Tonight at 9p TV One is going to tell you the
Unsung story of Disco from its birth until its death with the people who survived it. In this two hour candid look of the music that made you want to dance like you never danced before in the late ’70s, you will hear the stories of the people, places and tales of the beat that defined a generation from the greats like Gloria Gaynor, Harry Casey, Nile Rogers, Anita Ward, The Village People and so many more. From the beginning to the end you will be captivated by learning how this Hustle took over the music scene.
The show starts off with Disco’s origins and where it is derived from. It then tells you the first hit that gave birth to the genre and that was The Love Unlimited Orchestra featuring Barry White’s Love’s Theme. When you hear the song now, you can see how it started it all back in 1973.
Then the two-hour special explains how the music started to spread and gave birth to the dance clubs we know today. Disco was not really being played on the radio, but it was being blasted in the clubs and people were boogieing down to it. Did you know it was Disco music that got Club DJs off of the 45s and onto 12″ singles. Donna Summer had a song that was 18 minutes long which was unheard of at that time and people didn’t care that it went on for almost 20 minutes when they were on the dance floor because they love to love you baby!
Once we find out how Disco came about, we start to find out how the artists and their music started out. At first people couldn’t believe that Harry Casey was white because Disco originated from R&B and he explains his history with the music. KC and the Sunshine Band was one of the first mixed raced bands on the scene and that got people of all colors to accept them.
We also hear which song came out of an audience not wanting to dance to their songs at a show. Which song was written because they couldn’t get into a Studio 54. Which song was inspired by the movie Towering Inferno. We also find out how hard Gloria Gaynor had to fight to get I Will Survive recorded. Why she wanted to do the song and why it meant so much to her? In fact the song was released as a B-Side. If the music moguls had their way, we might not have had one of the most popular songs ever recorded.
We also discover out which movie made Disco an international star, but is also considered the beginning of the end for it. Because then everyone like Dolly Parton and Ethel Merman wanted to release a Disco album. Also we learn when the first 24 hour Disco station was established and what that meant for the future of Disco. It was also radio that killed Disco and the DJ who did that explains his side of it all.
Then after we watch all those Disco albums being burned on July 12, 1979 at a baseball stadium in Chicago, we hear what happened to these Disco Divas and Macho Men. One of them became a teacher and another one was a limo driver. We also find out what music spawned out of Disco and which musicians were able to make it because of it.
Even though Disco didn’t make it in to the ’80s we are still dancing to that beat 4 decades later and no one will ever be able to stop us!
So whether you love Disco or you hate it, you are going to be intrigued by Unsung: Disco. I was mesmerized from beginning to end and I know you will be too. There is just so much I didn’t know about Disco and it was so groovy to learn about it from the people who recorded it tell it in their own words. I seriously cannot praise this episode of Unsung enough. I love it as much as I love Disco and I am not ashamed to admit that’s the way, uh-huh uh-huh,
I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Plus once the episode is done, you will be grabbing your Disco greatest hits album (admit it we all have at least one) and playing all the songs ’til you just can’t boogie no more.
Next Wednesday Unsung is back to 10p with Eddie Kendricks and you won’t want to miss a single second of his story!
