Rockissue

Capturing an Era, Evoking a Scene, Making Playlists: What Do Dayton and Athens Have in Common but Nothing?

Chronological playlists that cover broad swaths of music-making activity, like that in the essay on 1973, may be too ambitious, both in the breadth of knowledge demanded—attempted—and the patience required to listen to music of a significant variety of styles and moods. Two approaches solve these problems. A focus on a particular city or region allows for a shorter, manageable playlist that still crosses genres. While a focus on a certain genre allows for more of a casual listening experience.

In the Punk-Indie era of Rock music, numerous cities became destinations, both to visit and to live, one making its mark, it seemed, after another. The more unlikely a candidate for an internationally-renown cultural center the better: Athens, Georgia; Amherst, Massachusetts; Olympia, Washington. Many such hot spots are not so surprising after all: they are college towns or near large cities. But why these particular cities? Essentially any college town or metropolis will attract its share of the intellectual and artistic among a national or regional population, but why Olympia more so than Eugene? Why Phoenix more so than Tucson? And: why do some college towns near large cities develop their own scenes, like Athens or Berkeley, but not others: say, Madison compared to Milwaukee. More broadly, why do some large cities that welcome plenty of touring attractions seem to have failed to foster local talent? One needs to go digging—old newspapers, oral histories, discarded websites only partially preserved at the Internet Archive, etc.—to begin to develop answers to these questions, to learn more about the individuals and institutions that made scenes, regardless if they were in cultural epicenters (the bands playing C. B. G. B. in the years, 1974-1976, or the Los Angeles Punk scene) or not (to go back to the pre-Punk years, the "Bakersfield Sound" of the Sixties or Phil Walden's Macon empire).

In the meantime, these scenes entice listeners to craft a playlist, a "wantlist," a canon. That's not to say that a lot of questions won't be asked, and debates ensue, if anyone were to put forth any sort of "short list" of the best music pertaining to a certain locale. Less discord may ensue if one were to narrow the scope of any such list to a certain era, but that task, practically speaking, proves difficult, as we will see, when artists more obscure, whose work is not so well documented or preserved, are included. For example.... My hometown of Athens, Georgia, as I have learned slowly, in bits and pieces over the years, has more to its history than its globally-renown acts like R. E. M., Vic Chesnutt, the B-52's, Widespread Panic, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Danger Mouse. Other leading lights of the early-Eighties scene have long since been identified: the Tone Tones, Love Tractor, the Method Actors, the Side Effects, Oh-O. K., Limbo District, Guadacanal Diary. And, thanks to the film Athens, Ga. Inside/ Out, some bands from the mid-Eighties have received a degree of retrospective interest that their recorded legacy would not have otherwise awarded them: Time Toy, the Bar-B-Q Killers, Squalls, Dreams So Real, and Kilkenny Cats. The film also gave an early break to an up-and-coming Flat Duo Jets and provided crucial information about, and in some cases footage of, a few of those earlier bands (R. E. M., Love Tractor, Pylon, and Limbo District).

The astounding popularity of R. E. M., happening as they remained in many ways a "local" band, not only led to a great deal of petty jealousy directed at them but also unfairly raised expectations for other Athens bands. While a few Athens bands have achieved a level of commercial success that would seem to warrant those raised expectations (Widespead Panic, the Drive-By Truckers, Of Montreal, and, after he left Athens, Danger Mouse), the norm for a long-standing, critically-acclaimed Athens band has been closer to that of other Punk/ Indie-era scenes: e.g. Vic Chesnutt, Pylon, the Olivia Tremor Control, Macha, Elf Power, the Glands, Masters of the Hemisphere, Marshmallow Coast, Maserati... and many more. The same goes for those working in genres different from Athens' Rock-and-Roll norm: the folklorist Art Rosenbaum, Blues artist Neal Pattman, even a composer of vide-game music, Bobby Prince. Moreover, only in recent years have artists that did not operate according to the music industry's standards (for example, the Elephant Six-connected art-installation troupe Dixie Blood Moustache) or, more simply, were local or critics' favorites but never quite connected with a larger audience (say, Bloodkin, Harvey Milk) gotten the credit that they deserve, while countless others remain quite obscure (say, Garbage Island, Fablefactory, Future Ape Tapes).

Beginning in 2020, I have trudged through microfilm copies and digital scans of Athens newspapers, past and present: the student newspaper the Red and Black, the defunct weekly the Athens Observer, the current weekly Flagpole, and at times the daily paper the Athens Banner-Herald, to find articles, advertisements, and an occasional poorly-reproduced photograph relating to the Athens music scene, especially its venues, to write articles about using newspapers (and sometimes city directories) for historical research, as part of my job as a librarian and archivist [link to those articles at this extra page]. Once I began to approach the music scene as an historian would, placed within its broader social context as well as its local setting, other artists, eras, and milieux that I had previously found easy to ignore surfaced. Many listeners who think they have a good handle on the "early Athens scene" ignore an even-earlier scene, that of Ravenstone, Randall Bramblett, and Terry “Mad Dog” Melton, from which emerged the Normaltown Flyers, who estbalished themselves in those almost-mythical years of 1978 and 1979, playing many of the same venues as the hip "New Wave" bands and years later drawing R. E. M.'s Peter Buck to sit in with them on a regular basis.

More importantly, while no-one would deny that the number of musical options increased dramatically right around '79, many of the new bands did not fit the "New Wave"/ post-Punk mold so ably perfected by Pylon: notably, Phil and the Blanks (not to be confused with the contemporaneous Los Angeles band of the same name), Little Tigers, and the Michael Guthrie Band. Atlanta bands of varied styles like Current Rage also filled up the schedules of venues like the Last Resort, which had started in the Sixties as a Folk/ Jazz/ Blues coffeehouse but by the end of the Seventies was playing host to the city's new selection of challenging, innovative Rock, as were venues like Tyrone's O. C., the Mad Hatter, the i and i, and early versions of the city's storied venues, the 40 Watt Club and the Georgia Theatre.

As soon as I begin to expand my view of the late Seventies-early Eighties Athens music environment, however, roadblocks appear. Again, many bands that remain "local," and even bands that develop a regional following if they focus on live shows, or attempt a national audience with a polished album or two, do not leave behind much of a recorded legacy. If you have never seen Little Tigers on a mixtape of Athens music that your friend made for you, or mentioned in an article about the Athens scene, that is simply because they put one 7-inch single. And they were an unlikely Southeastern-United States participant in the Ska Revival happening at the time... in England. For better or worse, they made it to YouTube. Either way, regardless of which artists left behind sufficient recordings to choose from and which did not, if one really wanted to capture the experience of a music scene of a certain city in a certain era, you would likely want to listen to live recordings, which serve as a sort of equalizing force, leveling the playing field. Though significant gradations in recording quality may still diminish the prospect of a seamless listening experience, nonetheless a performance in real time reveals musicians "naked," without the edits and overdubs of the recording process.

As hinted above, the number of studio recordings released by Garbage Island, a large, noisy improvisational/ instrumental Rock ensemble, is scant relative to their long-standing, consistent place in the local scene as a live act [try finding them at Discogs or Rate Your Music]. Their leader of sorts, the guitarist Craig Lieske, who passed away in 2013, put together several other groups—Diet Rock Star, Echo Canyon, Desk Pussy, not to mention numerous ad hoc groupings—generally improvisational in their approach, and short-lived to boot; unsurprisingly, they were often not recorded in the studio. Thankfully, several performances by Lieske's groups were documented by Sloan Simpson, who originally posted the recordings at his web site Southern Shelter; presently, some can be found at the Internet Archive. We are both lucky and not-so lucky with regard to the early Athens scene. Though numerous bootlegs have made their way into consumers' hands, and some archival releases have come out recently (e.g. R. E. M. "deluxe" and "super deluxe" editions, Pylon Box) there are countless other recordings that remain in the vaults, perhaps available in bootleg form or, again, on the needed, but dreaded, YouTube.

Given this inaccessibility of live recordings, these kinds of deep dives into the minutiae of local history may not affect my listening all that much, and even less likely any sort of list that I would make of what to listen to. So far, I have decided upon one minor way of upsetting most listeners' expectations regarding the Athens scene of the Seventies and Eighties: the inclusion of Randall Bramblett's debut, That Other Mile [1975], and perhaps also its follow-up, Light of the Night [1976], as essential Athens-related albums of that era, alongside the self-titled debut B-52's album [1979], Pylon's Gyrate [1980] and Chomp [1983], R. E. M.'s Murmur [1983], Love Tractor's eponymous debut [1982], and the Method Actors' Little Figures [1981]. Reading the music coverage in the local papers during the later half of the Seventies leaves little doubt that Bramblett, who had moved to Athens to launch his music career in the early Seventies (when, putting it kindly, no-one thought of the sleepy college town as a hot spot for popular music), was the leading light in the town's music scene. Signed to Polydor, a major Rock label at the time, those two albums were critical favorites, held by some to be superior to those of Sea Level, Chuck Leavell's Macon-based band that Bramblett joined after the Polydor albums did not sell enough for the label to keep him on. Another way of saying this: the prospering Macon scene of the Seventies was not taking place a world away; in fact, Macon is a short drive away, just as Atlanta is. Without taking note of what was going on in both cities, and the wider region, nation, and world, you cannot tell the story of the Athens scene, a point that needs to be stressed with regard to nearly every history of the Athens scene that has been written so far.

Similarly, if one were to make a list of essential 45s of the early Athens scene, not only would there be obvious entries like R. E. M.'s debut, ‘Radio Free Europe’, in its earlier incarnation quite different from the Murmur version, or the Pylon non-L. P. single, ‘Cool’, but less-known tracks like the Michael Guthrie Band's early singles could receive more attention, as could the work of Oh-O. K., who never released a full-length album. The inclusion of Guthrie, as well as an Atlanta band or two, especially Vietnam and the Fans, the former only representing at the time by a compilation appearance and the later only releasing singles, would provide some needed stylistic variation (as would the inclusion of Jazz artists playing Athens venues at time, specifically the Landsharks and Steve Dancz). Another approach is to forget making your own playlist and seek out compilations, which can, when released at the right moment and put together by the right people, capture a moment in time of a city's musical arts better than any retrospective account. The soundtrack to Athens, Ga. Inside/Out has served this function well enough for its time and place. One just wishes that it had been made four or five years earlier. On that note, one can listen to a radio special from 1983, available online at you-know-where, documenting the "first five years" of Athens music (of what genre? what era? Don't ask; i. e. you won't hear any Randall Bramblett here). Those interested in the Nineties scene may want to turn to Treble Revolution Volume 2, released by Kindercore Records in 1996.

Wanting to delve into another, perhaps comparable, local music scene, we can turn to Dayton's Funk scene of the Seventies-early Eighties. While Dayton would continue to be a "music city" in the decades to come, most famously as the home of the Indie Rock act Guided by Voices, the birth of numerous internationally-successful Funk groups in a city of such middling size still, after all these years, causes wonder and bafflement, especially as the "Rust Belt" continues to rust and Dayton and similar industrial metropolises, for example Detroit and Youngstown, struggle to maintain their cultural heritage. The acts born there: the Ohio Players, Lakeside, Slave, Platypus, Zapp (and Roger, and Roger and the Human Body), Faze-O, Sun, Aurra, Steve Arrington's Hall of Fame, Junie Morrison, Shadow, and—of course—Dayton (their name obviously not being their finest contribution); and the intercontinental, ethnically-diverse act Heatwave was founded by a Daytonian. In addition, connections between Dayton musicians and those in other cities proved fruitful, for example Bootsy Collins, originally from nearby Cincinnati, played with Dayton groups and was warmly received in the city; Junie Morrison, after being a crucial member of the Ohio Players in their early days and then releasing several solo albums, became the musical director of George Clinton's P-Funk operation, making significant contributions to Funkadelic and Parliament albums of the late Seventies before going solo again.

To get a handle on the history of the Dayton scene, one can read a retrospective article like R. J. Smith's 'Is Dayton the World Capital of Funk?' at Cincinnati Magazine, but my recent research about Athens suggested to me that contemporary coverage from local newspapers and other periodicals is a better place to start. One should put oneself in the times, see how the music was being talked about then, especially where the music was created. Of course, aficionados and the most devoted of hardcore fans of certain artists and genres will bemoan the errors or lack of interest shown at times by daily-beat reporters, some of whom undoubtedly were assigned to write about music acts that they cared little about. This is indeed a problem, but those same aficionados and serious fans sometimes cause their own problems with their uncritical, received-wisdom takes on the same old topics; or, when they stray away from their favored artists, toward music that does not arise from their social milieu, they turn into insult comics and yellow-journalist (read: clickbait) scolds more interested in the personal lives of artists and in turn pontificating on why a certain kind of person should have never bothered to make music (or maybe that's only Robert Christgau). Critics at newspapers and other publications directed at a general audience could not get away with such tomfoolery. Besides, daily newspapers in the Seventies, both because they were doing well financially and because Rock music was "big news" and "big business," did hire writers who cared about the music scenes of their towns and followed them closely, as will see below. Some of them still do so today.

The two daily newspapers in Dayton at the time, owned by the same company, were the Dayton Daily News and the Journal Herald, the former published in the afternoon, the latter in the morning. This was a common set-up: a newspaper that began as an independent challenger to the leading paper gets bought by the leading paper, the two continue to be separate, though in some cases publish mostly the same content, and in the long run one of them ceases to exist entirely. In this case, the challenger, the Daily News continued on: in 1986, the two papers merged to form a new version of the Daily News. During Dayton's Funk era, which I will loosely date as beginning with the Ohio Players first rising to national prominence in 1972 with their albums Pain and Pleasure, and lasting to 1984, at which point most of the Dayton groups were past their peak of popularity and acclaim, these two papers published separate content; both covered the local scene.

A list of the articles that I have found in these two newspapers follows, with the artist who is the primary subject of the article noted. [To see the articles in full, go to the second extra page for this essay.]

The Dayton Daily News:
The Ohio Players: 'Dayton Combo Hits Top, Wants to Share Success' by Dale Huffman, June 1st, 1975
The Ohio Players: 'Local Rock Group Big Enough to Fill Superdome' by Jonathan Miller, October 5th, 1975
The Ohio Players: 'Ohio Players: After a Litigation Gig in Chicago, a Money-Making Session in New Orleans and Then Back to Good, Old O-HI-O' by John Morthland, October 26th, 1975 (also published in Rolling Stone, November 20th, 1975, as 'Money, "Honey": Ohio Players on the Royalties Road')
The Ohio Players: 'Ol' Dullsville Just Fine for City's Ohio Players' by Vince Staten, May 12th, 1977
Sun: 'Music Stardom Always Possible, Even Here' by Vince Staten, February 5th, 1978
Heatwave: 'Heatwave: The Transcontinental Connection' by Abe Peck, May 14th, 1978 (another article also published in Rolling Stone; I cannot find its title in that magazine)
Heatwave: 'Heatwave's Smoke Lights Up Garage' by Hal Lipper, September 29th, 1978
Sun: 'A Place in the Sun: Dayton Band Strikes Gold with Its Third Album, Expects Big Things from TV, Las Vegas Concerts' by Hal Lipper, October 29th, 1978
Faze-O: 'Faze-O Hopes It Has a "Good Thing" in Star-Studded Clothes, Soulful Funk' by Hal Lipper, November 30th, 1978
Slave: 'Dayton-Based Group, Slave, to Take Its Music on the Road', December 28th, 1979 [no author noted]
The Ohio Players, Sun, Platypus, Lakeside, Shadow, Dayton, Slave, Faze-O, Heatwave: '9 Local Bands Gain Success by Recording' by Hal Lipper, March 16th, 1980
Heatwave: 'Heatwave's Leader Keeping Group Hot' by Don Reynolds, November 16th, 1980; accompanied by a review, 'Heatwave's "Candles" Likely to Take Off, Too', also by Reynolds
Zapp, Heatwave: 'New Wave, Heavy Metal Brought New Life, Diversity to Rock Scene' by Don Reynolds, January 4th, 1981
Zapp: 'Project Gives Houses New Life' by Kim Christensen, August 21st, 1981
Zapp: 'Roger: It's Fans Make the Man' by Don Reynolds, September 26th, 1982
Zapp: 'Recording Firm Turns to Houses' by Darwin Sator, March 6th, 1983
Zapp: 'For Troutmans, "Success Comes When You Provide Them with Something Good"' by Carol Cancila, May 1st, 1983
Dayton: 'Dayton: A Hit Band with a Hit Sound Makes Dayton a Hit Town' by Terry Lawson, January 29th, 1984
The Ohio Players: 'By Any Name, They'll Always Be Known as the Ohio Players' by Steve Rabey, April 22nd, 1984
The Ohio Players: 'Ohio Players Pass School of Hard Knocks' by Don Reynolds, June 17th, 1984

The Journal Herald:
Heatwave: 'Super Group from Dayton' by Clay Collins, July 2nd, 1977
Heatwave: 'Heatwave: A Super Album' by Clay Collins, April 1st, 1978
Heatwave: 'Heatwave's on Its Way: And for Johnnie Wilder It'll Be "Nice to Be Home"' by Terry Lawson, April 15th, 1978
Bootsy's Rubber Band: 'Bootsy's Sound May Be Silly—But It Sells' by Lee More, June 1st, 1978
Slave: 'Slave: "Music Doesn't Have Any Color, at Least Not Our Music"' by Terry Lawson, July 29th, 1978
Lakeside: 'Band Hits the Road with a Hit under Its Belt' by Terry Lawson, February 2nd, 1979
Zapp: 'Their Music's a Kind of 'Unclassifiable' Body Language' by Terry Lawson, January 17th, 1980
Heatwave: 'The Beat Goes On: Paralysis Hasn't Silence Johnnie Wilder's Music' by Terry Lawson, November 20th, 1980
The Ohio Players: '"Satch" Comes Back with a Funky Sound' by Jim Collins, May 30th, 1981
The Ohio Players: 'Ohio Players: "All the Way Up and All the Way Down and Trying to Get Up Again"' by Terry Lawson, June 20th, 1981
Zapp: 'Crack in the Wall: Black Music May Be Overcoming Rock Stations' Color Barrier' by Terry Lawson, January 1st, 1983
The Ohio Players, Shadow: 'Dayton Music Famous' by Nick Welser, February 24th, 1984
Zapp: 'Coming Home: Roger Troutman and Brothers Ready to Zapp Dayton' by Nick Welser, December 22nd, 1984

Also noteworthy: Lawson's ‘Accent on Sound’ column of March 13th, 1982, mentions a New York Rocker article on Dayton entitled ‘Funken Dayton’.

This mere list already begins to suggest an historical outline. First, the Ohio Players were not only the most commercially successful of the Dayton bands in the Seventies, but seemed to play a major role in fostering newer acts in the scene. Soon enough, though, the overseas success of Heatwave attracted much attention. Note that this list does not include several articles, stretching across several years, about the legal ramifications of the automobile accident that crippled Heatwave's Johnnie Wilder, Jr. If one wants the lowdown on what happened, the Journal Herald piece, ‘The Beat Goes On’, profiles Wilder, post-accident, as he adapted to his new physical state so he could continue to make music. Meanwhile, in the early Eighties, Zapp can be said to have taken over as the leading Dayton act, both in terms of national success but also local influence, with their leader, Roger Troutman, getting involved in restoring and supplying affordable housing. From an Athens-centric perspective, what immediately comes to mind is R. E. M.'s involvement in local politics and philanthropic efforts and, more specifically, singer Michael Stipe helping preserve several historic buildings and support the local businesses housed in them, such as the Grit vegetarian restaurant, Daily Groceries Co-op, and Go Bar, a dance club and music venue.

For all that I learned from reading these articles, they also tell me there is more to discover, at least when I consider how much I have learned about Athens from direct experience or second-hand from the personal accounts of others. As we would expect, being early in the research process, one is left with questions, more persons, places, and things to research. Here are some tidbits and highlights gleaned from my reading of the articles.... Sun's Sun Burn, recorded in the Dayton studio Cyberteknics, was the first album on a "major label" (always a fuzzy term) recorded in the city, at least according to one person. Byron Byrd, Sun's leader, having worked for Delco, the subsidiary of General Motors that made radios for their cars, used his mechanical expertise to make the "saxitar," a saxophone-guitar combo. Nick Welser's ‘Dayton Music Famous’ reviews the history of the Ohio Players, prompted by Afrika Bambaataa referring to Dayton in his landmark Hip Hop track, ‘Planet Rock’, of course foreshadowing a future use of Dayton and other Funk music: samples. The early history of another group that would famously get sampled, Lakeside, is provided by Lawson in the 1979 Journal Herald article. When Clarence Satchell, after his stint with the Ohio Players, embarks on his own project, Satch and Company, he calls his new sound "Orbital Music," which reminds me of Sun Ra's preference for the word, omniverse, over “universe.” Steve Washington, leader of Slave, calls their music "Stellar Fungk," also the name of a track on their album, The Concept.

Roger Troutman, though, insists his music is “unclassifiable.” Troutman's early connection with the Funkadelic-Parliament operation is explained in both that Terry Lawson article and Don Reynolds' piece for the Daily News, a glimpse into the larger story that would end poorly, with George Clinton accusing Troutman of ripping him off. In 1984, Zapp provided four nights in a row, December 27th-30th, at Gilly's, a Dayton nightclub, two sets per night, a homecoming that surely was a holiday treat for longtime Daytonian fans of the group. By the way, besides Gilly's another Dayton spot for live music was the Lakeview Palladium, as noted briefly in Carol Cancila's Troutman profile, in which Troutman speaks of his sober lifestyle; readers of the article already familiar with the Ohio Players story from coverage in the paper were likely nodding their heads, remembering that members of the Players had admitted to letting stardom, and the partying that came with it, get in the way of their work.

Finally, being a novice with regard to the Dayton scene, I would not dare make a list of the city's best bands and albums. Even if some day I will have explored the music of the Dayton bands sufficiently to make a Dayton-specific playlist, I would find the task as unsatisfying as the prospect of an Athens playlist described above; my listening tends toward the general, broad sweeps instead of deep digs. Instead, for a playlist not so narrow in scope, we zoom out to list the Funk and Disco artists included in the Rock Annual lists for the years, 1974-1982. One immediately begins to see how the Dayton bands fit into a larger context. I considered allowing only one entry, an album or an single, for each artist. That approach makes for a clean list and easy comparisons between artists. Certain artists, though, made such bold stylistic changes or produced such a healthy body of work that we would be doing ourselves a disservice having only one entry from them. Thus five artists ended up being listed twice: Earth, Wind and Fire; Marvin Gaye; Michael Jackson (also represented as a member of the Jacksons); Prince; and Donna Summer; they are underlined in the list. In addition to these four, there are several other artists who have multiple entries in the Rock Annual lists for the years, 1974-1982; those albums or tracks are noted as well, with the five artists listed twice having different additional entries for each of their listings. Additional entries from years before 1974 and after 1982, however, are not noted. A few difficult choices had to be made about which music to include for two artists: namely, Grace Jones's post-Disco work, from Warm Leatherette onward, is considered to belong more to the world of post-Punk/ "Mutant Disco"/ New Wave. And one could argue that Daryl Hall/ John Oates belong in this list, or at least that their self-titled 1975 album does, but I decided not to include their work, which overall tends to be more eclectic than inclusion in this list would suggest.

1974
Average White Band - A. W. B.
Kool and the Gang - Light of Worlds
'Too Hot', Ladies' Night, 1979
Labelle - Nightbirds
The Ohio Players - Skin Tight
Fire, 1974, and Honey, 1975
Barry White - Can't Get Enough
B. T. Express - 'Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)', Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)
Carl Douglas - 'Kung Fu Fighting', Kung Fu Fighting and Other Great Love Songs
George McCrae - 'Rock Your Baby', Rock Your Baby
Shirley and Company - 'Shame, Shame, Shame', Shame, Shame, Shame

1975
Brass Construction - Brass Construction
Brass Construction II, 1976
Earth, Wind and Fire - That's the Way of the World
Gratitude, 1975 and Spirit, 1976
Gloria Gaynor - Never Can Say Goodbye
Love Tracks, 1979
The Isley Brothers - The Heat Is On
K. C. and the Sunshine Band - K. C. and the Sunshine Band
'(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty', Part 3, 1976; 'Give It Up', All in a Night's Work, 1982
Parliament - Mothership Connection
Up for the Down Stroke, 1974; Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome, 1977; Motor Booty Affair, 1978
Smokey Robinson - Quiet Storm
War - Why Can't We Be Friends
Hamilton Bohannon - 'Foot Stompin' Music', Insides Out
'Let's Start the Dance', Summertime Groove, 1978
The Fatback Band - 'Spanish Hustle', Raising Hell
'King Tim III (Personality Jock)', Fatback XII, 1979
Graham Central Station - 'Your Love', Ain't No 'Bout-a-Doubt It
Hot Chocolate - 'You Sexy Thing', Hot Chocolate
'Every 1's a Winner', Every 1's a Winner, 1978
Grace Jones - 'I Need a Man', Portfolio [1977]
Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony - 'The Hustle', Disco Baby
The Miracles - 'Love Machine', City of Angels
The Salsoul Orchestra - 'Salsoul Hustle', The Salsoul Orchestra
Silver Convention - 'Fly, Robin, Fly', Save Me
Tavares - 'It Only Takes a Minute', In the City

1976
Marvin Gaye - I Want You
'Got to Give It Up Pt. I'/ 'Got to Give It Up Pt. II', Live at the London Palladium, 1977; Here, My Dear, 1978
Heatwave - Too Hot to Handle
Leon Ware - Musical Massage
Johnny Guitar Watson - Ain't That a Bitch
Brick - 'Dazz', Good High
Double Exposure - 'Ten Percent', Ten Percent
Thelma Houston - 'Don't Leave Me This Way', Any Way You Like It
Pleasure - 'Let's Dance', Accept No Substitutes
Vicki Sue Robinson - 'Turn the Beat Around', Never Gonna Let You Go
Rose Royce - 'Car Wash', Car Wash: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
'I Wanna Get Next to You', Car Wash: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Johnnie Taylor - 'Disco Lady', Eargasm
The Andrea True Connection - 'More, More, More', More, More, More
Wild Cherry - 'Play That Funky Music', Wild Cherry

1977
Cameo - Cardiac Arrest
Secret Omen, 1979
Cerrone - Cerrone 3: Supernature
'Love in C Minor', Love in C Minor, 1976
The Commodores - The Commodores
'Three Times a Lady', Natural High, 1978
The Emotions - Rejoice
Giorgio Moroder - From Here to Eternity
'Chase', Midnight Express: Music From the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1978
Slave - Slave
Stone Jam, 1980
Sun - Sun-Power
'Wanna Make Love', Wanna Make Love, 1976
Peter Brown - 'Do Ya Wanna Get Funky with Me', A Fantasy Love Affair
First Choice - 'Let No Man Put Asunder', Delusions
Evelyn "Champagne" King - 'Shame', Smooth Talk
Meco - 'Star Wars Theme/ Cantina Band', Music Inspired by Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk
Raydio - 'Jack and Jill', Raydio [1978]
Donna Summer - 'I Feel Love', I Remember Yesterday, 1977
Love to Love You Baby, 1975
T-Connection - 'Do What You Wann Do', Magic
Bill Withers - 'Lovely Day', Menagerie
The Michael Zager Band - 'Let's All Chant', Let's All Chant [1978]

1978
Boney M - Nightflight to Venus
Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove
Uncle Jam Wants You, 1979
The Jacksons - Destiny
The Jackson 5 - Dancing Machine, 1974
Teddy Pendergrass - Life Is a Song Worth Singing
Sylvester - Step II
Alicia Bridges - 'I Love the Nightlife (Disco 'Round)', Alicia Bridges
Instant Funk - 'I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl)', Instant Funk [1979]
Kebekelektrik - 'War Dance'
Chaka Khan - 'I'm Every Woman', Chaka
Cheryl Lynn - 'Got to Be Real', Cheryl Lynn
Musique - 'In the Bush', Keep On Jumpin'
Peaches and Herb - 'Shake Your Groove Thing', 2 Hot
'Reunited', 2 Hot
The Pointer Sisters - 'Fire', Energy
'He's So Shy', Special Things, 1980; 'I'm So Excited', So Excited, 1982
The Village People - 'Y. M. C. A.', Cruisin'
'Macho Man', Macho Man; 'In the Navy', Go West, 1979

1979
Candido - Dancin' and Prancin'
Chic - Risqué
'Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)', 'Everybody Dance', Chic, 1977; C'Est Chic, 1978
Earth, Wind and Fire - I Am
All 'n All, 1977; 'September', The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire Vol. 1, 1978; 'Let's Groove', Raise!, 1981
Michael Jackson - Off the Wall
Donna Summer - Bad Girls
'MacArthur Park', Live and More, 1978; 'Last Dance', The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of Thank God It's Friday, 1978; 'On the Radio', On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I and II, 1979
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers - 'Bustin' Loose', Bustin' Loose
France Joli - 'Come to Me', France Joli
Kleeer - 'Keeep Your Body Workin'', I Love to Dance
Lipps Inc - 'Funkytown', Mouth to Mouth
Machine - 'There but for the Grace of God Go I', Machine
Vaughan Mason and Crew - 'Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll', Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll [1980]
Sister Sledge - 'We Are Family', We Are Family
'He's the Greatest Dancer', We Are Family
Slick - 'Space Bass', Slick
Gino Soccio - 'Dancer', Outline
The Whispers - 'And the Beat Goes On', The Whispers

1980
The Brothers Johnson - Light Up the Night
Change - The Glow of Love
Teena Marie - Irons in the Fire
It Must Be Magic, 1981
Prince - Dirty Mind
'Soft and Wet', For You, 1978; 'I Wanna Be Your Lover', Prince, 1979
Diana Ross - Diana
'Love Hangover', Diana Ross, 1976
Zapp - Zapp
Lakeside - 'Fantastic Voyage', Fantastic Voyage
Odyssey - 'Use It Up and Wear It Out', Hang Together
The S. O. S. Band - 'Take Your Time (Do It Right)', S. O. S.

1981
Inner Life - Inner Life
Rick James - Street Songs
Luther Vandross - Never Too Much
Patrick Cowley - 'Menergy', Menergy
'Megatron Man', Megatron Man
Randy Crawford - 'You Might Need Somebody', Secret Combination
Taana Gardner - 'Heartbeat'
Unlimited Touch - 'I Hear Music in the Streets', Unlimited Touch

1982
D Train - D Train
The Gap Band - The Gap Band IV
'I Don't Believe You Want to Get Up and Dance (Oops!)', The Gap Band II, 1979; The Gap Band III, 1980
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Marvin Gaye - Midnight Love
Prince - 1999
'Controversy', Controversy, 1981
Shalamar - Friends
The Dazz Band - 'Let It Whip', Keep It Live
Fat Larry's Band - 'Act Like You Know', Breakin' Out
'Zoom', Breakin' Out
Eddy Grant - 'Electric Avenue', Killer on the Rampage
Indeep - 'Last Night a D. J. Saved My Life', Last Night a D. J. Saved My Life
Klein and M. B. O. - 'Dirty Talk', De-Ja-Vu
One Way - 'Cutie Pie', Who's Foolin' Who
The Peech Boys - 'Don't Make Me Wait', Life Is Something Special [1983]
The Weather Girls - 'It's Raining Men', Success [1983]

A few albums from 1973 and 1983 could easily fit in with this list: Midnight Star's No Parking on the Dance Floor and the Pointer Sisters' Break Out from the latter, James Brown's The Payback, Betty Davis's eponymous debut, Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On, the Isley Brothers' 3 + 3, Kool and the Gang's Wild and Peaceful, Labelle's Pressure Cookin', M. F. S. B.'s Love Is the Message, and Sly and the Family Stone's Fresh from the former. Albums by the O'Jays and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes can be noted as bridges between the Soul music prevalent at the tail end of the Sixties and the early Seventies, on one hand, and the later Funk, Disco, and streamlined Soul discussed here. As worthy of attention as all of these albums are, we must remind ourselves that we are trying to delineate an era in which certain trends were dominant. In 1973, those albums just mentioned, as important as they were, were nonetheless overshadowed (well... except Gaye's Let's Get It On) by albums by Roberta Flack, Al Green, the Intruders, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Bobby Womack, and Stevie Wonder, with both Green and Wonder especially reaching glorious peaks of periods of remarkable creativity and prolifacacy in what was definitely a banner year for the wider world of Rhythm and Blues/ Soul music.

Keeping in mind the connection between Funk/ Rhythm and Blues and the phenomenon of Disco helps keep our listmaking limited to manageable portions. "Disco" as a fad that overwhelmed other trends/ movements/ what-have-you in popular music during the years, 1977-1979, in a way that no other has done besides Psychedelia, 1966-1968, means that we could include other releases by artists trying to fit in, for example ‘I Was Made for Lovin' You’ by Kiss and ‘Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?’ by Rod Stewart. On the other hand, plenty listeners would dismiss any and all Disco tracks clearly aimed for a mainstream audience, including some listed above. But, as is stated in the song ‘Energy’ from Cameo's Secret Omen: “Ain't nothing wrong with Disco, it goes along with the Funk.”

–Justin J. Kaw, December 2022