Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution

Chic: Aww...freak out Le freak, c'est chic... Woman: That sound of disco was everywhere.

It was huge.

Chic: Aww... Man: We made people realize that they could be themselves.

Chic: Freak out... Man: It started in the underground, and then it became mainstream.

Chic: Have you heard about the new dance craze?

Man: Last night, 29 of the 43 Grammy Awards went to disco artists and songs.

Just a further indication of how disco fever has swept the country.

Chic: ...surely can be done Man: We have created a culture that's unstoppable.

Man: Exercise classes work out to the beat.

The fashion industry has created clothes to match the music.

National magazines do cover stories about it, and business has never been better for dancing instructors.

Man: Once it started happening, a lot of people wanted to capitalize on that.

Woman: So it got bloated.

It also got rich.

Man: You had songs out there that was powerful.

Then you come with corny songs.

You killed the whole vibe of what disco was.

In every successful thing, it has the seeds of its own destruction.

That was personal.

Man: Disco started with soul, but totally lost it.

[Laughter] Chic: Now freak Man: This was, "We want the money, so let's do this bull[deleted]."

Not gonna work.

Chic: Aww...freak out [Big Ben chiming] Man: The Beatles 15 years ago had 5 tracks on the chart.

They also had the number-one that week.

"I Want to Hold your hand."

Our number-one this week is, of course, Village People.

Village People: Young man... [Man speaking French] Young man There's no need to feel down I said, "Young man..." Man: You brought the Australian audiences very much great pleasure.

I just like to walk back and I'd like you to take a bow for us.

[Cheering] There's no need to be unhappy Young man, there's a place you can go I said, "Young man, when you're short on your dough" You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find Many ways to... Man: What would you like to sing if you would decide yourself?

YMCA.

It's fun to stay at the YMCA It's fun to stay at the... Man: Those people were a studio band.

That means that they were a group of musicians picked to record a song that a producer wanted to make.

Village People: YMCA It's fun to stay at the YMCA... The answer with a record company is "If there's money in it, I'm interested."

People wanted it, they made it.

Village People: ...you feel I want to present to you the record producer who is responsible for creating the Village People.

Here, from France, is record producer Jacques Morali.

[Applause] Man: I met Jacques Morali in New York in the seventies.

He came to me and he said, "I had a dream about you.

"I wanted to build this new group "that I have an idea about around you.

I'll come get you and I'll make you a star."

And Jacques had put an ad into the trades asking for young men with moustaches to come to see if they wanted to be a part of this group.

Person: Village People was from Greenwich Village.

It's always been a place in New York for alternative lifestyle, but this was a disco group put together for the mainstream.

They took all of the stereotypes within gay culture-- the cowboy, the construction worker, the leather man-- and presented it to the mainstream in a very tongue-in-cheek way.

Willis: The first album was basically about gay life.

When I wrote the second album, I had to broaden the spectrum of it because I wasn't gay.

When I would write lyrics, it could be taken by any type of lifestyle, more than just one.

I wanted to write it to where it could be comfortable for gay people or it could be comfortable for straight.

["In the Navy" playing] Woman: They were a great group of guys, and they were a lot of fun.

They brought energy to a room or to an audience, and they knew how to perform.

Where can you find pleasure, search the world for treasure?

Learn science technology?

Woman: Their songs are very repeatable and sing-along.

In the Navy or "YMCA" was universally loved and universally flew under the radar and still does, weirdly.

But everybody who got it kind of couldn't believe how popular it became.

...and others meet In the Navy Yes, you can sail the seven seas In the Navy Yes, you can put your mind at ease In the Navy Come on, now, people make a stand In the Navy Can't you see we-- What are the audiences like?

Is it as much fun as what we're seeing here?

Willis: Oh, yeah, yeah.

They just love the music and the group everywhere we go.

Places where they don't even speak English, people just react to the music and to the energy.

And we have the same reaction.

In the Navy, oh!

[Clapping rhythmically] Siano: The US Navy wanted to use "In the Navy" as a recruitment tool.

Willis: The agreement was they would allow us to use one of their ships to shoot the video if we allowed them to use the song.

They gave us the story of the "Reasoner," and at the end of it, they gave us jets that flew over.

[Jets whooshing] Siano: And it just proved to me that the US Navy didn't get that the group was filled with gay stereotypes and that it was kind of a off-color joke to a lot of people.

Village People: In the Navy Yes, you can sail the seven seas... White: So, mainstream audiences didn't realize that the guys behind the scene probably couldn't have gotten into the Navy just because they were out and they were gay.

Village People: Can't you see we need a hand?

In the Navy Matronic: Not a lot of people understood, and I say "Hooray" to that.

Ha ha ha!

It was quite a Trojan horse.

Village People: ...make a stand In the Navy, in the Navy Merv Griffin: Gold represents $1 million worth of sales in albums, and platinum means that two of your albums have sold a million albums.

Think what a great corporate entity-- [Laughter] you particular freaks are, you know what I mean?

Now you're establishment and you're worth millions and zillions of dollars.

[Applause] The Village People!

[Drum beating rhythmically] Person: The Village People and "YMCA" and "Macho Man" and all of those sorts of things, you know, that was great, but that was literally for people in Kansas.

Queer people of color, you know, we weren't listening to those kinds of records in the clubs.

This was a time when New York was the clubbing capital of the world.

[Disco music playing] Man: The club culture was just wide open.

There were no holds barred, and a lot of people lived for nights at Studio 54 or Paradise Garage.

Dijon: The Paradise Garage for a lot of people was church.

Man: Paradise Garage was an old garage that was converted into this dance space and it had the ramp that you'd walk up to.

[Music thumping and echoing] Woman: You could hear the bass through the wall.

Whomp, whomp.

It was like, wow.

It was extremely loud, and the quality of the sound was really, really good.

[Bass beat thumping] Woman: My friends and I, we used to come with different outfits.

We made those outfits for the night.

They had nothing to do with fashion.

We came up with a theme, and we dressed like fantasy.

Berstein: A lot of people who came there, that was their life.

They would become a persona that made them feel free.

There were no clocks, there were no windows, there were no mirrors, there was no alcohol.

Hmm...what could they have done to stay awake?

Could it have been drugs?

Ooh!

Bernstein: There was a smell of poppers in the air.

There was the smell of marijuana.

And they say that the punch was spiked with acid.

Man: Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, Boy George, Michael Jackson, they will all come and hang out at the Paradise Garage.

Saunders: Gay, straight, any color.

It was mostly gay.

Man: Back in the day, the best crowd was the gay crowd.

Never any violence, never any arguments, never any drama.

It was quite a place.

[Upbeat music playing] Then I started to hear about Larry Levan, who was the DJ of Paradise Garage.

Larry was always up front and grand entrance.

And "I'm here.

I'm queer.

Get used to it."

Larry and I were friends.

And one afternoon Larry said to me, "Nicky, would you teach me how to play records?"

From that moment on, I would work with him on mixing techniques, on how to beat match, how to pick the next record.

Immediately, I saw in Larry that eye for making stuff become fabulous.

Bernstein: No other clubs had a DJ like Larry who played the kind of music Larry played, who made the decisions that he made, who was as much in charge of the night as Larry.

Man: He would be messing with the sound system as people were coming into the club.

That's how obsessed he was with making sure that the sound wrenched your guts out.

Man: Let's get on up... White: He could do anything.

Man: Get on down Larry could stop a room cold, and people would just stomp "Larry, Larry," just waiting for the next thing that he was going to do, and he might just not do anything.

Depino: He'd stop the music, get out a ladder and clean the mirror ball at 2:00 in the morning with 1,000 people sitting on the floor.

And then he'd take the ladder down, shut the lights, put a record on, and the place would go crazy!

[Singing indistinctly] Larry definitely controlled the crowd.

He had magic.

He would remix.

He would play new things all the time.

He would tell you stories.

He got the idea of saying, Look, I want to play stuff that I feel strongly about.

Man: Yeah, let's do it Woman: You got the trend of music that you didn't hear no place else.

It was incredible.

Morales: Larry was way ahead of his time.

The first DJ remixer, the first DJ producer, the first DJ artist.

Siano: He is the modern template of what a DJ is now.

Larry would often go into the recording studio, see through all the excess tracks, and pull out the gold that would make a hit.

Brown: Oh, baby [Synthesized notes] "Ain't No Mountain High" is what we call a Garage classic.

So, if you've ever heard the record, it starts off with just Da da da-da, da da da-da and then Jocelyn Brown saying... Brown: Ooh, I ain't going nowhere What a great voice.

Brown: I'll be right here As long as you want me, baby Riley: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" had been such a huge song back in the day, in the sixties.

But Larry took risks.

He didn't care.

He thought this was something that he could turn into a signature piece for her.

Brown: 'Cause, baby, there ain't no mountain high enough Ain't no valley low enough... Brown: Larry Levan allowed me to sing it the way I sang it.

And it allowed another generation of time to come back around, but in a different manner.

It might not been number one, but it was number one in a lot of people's heart.

And that's what was major to me, you know.

'Cause, baby, there ain't no mountain high enough... Performing this song at the Garage was one of the most major situations I've ever been involved in in my life.

Everybody was singing.

It was fantastic.

And I'm trying to stay a good girl and not cry because sometimes the way it musters inside your soul about things that were touching on that level goes more spiritual than anything else.

It tore me up, and it still tears me up.

[Synthesized notes] Man: Fast Frankie Crocker, of radio station WMCA in New York, reaches one of the biggest and youngest audiences in the country.

Every promoter wants his song on Fast Frankie's show.

Man: Frankie Crocker from WBLS, number-one radio in New York City, would come to the Garage and steal things from Larry or force him to give it to him.

And then the next day you'd hear records on WBLS that were not gonna come out for 6 months and that suddenly everybody was crying to get a copy of and could not buy it because it's not out.

All these record companies were like, "Get Larry this record, get Larry this record.

It'll be on the radio next week."

The DJ had power in those days.

Like, Larry's fame made the Garage bigger.

Then the Garage itself got so big, it made Larry's fame even bigger.

And when I would go overseas to work or visit other countries, they'd be, "The Garage!

The Garage!

The Garage!"

That's when I realized to myself, I said, "Wow!

"The Garage has infiltrated Europe and other countries.

"This is incredible.

I mean, it's just really a simple little weekend club."

But it became more than that.

[Disco music playing] Bernstein: At that time in the seventies, and there was this really beautiful energy and vibe, corporations did come in.

Record companies came in.

Clothing companies came in and capitalized on that.

"We are part of this movement.

"We are part of this dance culture.

We are here to make your life beautiful."

You know, figured out ways to market it.

Man: Fine.

That's disco.

That's really what it's all about.

Woman: It's also all about money.

It's got a lot to do with it.

Woman: Big money.

Man: A lot of money.

Parikhal: Record company business is very much like the film business back then.

The big hit paid for the losers.

And so record companies really went for the big hit.

And the more you sold, the more money you made.

["Ring My Bell" playing] I'm glad you're home Now, did you really miss... how innocent.

My goodness.

Ha!

...you did by the look in your eye Chorus: Look in your eye [Ward on recording] Well, lay back Was that "Top of the Pops"?

That just came to me.

I was trying to-- "Top of the Pops."

That was a big show.

Ha!

...can rock a bell You can ring my bel-l-l, ring my bell Ward: When I was younger, I never thought about having a hit record.

That never came to my mind at all.

I graduated from college in '78 with a degree in psychology because I wanted to be a counselor.

After teaching for about 4 months, "Ring My Bell" came out.

It was a hit overnight.

You can ring my bell-l-l, ring my bell Chorus: Ring my bell, ding dong ding Ward: I actually would have preferred to have done more ballads and probably more R&B, but everybody was doing disco.

They didn't think they were going to make it in life if they didn't do something disco.

They really did not push that song.

It was one of those songs they didn't have to.

The song was such a huge success.

Chorus: Ring a-ring a-ring You can ring my bell You can ring my bell Chorus: Ding dong ding, ahh ahh, ring it You can ring my bell, anytime, anywhere, ring it Ward: I was called a one-hit wonder, which, in the beginning when I was trying, I'm saying, "Well, that's not very nice."

Chorus: Ding dong ding, ahh ahh Ward: You're a commodity.

That's what you are.

You're just the latest new car that came out.

But the song was in 14 movies.

If that's the kind of one-hit wonder, I don't think that's too bad.

Ha!

OK!

Chorus: ...ahh, ring it You can ring my bell anytime, anywhere Riley: They weren't seen as artists, per se.

They were seen by the record company owners as vehicles for the producers, which was a very, very different thing.

... ring my bell, anytime, anywhere Siano: Most of the one-hit wonders were on independent labels.

Independent labels were always looking for the next hit.

They weren't looking to develop an artist.

Did you get a chance to listen to that Tuxedo Junction "Chattanooga Choo Choo" single?

Man: Chances are, you haven't heard about Butterfly Records.

Well, it was put together last summer, mostly with borrowed money.

Since then, they've put out 5 albums, 4 of them disco.

Parikhal: All they wanted to know was "What songs do people want?"

And we did a lot of music testing as to which songs people liked, and there was kind of a universal like for the same songs.

So they looked for more artists who sounded like that, and that's always the road to mediocrity.

It's like making multiple copies of something.

Eventually, they start to fade.

Man: The popularity of disco can be seen right here in "Billboard," which is the Bible of the music industry.

In its chart of the 100 top hits across the country today, at least 50 of them are disco recordings.

That's what the record labels do.

They didn't understand what was going on half the time.

They oversaturated the market that couldn't absorb it.

Depino: Everything became disco, disco, disco.

Woman: So much money to be made from the business of disco.

[Register dings] Man: Now the sales are gonna substantially increase.

Man: They had commercialized it so massively that every record was sounding exactly the same, and I no longer had interest in words that said "Shake your booty" or "Get up and disco dance."

I didn't want to hear about it.

I thought, "This is turning into a [deleted] show."

Went to a party the other night All the ladies were treatin' me right... Man: There was novelty songs, and I think that's what people were starting to get upset about.

You took away, like, the feeling of what disco was.

Chorus: Disco, Disco Duck Duck: Got to have me a woman.

Chorus: Disco, Disco Duck Duck: Oh, get down... Matronic: You had garbage, cash-grab music coming out of garbage, cash-grab record labels.

Chorus: Disco Duck Duck: Oh, wow!

Chorus: Disco... I really hated it, right.

Ha ha!

Man: It was just so corny to me.

You know, like, Disco, Disco Duck There were some goofy disco songs.

Dees: When the music stopped, I returned to my seat But there's no stoppin' a duck and his... Man: I just could not get good music out.

You put out a record and you're just a regular ballad singer or a regular folk singer or country singer, you couldn't get your music out.

People wouldn't listen to your music.

They were too busy discoing, you know?

So, it had a real impact on the music industry.

It was too much.

I think people were sick of it.

I think if you're gonna oversaturate the culture with a sound to that degree, people are gonna turn on it.

Bernstein: The fact that rock-n-roll was overtaken for a while by disco, to a lot of people in the country had a really negative effect.

Riley: People saw disco as a threat to a hegemony that White, straight people had had for the better part of a decade, decade and a half.

Bernstein: And so I think there was a racial backlash because so many of the disco stars like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor were Black, and they were huge, huge stars.

And I don't think that White rock-n-roll America was really ready for that in the seventies.

Siano: Eventually, there became a lot of negative backlash, like, "You sold me a record with a disco banner that was absolute crap."

And then you had Studio 54 turning away about 1,000 people a night.

Man: It's 3:00 in the morning in Manhattan, and still at Studio 54, people crowd the doors hoping to get in.

But first, they have to do something even harder than finding a place to park here, and that's to win the approval of the owner, 28-year-old Steve Rubell.

Oh, you're not shaved.

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

It doesn't matter.

If you're not shaved.

Listen, just go home.

Parikhal: So, every night almost the news cameras were there showing people being turned away, showing people being turned into losers, showing people being turned into unworthy.

Now, this is a country that had just, 10 years earlier, gone through a period of massive inclusion, where racial walls were torn down for the first time in a century.

Everyone wanted to "Kumbaya," love their brother and sister, and sing in a circle.

And then all of a sudden, the news cameras all over the country show people being excluded.

I was really not a fan of disco.

I was definitely in the-- more in the rock category.

The Studio 54 image, it was terrible among rock listeners because you couldn't get in unless you looked the right way or acted the right way or just had that... that we'll-let-you-in look.

Bernstein: America, in general, saw New York City as being this very decadent, wild, drug-taking, everybody sleeping with everybody else kind of place.

Matronic: There was already in America a move to turn the stations that were disco back to a rock format.

[Disco music playing] Well, now, where are you folks going with all that disco?

Uh, here!

Or-ee-gon.

Officer: Here in Oregon, we like rock-n-roll.

nice and pure, KGON style.

[Disco music playing] Officer: You don't want to be bringing that unnatural music up here now, do you?

[Rock-n-roll music playing] Matronic: So you had a lot of stations doing things like disco demolitions.

[Inhaling helium] [In high-pitched voice] How deep is your love?

How deep is your love?

I really need to know [Laughter] Give me a kiss.

Abrams: There was a radio station in Chicago in 1979, and the morning disc jockey, a guy named Steve Dahl, came up with the idea of, "Well, let's blow up disco records on the air."

So he'd play a few bars of a Bee Gees song, then boom--blow it up.

And listeners loved it because it was like somebody standing up for rock-n-roll in the face of this disco menace.

And that's when stations in other markets started copying the disco demolition idea.

[Disco music playing] Man: Kaboom!

Kaboom!

I think we better do it, eh?

Man, shouting: This record... [Continues indistinctly] [Loud explosion] Siano: I think it came to a head at Comiskey Park.

Tom Snyder: Let's go to the videotape.

Let's pick it up right here.

Comiskey Park, July 12, 1979.

Man: It was billed as Teen Night at Comiskey Park for the Twi-night doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers.

The feature attraction was a disco demolition between games.

Local radio morning man Steve Dahl was the catalyst.

He is anti-disco.

Tickets were 99 cents, which is really, really cheap, so it was packed.

People brought their kids.

Everybody was there.

Why?

99 cent tickets.

Hard to beat.

Double header, 2 games.

It's the best bargain in the world.

Chicago's a very segregated city.

90% of Black people prefer the White Sox.

The Cubs are more Northside and have a lot more White fans.

Man: Between games, Dahl was to lead the crowd in song and chants and then finish by blowing up a box full of disco records, which the fans were to bring with them to the ballpark.

So, you had all these White people coming to a White Sox game to blow up disco records.

They were really pushing it, blowing up Black people's records on the south side.

Parikhal: People were just taking an album they didn't like and throwing it in.

They weren't throwing anything they wanted in there because they just wanted to see something blow up.

Abrams: Steve Dahl goes out in Comiskey Park in a Jeep, and he's in full military gear.

[Crowd cheering] Parikhal: Morning radio was theater.

Everyone knew that.

They knew it wasn't real, but they all wanted to play along.

The listeners did.

You know, there's a countdown on the scoreboard.

10, 9, 8, 7...boom!

[Explosions] [Crowd shouting] And the records blow up.

Man: But it didn't stop there.

Dahl departed the field, but some 7,000 to 10,000 fans poured onto the field, ripping up bases, setting bonfires in center field, and burning more disco records and ultimately delaying game 2 for over an hour and a half.

Parikhal: The crowd was too big and the crowd got too crazy, and they had to cancel the game, which, by the way, to this day in Chicago, is the great crime there was canceling the second game of the doubleheader.

"You know, the people might have got hurt or whatever."

"Aw, yeah, but they canceled the game."

[Sirens and shouting] Jefferson: I remember seeing it on television.

There was rioting involved and that kind of thing.

I didn't see any rioting on the South side, but it was a lot of outrage about it.

It was an amazing promotion, one of the greatest promotions probably in the history of radio.

[Camera shutter clicking] It's kind of like Woodstock.

Everybody was there.

Of course they weren't.

They say they were.

And it was either the greatest moment in rock-n-roll or just evil, like burning books.

It depends who you talk to.

But at the time, it was sort of the perfect storm.

Depino: The Christian right or the Bible-thumping people were like--rrrrr!

trying to press it down as it was coming up, and the record companies were pushing it and the crushing and the destruction of disco, I think was not aimed at the singers and everything.

I think it was aimed at the record companies, but of course the singers are the ones that get hurt.

Ward: No one was ringing my bell anymore to check to see could I come do a show.

That wasn't happening.

And so I did go back to teaching.

Dahl, on recording: I hate disco because I can't find a white 3-piece suit that fits me off the rack that hangs well, and I'm allergic to gold jewelry, and I don't like pia coladas.

I'm allergic to coconut.

So what does it hold for me?

Snyder: Probably nothing.

Nothing.

Woman: I was so mad at him.

What is wrong with you?

Come burn all our disco records.

Shame on you, Steve.

[Chuckling] Depino: What are you burning?

What the hell are you burning?

A song that you gave the label to as disco.

The singer didn't.

You put the name on it, now you want to crush it.

Abrams: Black, anti-gay was never a factor in the creation of the anti-disco movement.

It just never crossed our minds.

If anything, it was a musical thing.

Rock-n-roll was about guitars.

disco wasn't.

Rock-n-roll was about, you know, drummers.

Disco had electronics.

Rock-n-roll, long hair, T-shirts, grabbing a beer.

And disco was about champagne.

And so just so many cultural and musical factors that really drove the whole thing rather than racial or sexual matters.

Jefferson: They just bought a Black person's record to blow up.

They didn't know whether it was disco or not.

They're just saying, "Disco sucks!

Disco sucks!"

They didn't know what they were blowing up.

So that's the racial edge of it.

Parikhal: Disco stations all ran for their lives.

The musicians who were making that music were shifting to something else.

You didn't have another hit disco movie.

It was kind of end of an era.

Siano: Someone came up to me in '79 at the DJ booth and said, "Nicky, they're saying disco is dead.

What do you think?"

I said, "It's pretty much dead."

Tom Brokaw: Scientists at the National Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta today released the results of a study which shows that the lifestyle of some male homosexuals has triggered an epidemic of a rare form of cancer.

Robert Bazell now in Atlanta.

[Marching band playing] Depino: It was happening in San Francisco, in California, and then it started to hit New York.

Bernstein: They were talking about this gay cancer and how friends of theirs had it and how friends of theirs were dying.

Man: This suggested to Dr. Dritz and her colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control that their worst-case scenario was the answer: a new and lethal infectious agent.

A virus was loose in the gay community.

Siano: I was scared to death.

We didn't know how it was spread or... whether it was really going to be fatal for everybody.

It was a horrific time.

Man: There is a 1 in 5 chance a victim will die within the first year of the illness.

Siano: We quickly learned that having a diagnosis of AIDS meant you had 2 years to live.

In the past 6 months, the number of people who have come down with AIDS has nearly doubled.

The vast majority of those people will eventually die.

So as the numbers increase, so does something else.

And that is fear.

[Disco music playing] Man: Gays became stigmatized because of it.

People who would go out to clubs at night didn't necessarily want to go out to clubs because at that point in time, you didn't know how you contracted AIDS.

Man: It was scary because people who you've known for decades all of a sudden, were gone.

I--I lost two partners from AIDS.

So, um, so many people just disappeared.

It's like coming back from a war, seeing people like, "Oh, you made it out," and I'm serious.

You made it out of a war.

Williams: During that period, I lost friends.

I lost my business partner to that.

You know, my business partner, he was my partner from New York with me, and I was scared to even go over to his house or touch him, you know?

And he was like, "Why you acting funny?"

you know.

But that was because of my ignorance to the disease.

You know, I didn't exactly know what was going on and where it came from.

It was like overwhelming.

Man: 3 years ago, I was just one of the guys.

I was one of the people in the crowds.

And then this diagnosis came along, and all of a sudden I was stereotyped as a fast-lane liver, as, uh... this sick person that was going to bring contagion to the rest of the world.

Kevorkian: What was awful about it was the ostracism, the incomprehension, and the total lack of any empathy whatsoever from the general U.S. population.

"Yeah, you're gay, you deserve it" or whatever, you know, "Good riddance."

It was just bad in every way.

Depino: There was never a moment the Garage looked emptier, but you'd notice one person not in that group and you would say, "Where is he?"

And they would look at you sad, and you knew he's either very sick or he died.

And that would start to happen once a month, twice a month, three times a month, two different groups in a month.

It was happening more and more.

Siano: Most of my friends have died of AIDS.

David Rodriguez--one of the greatest people, funny, DJ--was the first person I knew close to me died of AIDS.

Walter Gibbons, fabulous DJ, died of AIDS.

Michael Brody, the owner of the Paradise Garage; Steve Rubell, the builder and owner of Studio 54.

The list goes on and on of talented, artistic people who were lost to AIDS.

It got so bad that I started a notebook, and I would write somebody's name on it and then put down my personal thoughts about that person so I wouldn't forget them.

It got really overwhelming.

Bernstein: That was a huge part of what changed the club culture during that time.

And that's about the time that Ronald Reagan came into power.

[Cheering] Reagan: I consider the trust that you have placed in me sacred.

And I give you my sacred oath that I will do my utmost to justify your faith.

[Cheering] It was like we needed somebody strong.

It was right after Carter, and he was the cowboy that fought the Indians.

He was strong in his image.

[Cheering continues] Parikhal: One of the worst days of my life was watching Ronald Reagan get elected.

I knew how bad it was gonna be.

Angry demonstrators managed to close down the Food and Drug Administration today.

They accused the agency under President Reagan of wasting time in the war against AIDS.

For some of the protesters, time is a precious commodity.

Crowd, chanting: Storm the NIH!

Storm the NIH!

Roskoff: The government was not very concerned about AIDS because it was affecting a population that they didn't want to talk about.

Protestors: Seize control of the FDA!

52 will die today!

Woman: Ronald Reagan was hoisted in effigy this morning as hundreds of AIDS activists descended on the Food and Drug Administration.

The demand: that the FDA speed up approval of drugs that show any promise against AIDS.

Crowd: Seize control of the FDA!

Depino: Ronald Reagan wouldn't close the blood banks, and blood was being transfused, and straights then started getting HIV and AIDS.

And it all fell on Reagan as being anti-gay and everything.

Man, shouting: What do we want?

Crowd: Money for AIDS!

Man: When do we want it?

Crowd: Now!

Roskoff: I remember where I was when Ronald Reagan first said the word AIDS.

That was a very historic moment.

We'll not stop, We'll not rest till we've sent AIDS the way of smallpox and polio.

Roskoff: I'm not sure how much the disco world came back after the AIDS crisis began to dissipate.

I don't think it did.

Man: Sex is the other major way to transmit AIDS.

Bathhouses and nightclubs that cater to casual sex are going out of business.

Casual sex has become a fearful thing.

Roskoff: The hardcore disco life in Manhattan changed.

Kind of felt a little frivolous going out to dance when, you know, so many people who used to be there with you are no longer there.

Morales: But unless you want to sit home and dwell on yourself and be miserable, people had to live.

You know, you just keep it moving.

[Train wheels clacking] Man, in British accent: As we all know, the music industry is always on the lookout for new million-sellers.

I went to America to look at the latest sound to make an impact on the charts, which has its origins in Chicago's Black gay scene.

You can't stop creativity.

Jefferson: Yeah, you got rid of the disco now.

Wait till you see what's coming next.

Ha ha!

[Banging rhythmically] [Trombones playing] Man: Chicago was an interesting place, because you had the migration of the South, you know, people that came up from Mississippi and that kind of thing or, you know, came from West, you know, Kansas, like my folks are from Kansas.

When a city is more industrialized, there's more opportunities, you know, to not be busting your hands out with cotton and breaking your back in the sun and this kind of thing, you know.

So, a combination of factory work, bartending, you know, whatever.

Also, let's be clear.

There was just a big budding scene, if you will, that was happening on the underground outside of the factory.

You know, you could be a musician.

What happened in Chicago is what African-Americans do.

We take the scraps off the table and we turn them into something high-cuisine, if you will, and that's exactly what House music is.

[Rhythmic thumping bass beat] Aw, that's a nice tight kick.

[Bass beat continues] Jefferson: A house record is the coolest underground dance music.

[Bass beat continues] Man: So I have the four on the floor right now.

Next, I select another instrument.

I'm gonna select the snare drum now.

[Snare drum playing] OK. A House record is anything that Ron Hardy, David Mancuso, Larry Levan, or Frankie Knuckles would have played at their clubs.

[Bass beat continues] Man: Next...

I'll bring in a closed Hi-Hat.

[Cymbals added] Woman: Frankie Knuckles is considered the godfather of House.

And so, if you know anything about early House music, it was basically disco breaks in R&B songs.

And Frankie Knuckles used to play a lot of things on reel-to-reel, and he had early drum machines.

And so, he was using these drum machines and these disco break loops, and he was creating this new genre of music without anyone really knowing it.

[Bass beat continues] Frankie worked at the Warehouse, and House music, the term "House music" came from the Warehouse.

[Bass beat continues] Trent: Then later, it became synonymous with a style or genre that was being created out of Chicago producers that were influenced by the music that Frankie was playing.

[Bass beat continues] Woman: House music was disco's revenge.

The very parts of disco that were lost, the parts of Black and Brown creativity, its queerness, its ways that Disco was part of a soundtrack of exploration before its whitewashing.

House music kind of picked that up and ran off with it.

[Bass beat continues] There you have your basic House beat.

Now you can bring in different stuff after that.

Bring in claps and other instruments.

Jefferson: That's House music-- underground, cool dance.

It was unique.

It was different.

It was fresh off the block.

[People talking indistinctly] Royster: Sort of in the same way that hip-hop grew out of the physical disinvestment in the Black and Brown communities in New York, House music also grew out of these neglected spaces and became spaces of community and creativity and also entrepreneurship.

[House music playing] Williams: I didn't go to Chicago to open the club, but we saw this little Art Deco building, which was 206 South Jefferson.

And I was like, "Oh, "that's a cute building.

It's for rent."

We ended up getting it.

Woman: The Warehouse was primarily a gay club with African-American members, though other folks came as well.

And it was a place where you could go and dance and feel safe.

Williams: I asked Larry Levan, "Will you come out and look at the club and possibly think about playing for me?"

And he replied with, "No, Robert.

"The way you talked about Chicago the last time you were there...

I was like.

"Oh, darn."

The only person I thought was Frankie.

That was Frankie's entree to Chicago was when Larry said no.

Principle: I didn't get drawn into the whole culture until I met Frankie.

I wanted to do something a little bit different.

I didn't want to be, like, the norm.

Principle: When I'm with you I believe that your love is true When we love, you turn me out You know what to do... How do I feel about being the first House vocalist?

I didn't know I was going to be the figurehead of that because I look at myself, I sing all right, but I've heard other singers and they do great.

Maybe I was the first person that people gravitated towards that they could actually see and feel connected with.

I begin to sweat When we touch, I lose control Now you know what's next Fantasizing all... Trent: The sound was ethereal.

It's got, like, somewhat of a rock drumline.

I mean, it's real basic, you know what I'm saying?

But the strings and the bassline and then his vocals was something else.

Principle: Well I need your love I need your love... It's a formula that Jamie put together that I don't think people really understand.

It's very simple, but very powerful.

Principle: Don't make me wait too long Oh, oh, I need... Principle: "Your Love" was actually a 3-minute song, but Frankie wanted it to have a certain feel in his club, so he said he was going to strip certain parts down, bring in certain things.

He wanted it to build, so it was mostly an arrangement thing, but all of the writing and playing is me.

Principle: Ahh... Jefferson: Frankie Knuckles would do a mix tape and give one copy to someone.

And from that copy, it would be like 10,000 other copies!

That was our version of going viral.

That's what the DJ is doing, is actually taking the music and presenting it to the people.

And that's how a lot of records got introduced to the public.

I didn't know how, like, popular the song was, but there was a traffic jam on a Saturday.

Me and my boy was in the car, and he was like, "That's your song playing."

And it was jumping from one car to another car to another car, and we were, like, stuck in traffic.

He was like, "You should tell them that's your song."

I was like, "Really?

You think they gonna believe that that's me?"

But I was hearing "Your Love" and all of the songs, like, being played at the same time.

That's when I kind of, like, figured how widespread it was becoming.

Man: Feelin' sick All night long Man: This freedom of expression certainly seems to be selling House records, but is it a passing fad?

No.

It's like, um... it's reminiscent of the old disco.

It's the kind of music that is just simple music that's exciting and gets people moving.

And that's why it's gonna be around for a while, and it will become classic music, classic disco music, because it has an energy of its own.

[Bass beat thumping] Jefferson: Probably April or May of 1986 is when it started really blowing up and leaving the city.

And that's because all these magazines flew to Chicago and started interviewing me.

They started interviewing everybody else that had something to do with House music.

All of us just got record deals and with major labels.

And that's when it really started blowing up.

Depino: House music started becoming the big thing.

But Larry hated the word "House" because we played House music that came out of Chicago, that came out of the Warehouse, and then suddenly all kind of dance music 'cause the word "House" was cute, was put under the umbrella of House.

Morales: So that means EDM.

That means Afro House.

That means Tech House.

Depino: There was Latin House.

There was Soul House.

New Disco.

[Indistinct] House.

My House.

There was your House.

There was Aunt Ethel's House.

You had this whole alternative expression where people were marrying punk and disco and new wave.

It was just a wildly, wildly creative time.

Parikhal: Disco didn't go away.

Just the name went away.

The beat, the rhythm, the sounds of disco carried on.

Trent: Everybody stands on somebody's shoulders.

Let's be very clear.

Hell, talk about hip-hop.

I used to be into disco rap.

That's how I got started.

Later eighties, early nineties, Here comes rave culture.

Trent: The scene is now being taken over by this new crop of people.

It turned into another whole thing.

Now the story is being rewritten a bit.

Morales: But if you take all the music today, every genre of electronic music owes everything to disco.

Depino: If it wasn't for Mancuso or if it wasn't for Siano, if it wasn't for Levan and Francois and those DJs that first went in the studio and mixed records and made hits, all these big DJs nowadays that really produce music and travel the world and make millions of dollars wouldn't happen.

Morales: Never in a million years would have thought that my world will have the impact of how it is now.

[Disco music playing] Siano: Today, disco has a real resurgence.

Man: Baby... Siano: People love to dance.

Man: Something I'm needing Man: You know, we're all going out and we're all dancing to a variation of what disco was.

This always evokes something in me somehow.

Man: I believe it ... Dijon: It's a lot of new artists that are coming through that are still carrying that torch, like Bruno Mars.

And Madonna continues to do it in different ways, as well.

Man: ...has real meaning Staton: Rihanna and Beyonce.

They all making these same type of music we were making back in the seventies.

Different lyrics, same beat.

Matronic: Beyonce is doing a great job at saying, "Remember the Loleatta Holloways?

"Remember the Anita Wards?

Remember the Sisters Sledges?"

It's their voices that you dance to.

Man: I'm nearly ready to follow Dijon: Dance floors do what religions and governments do not.

They bring people together from all walks of life.

Man: Ahh... Dijon: As a trans woman of color, this is where I found home.

This is where I found my community... and I was celebrated for who I was.

Man: I think I deserve to be choosy MNEK: Everything that we do now as queer people living freely, being able to live our truth, has come from the people at Stonewall, fighting for their right to just be.

Man: Wasting time, playing with no power Bernstein: Today, the mainstream culture has sort of caught up to what happened back in the seventies in New York.

The consciousness that like, "OK, we're all here together "and we're all having fun.

It's all OK." "That person's definitely different than me, "but that's OK.

They're cool," you know?

That's what's so nice about it.

Man: ...oughta know if you're the one Woman: Disco's legacy is there to teach, educate, inspire, elevate.

And I think a dance floor that's playing disco is always gonna be a generous, joyful and liberating space, a safe space, a fun space.

It must be protected at all costs.

Man: If you answer when I call I will give it all... Morales: The future of disco is more disco.

Man: Finally ready... Depino: Thank you to everyone for having me, for doing this, for making a record of times gone by, because it's so important that people know this.

This is history.

I thank you.

Man: If you answer when I call I will give it all Depino: Bye.

To you 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