After their first several singles failed to conquer (let alone even land on) the pop charts, KC & the Sunshine Band scored big time with "Get Down Tonight" which was #1 for seven whole days on the Hot 100 in late August 1975 before being booted by Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy". The song also topped the R&B chart while just missing the Top 10 on the Disco chart. Sometime after fourth grade started that Fall, HERC kept hearing the kids talk about a radio station out of Chicago, which was over 100 miles away, that played the best music. That night HERC tuned the station in on his Radio Shack transistor radio and the first song he remembers hearing was "Get Down Tonight", which blew his nine year old mind with that opening guitar solo (he asked his music teacher Mrs. White if she thought the solo was played on a harp and she said she was fairly certain it was a guitar) and the mysterious chorus:
Do a little dance/Make a little love/Get Down Tonight!
Through intense lunchtime and recess discussions with his peers regarding the song's lyrics, it was agreed that the act of "getting down" was some sort of activity that involved both dancing and kissing, which is what they understood "making love" to be. Almost forty years later, the song still makes HERC want to do a little dance, make a little love and above all else, get down tonight. How about you?
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