Disco Friday: DISCO FEVER USA [2011]

The first things that stood out to me while perusing the liner notes of Disco Fever USA were the names in the songwriting, production and even artist credits; names like Cole Porter, King Floyd, Johnny Mathis, just to name a few.  Not names I would have associated with disco but last time out we had Andy Williams so I guess anything is possible.  The tenth volume in the Disco Discharge series, Disco Fever USA features many well-known R&B if not necessarily disco acts like Teddy Pendergrass, Cissy Houston, Marlena Shaw and Earth Wind & Fire.  There were also familiar disco and dance music names like Meco, Jacques Morali, John Luongo, Gloria Gaynor, Tom Moulton, Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero.  Before we get down to the music, here's the photo gallery of some of the source materials for Disco Fever USA.

After giving Disco Fever USA some quality playtime over the past 48 hours, I may have caught the titular fever - this is good stuff.  There's a tinge of funk to most songs courtesy of bubbly bass lines that you don't often hear in disco tracks and as usual there are more hooks than you'll find in the lair of a maniacal serial killer.  I was initially skeptical of the inclusion of the instrumental version of "Boogie Wonderland" rather than the full-blown more than nine minute Special Disco Version but you know what?  Despite the lack of those pretty cool vocals, the backing track shines bright on its own as its not a pure instrumental - the backing vocals of The Emotions are present. 

year	title	artist		Billboard Disco Chart
1979	Baby Let Me Kiss You	Fern Kinney	8:19	-
1979	Like An Eagle	Dennis Parker	8:35	47
1978	Sunshine Hotel	Richard T Bear	6:09	41
1977	Two Hot For Love	THP Orchestra	6:44	3
1977	Why Must A Girl Like Me	Claudja Barry	7:29	-
1980	You're The Fire	Cissy Houston	5:58	24
1979	Love Dancin'	Marlena Shaw	7:56	49
1979	Boogie Wonderland (instrumental)	Earth Wind & Fire	6:17	14
1979	Holler	John Davis & the Monster Orchestra	6:03	5
1979	Space Bass	Slick	7:06	-
1980	Cisselin' Hot	Chuck Cissel	5:32	55
1984	Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday	Boys Town Gang	5:14	-
1978	Life Is A Song Worth Singing	Teddy Pendergrass	4:12	-
1982	Step On Out	Double Discovery	4:03	-
1977	One Love	Celi Bee & the Buzzy Bunch	8:02	3
1979	Beign The Beguine	Johnny Mathis	8:29	-
1979	Duke's Train	Area Code (212)	6:53	-
1979	Ritmo De Brazil	Ultimate	4:49	6
1978	Dance	Paradise Express	8:17	17
1979	Love Is Just A Heartbeat Away	Gloria Gaynor	7:27	81
1978	If My Friends Could See Me Now	Linda Clifford	7:56	1
1979	Nighttme Fantasy	Vicki Sue Robinson	9:25	21

The second thing that caught my eye in the Disco Fever USA liner notes was the word "Nocturna" which shows up on two of the last three tracks on the second disc.  Nocturna or Nocturna: Granddaughter Of Dracula was a 1979 film with a couple of past their prime known stars.  The movie is reportedly so bad even lovers of cheesy and campy films do not care for it though it shares a more than a few similarities with Love At First Bite, also released in 1979.  (Given the opportunity to view Nocturna for the sake of this post, I chose to use the 85 minutes more productively by taking a walk around the park.)  Noctunra was a vanity project for former belly dancer and Kardashian of her day, Nai Bonet who wrote, produced and starred in the disco vampire comedy horror flick with $350,000 she raised from generous benefactors.  As the film's plot was built around disco music, Nai reportedly spent a third of her budget on the film's soundtrack, released on MCA as a double album with just eight tracks, including the two featured on Disco Fever USA by established disco acts Gloria Gaynor (who is on record as saying she recorded her song as a favor to her manager and she knew it was horrible) and Vicki Sue Robinson.  Scanning the credits on Nocturna yields another familiar name for fans of dance music: Irene Cara is listed as providing backing vocals.