama sa ma ko makossa Mama ko mama sa ma ko makossa Mama ko mama sa mama makossa Wansel: "Soul Makossa"?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I love this track.

The record "Soul Makossa" is a great game-changer because I think it's a transitional record.

It's a cross-cultural piece of music.

Atteele Dibango and McCrae: Mama ko mama sa ma makossa Mama ko mama sa ma ko makossa Hey, ma makossa Mama ko mama sa mama makossa Siano: Then it had, like, a breakdown, like... Dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun Depino: It was so unusual, so different.

He went, "Oh, let me go through this door.

Ooh, listen to that."

Oh.

Ha ha!

It made your shoulders shake.

Riley: "Soul Makossa" broke a lot of molds all at the same time.

It was a song that appealed to multiple levels of parties, whether it was The Loft or The Gallery or, you know, the [indistinct] Social Club or any of these other places.

It was one of those songs that literally took you by the seat of your pants, and even if you couldn't dance, you got up and danced to it.

Aletti: It really came from underground, which made it more exciting.

It was on a little African label that someone found.

Background singers: Hey Mama makossa [Dibango sings indistinctly] Aletti: I was a writer.

I ended up using "Soul Makossa" as the key to a piece that I wrote for "Rolling Stone" about what was my sense then of a new kind of movement going on very much underground.

We were hearing the same kind of music and were responding to certain things in the music.

At that point, there was nothing called disco.

It didn't need to be narrowly defined, and people who went out dancing to it didn't need to call it anything.

"Rolling Stone," September 13, 1973.

It's called "Discotheque rock," and I start out, "Paar-ty!

Paar-ty!"

It's "a call to get down and party."

"The underground where the hardcore dance crowd, blacks, latins and gays was."

There was the sense that all these places were... happening and they were all called discotheques.

And that was exciting to hear, to feel like I was sharing this experience with a lot of other people who were probably going out dancing, too.

Joe Simon: Step by step Background singers: I've got to get close to you... Woman: There are all types of people there--people who dance, people who pop up and down, get high.

Everybody that be here makes it the party that it is.

Simon: I've got to get to know you, oh, yes You came into my life... Moulton: Vince Aletti was the first one to ever write about discos.

It was us against the world, meaning the world was going their way, and we seemed to be in unity with the music.

Simon: But as sudden as you came Oh, you vanished into the night, yeah Aletti: You need to have a name for something to become big.

I don't know who shortened "discotheque" to "disco," but it was inevitable, it seems to me.

Simon: Step by step I've got to get close to you Background singers: Oh, oh Simon: Step by step Girl, I've got to get to know you My friends all tell me Tell me you're a woman of... [Drums beating] Man: I didn't have anybody to teach me to play drums.

I went and got 4 phone books, and I had two Maxwell House coffee cans.

That was my cymbals because I came up very poor.

All them kids, y'all missed it.

Y'all missed the phone-book days.

Ha ha!

Young: Philadelphia is a music city, so Philadelphia has always done well in music, even--even in hard times.

Film narrator: A high percentage are unemployed, and most others experience the frustration of underemployment.

Wansel: Gamble and Huff set up Philadelphia International Records to help musicians and recording artists develop.

Its combination of orchestra and rhythm was inventive at that time.

Young: We were musicians that would play for anybody that came through the door with a check.

I always got to have... a fat back wallet, because the wallet is what makes the hits.

And sometimes the vibration from the bass drum will make the snare drum rattle, so I used to put a wallet-- tape a wallet on there so I would get a dead sound.

[Claps once] When playing disco, some people play it like this... [Drums twice] but you don't get the real fat sound.

You need the back of the stick.

[Stronger drumbeats] That's how disco is played.

Wansel: Rhythm track would be done first.

Baker, Harris, and Young-- drums, bass, and guitar.

It was pretty amazing, that rhythm section.

Earl Young had an internal clock.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

You know, his timing was literally perfect.

First thing I do is I check my hi-hat because this is the baby here.

This has all the timing.

So then the Blue Notes came in.

We had a ballad called "The Love I Lost."

It started out with... The love I lost Was a sweet love," which was nice.

I like ballads, but I'm a dancer, so I said, "Look, why don't you try this upbeat groove?"

To be able to ideally dance to it, you got to have, first of all, my groove, the 4 on the floor-- 4 beats on the bass drum.

[Drumming] That's how it starts.

Wansel: The bass drum is just hitting 4 on the floor.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

It's a heartbeat, and your body wants to move to the heartbeat.

Young: Next, you got to go to the hi-hat here.

Earl Young hits that hi-hat, it's open, but he slams his foot down, and it closes every beat he does.

Young: Now, that's the groove.

That's part of the groove.

Yeah.

This is--that's disco right there, baby.

Wansel: You hear it on just about every disco hit.

You hear that-- [imitates hi-hat]-- but you didn't hear it before "The Love I Lost" or the sound of Philadelphia.

You could arguably say that the first disco track was "The Love I Lost."

Blue Notes: The love I lost Was a sweet love Ah, it's a sweet one.

"The Love I Lost" is a sweet one.

You just hear the first few notes, and it just gets you all excited.

Blue Notes: The love I lost All of a sudden, your hand's got a mind of its own and it's moving, and then you-- kind of drawn into it.

And that's why I always say your body seems to catch on to something before you do.

Franklin Peaker: ...planning, building my... Siano: "The Love I Lost"-- a dance-floor hit, unbelievable.

Peaker: I can remember hoping That you and I could make it all through Woman: People who could not dance actually learned how to dance by going to clubs because the rhythm was so strict that you, no matter where you were on the beat, you were on the beat.

Peaker: I'm in misery, can't you see?

For the love, the love the love... Earl Young, he was the man.

He took it to another level his own way.

Blue Notes: The love I lost Siano: That becomes the drumbeat for everything.

That becomes the drumbeat of disco.

That's why they call me "The Disco Daddy."

[Chuckles] ["Hollywood Swinging" by Kool & the Gang playing] [Car horns honking] Aletti: In the mid-seventies, New York was still the leader, in a sense, of disco.

There were clubs opening all the time.

Not all of them lasted.

Most of us never had a lot of money, but there was this sense of release in the clubs and escape from whatever was bothering you.

Real life--that was what we wanted to forget on the dance floor.

Kool & the Gang: What you got to say?

Hollywood: This is just that time when music was a good time.

Kool & the Gang: Hey, hey, hey Hollywood: People having a good time was the most important thing that a DJ could do.

Kool & the Gang: ...Hollywood Hollywood swinging Hollywood... Man: DJs will say again and again that they want to take you on a journey.

They want to structure the night so that you're elevated to that--that-- that place over the rainbow.

Ricky West: Not too long ago I went to a... Siano: In the late sixties, DJs would play one record after another, simply let the first record end and then play another.

The dance floor would just stop in front of your eyes.

[Record scratch, music stops] ["Love Is the Message" by MFSB Orchestra playing] Siano: Then Francis Grasso comes along.

He's the DJ at The Sanctuary, which was an enormous club at the time, and he starts blending-- which is putting on a record while this record is playing-- and then he would fade it in, fade the other one out.

[Segue to "Boogie Down" by Eddie Kendricks] Kendricks: Boogie Siano: One of the most exciting experiences for the dancers back then is when--because no one was doing it--is when the record changed and they could dance right through the-- they would make them scream!

It excited and ignited the dance floor, and it ignited the DJs.

Kendricks: ...on a natural high And I know I can satisfy Siano: I want you to have the best time you ever had in your life, and I'm going to do my best to make that come true.

Kendricks: Make you feel all right Boo-ooo... Siano: Playing records for an audience, back then, they didn't have extended breaks, they didn't have long beginnings, so we did that ourselves.

We were creating new productions from the records that we had.

We were creating the extended mix that became so popular.

["Love Is the Message" playing] Siano: "Love Is the Message" comes along, the MFSB Orchestra, the track that I became identified with.

MFSB: Love is Love is the message that I sing to you Siano: "Love Is the Message" featured the really unique drum pattern that Earl Young had created.

So I started to think about what I could do to make the track a featured record, something that people would go crazy for.

The groove, the good part, was two minutes and 40 seconds, so I looped it.

You would hear the horns and the beginning, and then you would hear this breakdown, where I would turn up the bass and the pice de rsistance-- a sound effect that I found, which was a jet plane.

[Jet engine roaring over music] ["Love Is the Message" playing] And then I started over again and do the same thing, over and over and over again.

They loved it.

MFSB: Love is, love is the... Woman: Nicky was amazing.

I mean, he was very avant-garde for the time.

He made it so dramatic that you just had to stop, pay attention.

MFSB: ...for a song Love is... White: The crowd was in the palm of his hand.

MFSB: Love is Aletti: "The best discotheque DJs are underground stars "discovering previously ignored album cuts and obscure singles with the power to make the crowd scream."

I had been reviewing records for "Rolling Stone" for a while.

There were a lot of records that were remaining fairly underground, that were not on the radio, that had not been chart records, but they were extremely popular in New York because people went to dance and heard them.

And there was this kind of...sense for me that that was not gonna be underground for long.

[Radio DJ speaking indistinctly] Wansel: During the 1970s, most people were hearing new songs primarily from radio.

Eric Burdon: Spill the wine, take that pearl Spill the wine... Radio was very, very powerful.

W-disco-I-A with War and Epps on a Wednesday.

Just heard from Eric Gale with the old Hall & Oates... TV narrator: The key to million-dollar profits is getting the record on the radio.

Larry Lujack, one of the country's top disc jockeys.

Lujack: I'm convinced that you can make... any half-decent record a hit if you play it enough.

Boring.

Boring.

The underground world didn't want to be playing what the radio was playing.

Siano: I only play songs that I believe are good.

So, if there's a B-side that actually is better than the A-side, then I will play only the B-side.

It's part of my job to find good songs that people could dance to.

24 hours a day, always going out, always getting new records, and absolutely had to be on top of it.

["It Really Hurts Me, Girl" by The Carstairs playing] Cleveland Horne: Reminiscing just... Siano: I got hired to play on Fire Island... Horne: How I felt sure in the love we shared Siano: an island off of Long Island that is filled with beach resorts.

Two of them are gay: the Pines and Cherry Grove.

You could be openly gay because the island is so isolated from policing.

Horne: Yeah Matronic: It was a really beautiful retreat for queer people to get together and dance and be who they are.

Horne: The way... Matronic: Fire island plays a very crucial role in the telling of the story of disco.

Horne: But you found somebody else... Moulton: Gay clubs want new, exciting music.

Horne: Love and happiness... Siano: David Rodriguez and I were invited by a new promotion man to his office, and we saw an album cover on the floor, and it had 3 women of color with big Afro wigs.

So David Rodriguez said, "What's that?"

He said, "It's "a dead album.

Here, take a box."

[Strings playing] The song was "Love's Theme."

["Love's Theme" by Love Unlimited Orchestra playing] White: It was so well-produced, and Barry White really knew how to work strings, OK?

And I love orchestration.

It makes my heart sing.

Siano: "Love's Theme" had such a Fire-Island gay sound that they embraced it and made it their own.

Roskoff: "Love Theme" was one of the songs I remember when I would be dancing at Fire Island, which was a very intense time to dance because everybody on the dance floor was, like, really doing something wild.

That used to be played a lot.

Siano: It became huge from our play, getting on the charts, climbing the charts, and it did it without radio play and usual record-company promotion.

Depino: The music was always better in the gay clubs.

I mean, the straight world knew the gay world was always first on something; they just didn't give you credit.

Man: The gay community in the US was the first, basically, to latch on to the disco phenomenon, and it has come up through those roots and, um, it's gotten to the point now whereas the major record labels cannot ignore what's happening.

["Rock the Boat" by The Hues Corporation playing] Aletti: When "Love's Theme" broke big, it was important not just because it was a great record and it was suddenly on the radio, but it sort of brought along two other club records that also hit sort of simultaneously, records that had been played in the clubs for months...

The Hues Corporation: Rock the boat Fleming Williams: Don't rock the boat, baby Aletti: "Rock the Boat" and "Rock Your Baby."

Moulton: Those broke in the discos, and... that's when people started paying attention.

[Beat of "Rock Your Baby" playing] McCrae: You got to have that feel first, the bottom.

Right back to Earl Young, yeah.

You got to have that bottom.

Woman Take me in your arms Rock your baby Boom, boo-boom, boom, boo-boom, boom boo-boom That's the Miami sound.

There's a Latin influence at the nucleus of it, and everything-- it's like the sugar on-- sugar on top with the vocals and everything else to round it out.

Open up your heart And let the loving sta-art Woman Take me in your arms Rock your baby Shears: I just think, with men singing in falsetto over a dance beat, it's--it's-- there's something about it that really has a sort of magic.

McCrae: Yeah, oh... Voice-over: The track was already E-flat.

I just sang it different, low-key and high-key... [High voice] because sometime I can speak like my mother... [Low voice] and then, other times, I could speak like my father.

[Chuckles] [Normal voice] I have a long range.

Oh, woman Moulton: I know it's going to sound very strange, but it almost sounds like the kind of song you would hear in heaven.

[Chuckling] I know, it sounds very strange.

No, and I don't take drugs.

McCrae: Then they get my "Rock Your Baby," the club DJs, they was underground, they picked it up and started playing it.

DJs come, they say, "George, as soon as we put 'Rock Your Baby' on, that whole floor, boom!"

I didn't believe it until I saw with my own eyes.

I didn't realize the song was that hot.

All of a sudden, I get a phone call from James Brown.

"James Brown called?"

"I want you to be my opening act."

So the whole summer, I toured with James Brown.

At the end of the tour, here I am, performing in Madison Square Garden, opening for James Brown in Madison Square Garden.

And all of a sudden, it crossed over into Europe.

They tell me, "You have to go to England."

"Oh."

"And also, we have a tour in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy."

"Rock Your Baby" sold, I think, 11 million copies, and that's a good tally.

Siano: We were making record companies a lot of money.

We were outselling rock, jazz, every category.

They could no longer deny how influential club DJs were.

Walters: When the Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat" was followed by George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby" on the pop charts, that was the commercial beginning of disco.

That signaled a new era.

[Cash register dings] McCrae: "Rock Your Baby" was the start of the disco sound, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

This is the time it crossed from the underground to the mainstream.

It integrated everybody-- red, yellow, black, or white.

It didn't matter.

It made everybody happy.

This is the time that disco came of age.

Woman Take me in your arms Rock your baby Gaynor: There's a very Strange vibration Piercing me right to the core It says "Turn around" "You fool" "You know you love him" "More and more" Tell me why Background singers: Tell me why Gaynor: Is it so?

Don't want to let you go Hey, I never can say goodbye, boy