dance

Dolly Parton | Baby, I’m Burnin’

“’Baby, I’m Burnin” is a killer disco track that still sounds great today,” (Country Universe). “Very much of the era, but not overwhelmed by it. A big reason that it works is that Parton’s jubilant persona is a good fit for dance music in its late 1970s form. When the genre moved toward synthesized sounds in the 1980s, her natural warmth would often sound out of place. But she sounds great here. She knows she’s singing a silly song for people to dance to, and she commits to it wholeheartedly.

And don’t let the cotton candy substance of the song fool you. A great disco song isn’t any easier to write than a great country song, and having a talent for the latter doesn’t necessarily translate to having one for the former. It’s a keeper, and one that’s proven timeless enough for her to still open her shows with it today.”

There’s a disco-infused country version of “Baby, I’m Burnin'” (1978) and a country-infused disco version; this video is from the latter category. At 3:41, after what sounds like both an electronic and acoustic percussion break, the tune moves up a half step.

The Commodores | Too Hot ta Trot

“It would have been hard for any group to release a more appropriately-titled single in late 1977 than the Commodores did with ‘Too Hot Ta Trot.'” (UDiscoverMusic). “After an appropriate period of dues-paying, the Alabama collective were now in the form of their lives. Two of the Motown group’s previous four singles, ‘Easy’ and ‘Just to Be Close To You,’ had topped the Billboard R&B charts. With Lionel Richie’s ballads as a counterpoint to their funk origins, they were masters of any tempo. The irresistible ballad ‘Easy’ had been followed by another Top 5 hit in both soul and pop formats with the slinky ‘Brick House,’ and now came another winning floor-filler.

In the group’s democratic way, the songwriting credit for “Too Hot Ta Trot” went to them all, listing Richie, Milan Williams, Ronald LaPread, Thomas McClary, Walter “Clyde” Orange and William King. It originated as the closing studio cut on their then-new Live! set, which was predicted by Billboard to be a “hot holiday item with both pop and soul crowds.” It entered Hot Soul Singles at a bold #51 on the December 24, 1977 chart, and rose swiftly to spend a week at the top of that countdown in February 1978. The Commodores had their fourth R&B #1, with another around the corner in ‘Three Times a Lady,’ and another again in 1979 with ‘Still.’ With disco fever at its height, ‘Too Hot Ta Trot’ was a natural for the soundtrack of the movie Thank God It’s Friday, which appeared the following spring.”

From 1:03 – 1:20, E major flips over into its C# relative minor for a brief section (not sure what to call it, as the song’s form is a little bit atypical!). The section is repeated later in the form.

Tavares | Don’t Take Away the Music

When asked to name the Soul Music supergroups of the ’70s and early ’80s, folks tend to gravitate to familiar names such as Earth, Wind and Fire, the Spinners, the Commodores and the Isley Brothers,” (Soul Tracks). “However, five brothers from New Bedford, Massachusetts – Ralph, Tiny, Chubby, Butch, and Pooch Tavares – created some of the most consistently high quality soul music of that period.”

Tavares’ hits (“It Only Takes a Minute,” “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel,” and “Don’t Take Away the Music”) are all likely more familiar to listeners than the name of the group that recorded them. But a cover of the Bee Gees’ “More Than A Woman” was included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, “giving the group its greatest exposure ever (as well as its only Grammy award) but bringing with it a label that Tavares would spend years trying to shake – that of ‘Disco Group.’ … In a decade that highlighted so many groups, from the last Detroit days of Motown to the arrival of hot sounds in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the Tavares brothers proved themselves to be incredibly versatile, effectively covering all of those sounds … Their wonderful harmonies and consistently strong selection of material made every one of their albums a keeper.”

The Cape Verdean-American group released “Don’t Take Away the Music” in 1976. The brothers’ vocal blend takes center stage throughout the tune. The track’s 6:12 run time was unusually long, even during a period of influence of disco sensibilities over pop music; the leisurely length of the track results in a mid-point half-step key change rather than an outro at 3:04.

The Miracles | Love Machine

The United States turned 200 years old in 1976, and as the bicentennial celebrations ramped up that spring and summer, the music scene was in the middle of a seismic shift,” (Parade). “February 1976 captured American pop music at a crossroads—disco was exploding onto the mainstream charts, soft rock still had a firm grip on radio and the remnants of early ’70s soul were making their last stand before the decade’s second half changed everything. Fifty years later, the songs that climbed the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1976 tell the story of that cultural moment. Some became enduring classics that still get airplay today. Others were brilliant flashes that defined the era before fading into oldies rotation.

Smokey Robinson had left The Miracles five years earlier, but the group proved they didn’t need their legendary founder to craft hits. ‘Love Machine’ became one of their biggest successes, reaching #5 and introducing a more funk-influenced sound than their Motown classics from the ’60s. The song’s mechanized, almost robotic concept of romance felt perfectly timed for the disco era. Lead singer Billy Griffin stepped confidently into Robinson’s formidable shoes, delivering a performance that helped the track become one of 1976’s most memorable dance hits.”

The tune’s form starts with a chorus in a slightly uptuned D minor, followed by a verse in the same key. 0:34 brings a pre-chorus which touches on D major, but leads back to the chorus in the original key (0:47). But it’s the wordless sing-along break (first heard from 1:00 – 1:14) that really leans into D major; the pattern continues from there. Yes, the sections really are that short — this tune moves fast!

Donna Summer | This Time I Know It’s For Real

“Donna Summer was the Queen of Disco, but had a number of hits well into the ’80s, including ‘She Works Hard For The Money’ in 1983,” (Songfacts). “She hit #21 with a cover of ‘There Goes My Baby’ in 1984, but that was her last US Top 40 until ‘This Time I Know It’s for Real’ five years later.

To find the contemporary dance sound, she enlisted Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman, the UK team responsible for some of the biggest upbeat hits of the era, including ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by Rick Astley and ‘Venus’ by Bananarama. The trio wrote the song with Summer and produced the track along with the rest of her Another Place and Time album, giving her a solid comeback song and her last big hit. The video was done by the Swiss director Dee Trattmann, whose other clients included Cliff Richard and the Thompson Twins.”

After an intro in G major, there’s a shift to E major just before the first verse starts (0:24). At 0:53, the chorus shifts back to G major, then back to E major at 1:09 at the tail end of the section. The pattern continues from there. Sure enough, once you know about the tune’s shared origins with Rick Astley’s sound, you’ll hear it around every corner!

Commodores | Won’t You Come Dance With Me

“Known as Zoom in the UK, the Commodores’ eponymous fifth LP … very much a transitional work, highlighting the greasy southern funk that the group so ably practiced before pianist and saxophonist Lionel Richie firmly took centre stage.” The album included the hits “Brick House” and “Easy” and “was a huge hit in the US, setting the Commodores fair for their chart-topping scene stealing as the 70s became the 80s,” (BBC). “In the UK, the reaction was a little more muted. However, ‘Easy’ paved the way for ‘Three Times a Lady’ and ‘Still,’ and Lionel Richie’s unshakeable place as a favourite artist of millions.”

“The fifth album by the first self-contained band signed by Motown at the start of the 1970s,” (Motown.com). “Commodores became the first of the Commodores’ three consecutive Top 3 albums on the pop charts during 1977-78 … (it) spent a year among the Billboard best-sellers, including eight weeks at Number One on the R&B rankings. The Commodores graduated into Motown’s biggest group during the second half of the ’70s, not least due to their creative collaboration with record producer James Anthony Carmichael, and the astute leadership of their manager, Benny Ashburn. ‘One reason we’ve been successful is that we treat it like a business,’ Ashburn once told Billboard. ‘After a show, people will come up and ask, Where’s the party? It’s all right to have fun, but every day when people go to work, do they party? The guys have to get rest to do it tomorrow in the next town. If you treat it as a business, it will treat you well.'”

“Won’t You Come Dance With Me,” adorned with plenty of shifts in texture and groove, pivots among several closely-related keys. After a short intro and a chorus-first section in E major, A major at 0:25 and F# minor at 0:58 are also visited before the pattern repeats at 1:19 with an intro-mirroring interlude and another chorus.

Rita Lee | Lança Perfume

Rita Lee’s “Lanca Perfume” was a 1980 smash hit in Brazil. Lee was the granddaughter of an American citizen living in Brazil. Her father, Charles Fenley Jones, was a dentist born in Brazil who was the son of an American. Her mother, of Italian origin, was born in Brazil as well. Lee was born on December 31st, 1947, and passed away in 2023 at the age of 75.

Lee was a pioneer female rocker in Brazil; she was one of the original members of the famous Brazilian psychedelic rock band Os Mutantes. Later she went solo, married and formed a performance duo with another musician (Roberto de Carvalho), and wrote many soap opera theme songs for Globo TV.

“Lança Perfume” features the same keyboard-driven pop sound which was so popular in the US during the same era. The track shifts up a whole step at 2:24.

Many thanks to one of our Brazilian readers/listeners, Julianna A., for this submission to MotD — her eighth!

The Village People | In Hollywood (Everybody Is a Star)

“… The Village People surprised everybody with this popular four-song (debut) album. Phil Hurtt, a good friend of Thom Bell and the writer of “I’ll Be Around,” arranged and co-authored three songs,” (AllMusic). “Produced by Henri Belolo and Jacques Morali, Village People exploits and promotes gay liberation in a little over 20 minutes of music. The vocals slap you in the face, the beats nonstop … the four energetic tracks — ‘San Francisco (You’ve Got Me),’ ‘In Hollywood (Everybody Is a Star),’ ‘Fire Island,’ and ‘Village People’ — practically clone each other, with the lyrics the only distinguishing difference.”

Hurtt was a professional lyricist who had written the words for the Spinners hit “I’ll Be Around.” To broaden the song’s appeal, Hurtt made the song more universal in scope, drawing on his own experiences in Hollywood,” (Songfacts). “Hurtt never tried to make it as a West Coast actor, but he had been there on business and had a good handle on the game that was played there.

Now it’s time to get a new car / You know the kind that has a phone and a bar …

Slip outside and call and have yourself paged / Get on the phone and scream as though in a rage

Before cell phones, this was a classic ploy in Hollywood: have yourself paged, then pretend to boss around the imaginary person on the other end of the line.”

After a start in A minor, there’s a shift up a half step to Bb minor at 0:45. At 1:29, the chorus shifts to a jaunty Bb major until 1:51, where the key reverts to the original A minor. The pattern continues from there.

Heatwave | Whack That Axe

“Rod Temperton,” (Heatwave’s keyboardist) “could write … Temperton might have been the brains, but the rest of the guys did a great job executing his vision,” (SomethingElseReviews). “Party bands have gotten so pre-fab these days, relying so much on sampling and studio help. Heatwave, however, was a real band. The musicians who played on stage were the same ones who played it in the studio, with a minimal amount of session players brought in for Central Heating (1977). The musicianship … makes this period music hold up so well to the present day.

The vocals, led by brothers Keith and the late Johnnie Wilder, were well above the pack, too. Keith’s harder-edged vocal was perfectly complimented by Johnnie’s velvet-smooth croon. In the studio, they often added layers upon layers of choral vocals that rivaled in richness to contemporaries Earth Wind and Fire.” The band formed in the UK but had a mixed roster of two Brits, two Americans, a Swiss citizen, a Czechoslovak national, and a Jamaican!

Built in C major overall, “Whack That Axe” (written by Temperton and sharing an album with one of the band’s three biggest hits, “Grooveline”) gently flips over to the relative A minor for the brief bridge (2:08 – 2:26).

The Communards | Don’t Leave Me This Way (feat. Sarah Jane Morris)

“Bronski Beat was originally Jimmy Somerville, Steve Bronski, and Larry Steinbachek, three flatmates who wanted to inject more political slants into the gay music scene at the time,” (The Bottom Five). “They achieved that right out of the gate; their heartbreaking debut 1984 single ‘Smalltown Boy’ went platinum in the UK, peaking at #3 there, and #1 on the US Dance chart. Somerville left Bronski Beat in 1985 and formed The Communards with multi-instrumentalist Richard Coles … The Communards’ 1986 debut LP is a mix of hi-NRG dance tunes and piano-based ballads, and it’s interesting to look at Spotify and see that the dancey songs are more popular by about an order of magnitude.

‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ was originally a Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes song, but Thelma Houston’s #1 cover from 1978 is the inspiration here. While not getting great critical reviews, the Communards’ version hit #1 on the US Dance charts and was the top-selling UK single for 1986. Somerville shares vocals with Sarah Jane Morris, a jazz/standards singer … The Communards disbanded in 1988. Richard Coles became an Anglican minister. Jimmy Somerville went solo; he stayed a presence in Euro/club scenes, and had a solo #1 US Dance single in 1995 with ‘Heartbeat.’”

Like Melvin’s and Houston’s versions, the Communards’ cover shifts from a minor verse to a parallel major chorus (Bb in this case for both), then back to the original key (first heard between 1:01 – 1:30). But this cover version takes the vocal glissando between the verse and chorus, prominently featured in Houston’s version, and supercharges it with both more range and longer duration (3:29 – 3:33), landing us in an energized C major for the balance of the tune.

Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for this submission!