Games People Play
Abdullah Shabazz

As a respected general medical practitioner in Northern California, one of the things I do is periodically write articles for medical publications and journals, and as such I am expected to follow up on any responses and observations from my fellow practitioners. For doctors can be the most opinionated people around, so given the nature of my occupation it is required that I respond to these inquiries as quickly, intelligently, and expertly as I can (all the while doing the best I can to at least give the impression that I know what I'm talking about). In writing for this magazine, even though it's theme is more abstract and transcendental, I expect to do no less. This is the first time, though, that I have been moved to comment in this forum.

In outlining my experiences and observations about the Seventies' disco age, I was attempting to give a perspective both as somebody who was an active participant and from a contemporary retrospective, while still attempting to offer an intellectual objectivity. I emphasize "attempting" not because I think my education, growth and maturity qualifies me as an expert, but because I felt that the phenomenon for which I was commenting required both an inside and an outside scrutiny -- we need to look at both the trees and the forest -- and required an analysis that was less harsh in its judgment of the times and culture. In essence, it's easy for non-participants to condemn what went on when they didn't have to live through it. Hindsight is 20/20 vision.

Like I said in my article, I grew up during the late seventies when my contemporaries and I defined ourselves by how well we could "cut up" on the dance floor. I participated in most of that "transparent trendiness" which I referred to (all except the drugs, but I did indulge in quite a bit of alcohol) and I am here to tell you that I had fun! Because I have grown and matured and am now also a practicing Muslim doesn't mean that I can deny how I felt about my behavior at the time. If I knew then what I know now, with everything else being as it was, then I would not have participated in that scene. But good judgment comes from experience, and most experience comes from bad judgment.

That does not necessarily mean that I think I exercised bad judgment at the time. I was a lot less judicious about whom I shared intimate relations with then than I was later, and now I am happily monogamous (I'm not saying this for my wife's benefit). I was young, stupid -- and horny. And the way I dressed and danced at the discos was the path of least resistance into a woman's panties. I used a twisted logic that said if I can move on the dance floor then the ladies will think I can move in bed -- and to a certain degree it worked. I knew I wasn't going to find a lasting relationship with this method -- and at the time I wasn't trying to. Was I being shallow at the time? Yes. Was I in it only for the sex? Yes. Did I think of women as sex objects. Probably...

...Was I wrong? For the most part, yes. We make mistakes when we're young; we can't come out of the womb knowing everything (even though as teenagers we think we do). I am now a parent, so I along with probably every parent just hopes that the mistakes any youngster makes are not horrendous enough to regret the rest of his or her life. I believe my parents understood this; that's why they let me go out virtually every weekend and get the "party animal" out of my system early in my life so I wouldn't waste a good portion of what should be my constructive adult years playing these immature games.

But it wasn't just for the tail. If I wasn't all that into the music I was really into the dancing. I would stay on the dance floor until I was literally drenched in sweat (hard to understand now how any woman can find a wet, sweaty man physically desirable?). And I had so much fun that I didn't want the party to stop. So for those few hours on the weekend I tried not to let reality seep into my fun.

Anyway, I digress. This is not about me but about what I wrote last month and some of the comments and criticisms that my article generated. I thought that before I address some of the more persistent comments that I would at least give an idea of where I was coming from. Like I said earlier, I'm no more qualified than anybody else to comment on the disco era, but since I did put in my two cents worth, I feel that I should both justify the observations I made and either defend or refute the arguments that any respondents had.

garydj@qis.net, an active working deejay for over 23 years, wrote: The music was NOT disposable as the past decades hit records have demonstrated. Just look at the songs that are still played from that era; look also at the number of records that have SAMPLED these classic pieces of Americana [emphasis his].

[Also] the ethnicity you implied in your writing does not exist. [Disco] was influenced by various cultural rhythms. Ethnicity was not a factor. Most of the feeling of the music of that time was derived from Latin rhythms and some of the flavor of the West Indies in calypso, soca, and ska. Most areas of influence included American Blues and some of the European trends at the time as well.

These are not criticisms of your writing, merely suggestions to improve your already good research and upgrade it to excellent.

I'll admit that I probably went overboard when I wrote that disco was "always disposable". That was taking hyperbole to an extreme level. All of it was not disposable -- an overwhelming majority of it was. Like I said, the proof was in the pudding; how many of the artists who made those songs survived into the next decade? Donna Summers and Gloria Gaynor could actually sing, but the music was not conducive to lauding their talents. I don't necessarily blame Summers or Gaynor for that, but the producers themselves who made it as mass-produced and campy as they could. Face it, when the same incessant beat is being played for over two hours with no interruption, that is not art. That is assembly line.

And have no illusions, the ethnicity does exist. The producers of disco didn't come up with the rhythms on their own. They derived it from the flavors you mentioned (calypso, soca, and ska), but the origins of those genres were not done by Americans. You said it yourself, "Latin rhythms". The last time I checked, Latin is an ethnicity. And the blues started with Black Americans.

Furthermore, if you mean to suggest that my writing would be "upgraded" if I agree with your comments, sorry to disappoint you.

catdaddy@tsrcom.com wrote: I grew up in the 70's, and at the time, I loved all the music. However, even at the time, I thought the 60's had better songs. I say that because I'm a bonafied soul music lover. Most of what I got into in the 70's was Stevie Wonder, Isley Brothers, Ohio Players, ConFunkShun, Brother to Brother, KC and the Sunshine Band, and of course Sly and James Brown. I also loved Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, the Bee Gees, Chicago, etc. You brought up a good point about most of the disco stuff being producer-driven, because I didn't really fall in love with one disco artist in particular, save Donna Summers. Most of the disco that I liked had good songs behind them, such as "I Will Survive", "The Hustle", and other songs of that quality. I positively HATED stuff that was so repetitive they must have phone it in -- You KNOW what I'm talking about. I wasn't much of a dancer, so if I couldn't really enjoy listening to the tune, or if the groove wasn't real funky, I had no use for it. The 70's was MY decade, and many of the songs have memories for me, so I can't help but have fond feelings for the songs of the time. I would love to see another great soul music era come upon us, but I don't think that will happen.

Catdaddy brings up an interesting aside here. Was everything that was played in a discotheque by definition disco? The previous respondent contends that because it is played at a discotheque that it is. I beg to differ. A lot of the soul and R&B music from that era, which by definition has a danceable beat, was sampled at disco clubs, and by extension suffered from a certain amount of the backlash that was attached to disco. As I stated in my article, many of that era's most popular artists did make disco singles. This also included such black luminaries as Earth-Wind & Fire, James Brown, Michael Jackson, the Jacksons, Stevie Wonder, Kool and the Gang, LTD, the Commodores, and Barry White. But as an example, absolutely nothing Parliament-Funkadelic or the P-Funk family of artists ever made can be remotely classified as disco; Dr. Funkenstein produced hard-edged funk. Yet at most of the discos I went to the deejays would sample such P-Funk songs as "Flashlight", "One Nation Under A Groove", "Knee Deep", "Bop Gun", and "A Funkin' We Will Go", as well as Kool and the Gangs "Jungle Boogie", James Brown's "Body Heat", George Duke's "Dookie Stick", ConFunkShun's "Chase Me", and Rufus's "Do You Love What You Fell". Songs such as these being played at a disco and defining them as disco is as absurd as me being the only black in an all-white school and being defined as white.

You are right, Catdaddy, Donna Summer was hard not to love. It was good to see that she was recognized as the truly talented singer she is. I think her best music was the 1982 Quincy Jones-produced album "Living In America" (nothing about it was disco, the Q didn't stoop that low). I'm glad two years later she earned a Grammy nomination for "She Works Hard For The Money." Donna is still somewhat rooted in disco, which is why she really hasn't hit since then.

And I disagree with your assessment about another great soul era. I personally think that the Eighties was a great time for soul-tinged music blacks, whites and Latinos were making to appeal to a mainstream audience. How could you love Chaka Khan and not love Lisa Stansfield? How could you like the Time and not like the Pet Shop Boys? And if you like New Edition, then it wasn't hard to fall for ABC.

Tim@adhoc.demon.co.uk wrote: It's good to see reasonable, nay good, journalism and opinion expressed in these [web] pages. However, my question is what prompted it?
[Disco] certainly never appealed to me, nor I suspect, to many of the people into more "serious" forms of popular music -- be that progressive, jazz, rap, whatever, all of which have their own standards against which it is impossible to measure disco (or indeed other forms of music). On specific instrument groups (e.g.: guitar), you may (and do) get arguments rather foolishly trying to compare the manual dexterity of Joe Satriani with the emotional simplicity of (say) Peter Green -- but this is like comparing chalk and cheese.
On a newsgroup dedicated (very loosely) to blues-influenced rock it is unlikely that anyone would be particularly interested in defending or knocking disco.
Back to my original question. What prompted you [to write] this article? I'm intrigued.

Glad you liked the article, Tim. I deduce from the next to last paragraph in your message that instead of reading it in this Web site you read it from a posting that somebody put in a Usenet newsgroup devoted to music. I can also tell from the domain name in your E-Mail address that you are from the United Kingdom. Having been there and traveled throughout Europe for over a year myself in the late 80's, I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that there never was a disco backlash in Europe, and that disco is alive and well there and living in such contemporaries forms as house music, dance music, techno-pop and synth-pop (as I also stated in my article). For the most part I was commenting on the obvious disdain for disco as a musical genre here in North America. I guess my main motivation for writing it was the apparent lack of esteem given to disco here in the states as opposed to its acceptance and growth in Europe, Asia and parts of South America.

jqw3171@is3.nyu.edu answered the title question: [Disco was] indeed not [that bad]. I mostly agree but have a couple of quibbles.
It wasn't universally not good. I'll defend the brilliance of Cheryl Lynn and Amii Stewart (or the svengali behind her) any day...When it got horns in the mix, or a funky baseline, or diva with exponentially more soul than today's house divas, it was certainly anything but inaesthetic. Aesthetic refers to beauty, and disco was never short on beauty.
[The 'long-playing artificial dance continuum that was mostly antiseptic, always disposable, and usually fast food/studio-produced on a synthetic assembly line, with simple-minded lyrics, that were chant-like, repetitive, and had frequent double-entendres, and were perpetually sexual and about what you wanted to do that evening] best describes today's thumpy house much more than it describes what filled the dance floors in the late 70's and early 80's. Disco was dance music that had not yet sold its soul, in all senses of the word.
I can't agree with the camp element. Camp transcends trends like jiu-jitsi knocks someone on the floor.
I take strong exception to [your characterization of most of the disco artists you defined as talentless]. Thelma [Houston], Vicki Sue [Robinson], and Gloria [Gaynor] had vocal chops that could have stood with pride in the 60's at Stax or Motown. "Disco Inferno", although lyrically worthless, is musically a tightly-structured, well-written song. Sylvester was a canny songwriter. The Village People's svengalis were talented songwriters. Chic had talent coming out of their ears, which they have parlayed into successful music careers ever since, although not under the Chic rubric. The rest I might grant, but I'd have to think about it. And disco produced so much product that amongst some of the dross that did exist there are hundreds of obscure gems [emphasis his].
[Some of disco's "talentless" stars, as you call them, did survive into the eighties], but not under the name they used at the time. The Power Station was half Chic. Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio had a number of mid-80's hits. Disco was nothing if not pleasant. and its simple togetherness ethic is a good deal more genuine than the worst pretensions of rave culture.

Cheryl Lynn I could live with, especially her diva anthem "Star Love." But Amii Stewart?! I can't believe anybody would place any aesthetic substance to "Knock On Wood". That truly is absurd on a level of surrealism commensurate with this magazine. She may have had a strong voice, but her "svengali" as you put it has to take the credit (or blame) for that song.

If you think my characterization of disco best describes the house music you hear in clubs now, then you've made my point when I hypothesized that disco is not dead but merely evolved (or mutated) to a form of house and dance music. And have no illusions, when "Disco Duck", "Disco-rilla", "Disco Fifth of Beethoven", "Disco Star Wars", "Disco SWAT", and "Disco Tut", as well as Studio 54 Jeans, came out, disco sold what little soul it had to the commercial powers that be in order to cash in (I firmly believe that Rick Dees made "Disco Duck" as a lark and a parody. The disco culture, as shallow as it was, failed to see the humor in it and claimed it as its own).

What you say about camp is true. It isn't unusual for the masses to define some of the trends associated with any institution in society. That having been said, disco had no trends associated with it, so it was left up to the populace and the participants of the disco culture to define them. If disco mirrored the society it was a part of, then we adherents are responsible for how disco was perceived not only by ourselves but by non-participants. In essence, we imbued disco with a substantial amount of its campiness, so we shouldn't be surprised that it was in hindsight viewed as campy and transparent.

I'll agree that Houston, Gaynor and Robinson could sing. Houston and Gaynor got their musical starts as gospel singers, which is where both returned to when disco imploded. Robinson got her musical starts on Broadway -- I have no idea what she has done since "Turn The Beat Around." The point here is that I can't help but think that any of these three performers saw disco as anything other than a means of making a quick name for themselves, otherwise they would have gone down with the ship.

The idea that Sylvester "was a canny songwriter" is ludicrous. His music and lyrics were as repetitive, fast-food, and grating as any produced before or since. His appeal was based almost solely on the fact that he was a homosexual artist who came above ground and gained a certain amount of fame by singing those double-entendres most appealing to the alternative lifestyle (I'm guessing here). You mention the word "svengali" quite a bit, Tim. Understand that when you refer to the svengalis of artists like Amii Stewart and the Village People you are making my point about producer-driven music. It was the producers who were making the music; an overwhelming majority of the artists fronting for them didn't have talent. As an example, Chic had Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards as the musical brains behind them. I overstated my point with regards to Chic; Rodgers and Edwards have loads of talent, continued to make music throughout the 80's with such groups as the Power Station, and to this day are still producing music. However, the two women fronting Chic were nothing more than eye candy -- can you tell me who they were?

I agree with disco's "simple togetherness ethic" as you pointed out. As I pointed out towards the end of my article, this was disco's enduring legacy. A legacy which certainly has not been duplicated since.

pstandel@aol.com wrote: Was disco really that bad? YES. Bad lyrics. Poor musicianship [sic]. Talentless singers. Disco was only about one thing: money. Dilute the funk, take the musicians out, and add white people, end up rich. I agree that a few groups were better than others (I admit a weakness for Chic -- it's a tragic flaw) but on the whole they were pretty bad. I know it was exciting, and everyone had a good time, but my main beef is with the music. Disco devastated black music, leading up to [its] current state of disrepair. There are almost no bands (you know, live instruments -- what a concept), just flavor of the week singers with one gold or platinum single, or rappers who all look and sound alike. The thing that annoys me the most is that the producers were and are the big stars instead of the singers and musicians.

You know, I get this a lot, mostly from African Americans, blaming disco for the current state of soul, R&B, funk and hip-hop. I don't really think there was a concerted "conspiracy" to take dance music away from blacks, but rather an effort by the mainstream to define it on their own terms (sort of a bastard mutation so to speak, no insult intended), commercialize it and then assembly-line produce it to their own satisfaction. Black music was anything but devastated, and could stand on its own against any genre during any time. Some of the musical groups I mentioned in the first paragraph of my original article may or may not be making new music since but they are still in demand on the concert circuit. Where's Chic, or Vicki Sue Robinson, or Hot Chocolate, or for that matter Donna Summers?

My point here is that black music was never diluted by the disco phenomenon. I will admit that for some current groups there is a lack of "instruments" or "live singing". Yes, I would like to go to a concert and see an entire band playing live, ad-hoc music. But music, like life, changes and fluxes -- and hopefully grows. Time is linear; we don't want En Vogue redoing everything the Supremes did in the Seventies, but we'd rather En Vogue's music exhibited the Supremes' influence (which on occasion it does).

I too am not pleased that soul and R&B is pigeon-holed by the mainstream. But if you realize that one is not the same as the other, then you are smart enough to know that good soul, R&B and funk is still being made as much today as it was in the 60's and 70's; it just doesn't engender the same amount of media attention as ill-behaved rappers.

If, as you say, the funk was really diluted, then how do you explain the current popularity of George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars? How do you explain the fact that Dr. Funkenstein and Bootsie Collins have never been this popular, not even in the Seventies? They are recognized as the original centurions of funk not only by rappers and soul musicians but even by some funk-rock alternative rockers like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stone Temple Pilots.

Sorry, but if black music is, as you say, "in a current state of disrepair", then you either are not actively searching for the good soul and R&B that exists in spades, or the groups you are listening to have diluted their music through their own doing. There certainly is nothing wrong with sampling disco riffs. I interpret it as a kind of a modern pop version of "fusion"; what's wrong with experimenting with different sounds? Jazz musicians do it; why not pop artists?

carl@anglianet.co.uk wrote: I think where you say disco has no colour [sic] isn't exactly true. You see, the black community within the USA was now getting used to being allowed certain privileges that in the 1950's and early 1960's saw them little short of being classed as second-class citizens within the most powerful country the world has ever known.
The seventies [increasingly saw] blacks, achieving the American Dream, now being employed in good jobs (not all of them it must be noted), move to more prosperous cities [in places] that allowed them to [have] these jobs. This allowed them to have more money to spend than in the 60's.
Seeing this [meant there was] a change in the air, so to speak. Black music artists [and] musicians took to this new vibe and started to create a music that based on happiness and having a good time. Not like the Sixties, even thought the music [at that time] was melodic and sweet sounding. Artists such as Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin and many others were putting across social commentary views from their singles and albums.
Disco is and should always be remembered for that. It is and was always another black music form created for the black community in the beginning to satisfy a need. Black music is the only music on this planet that crosses so many human emotions, that is why its so sought after. This includes disco music.
It wasn't until Hollywood capitalized on the scene and the European influence was added on top to form of Hi Energy that the music fell apart. But before that listen to anything before "Saturday Night Fever" and you'll agree with me!
At present within today's music. Disco is going through a resurgence. Many house deejays are now using yesteryears disco samples to boost their soulful house singles.

Sorry, Carl, but most of this I can't agree with. I am certain that happy, dance music had its partial beginnings within the black community, but it also had its origins in the Latino as well as the gay community, as well as the ethnic cultures in Europe, Asia, and South America. It came in many forms other than soul and R&B such as calypso, soca, ska, salsa, mariachi, reggae, and the early forms of alternative European rock. It was all melodic and sweet-sounding in its own unique way. Disco was not exclusively black music, and to characterize it as such is to deny its multi-cultural origins and appeal.

Black music has always been created to satisfy a need in the black community, from its earliest slave spirituals, to ragtime and gospel, to the beginnings of contemporary jazz, to the Motown sound, to funk, soul and R&B, and on to hip-hop and rap. When hasn't this been the case? And if black music is the only music that crosses so many human emotions, why is it not universally appealing to everyone?. Somehow, I don't see the makers of country music, grunge, or even ethnic Russian music expressing themselves in any apparent soulful manner; in fact it is their lack of soul that best characterizes their music. Remember, in the Seventies, white rockers and their followers hated disco and soul, so it could not have spoken to them.

Furthermore, you've taken my characterization of disco as "colorless" way too literally. This was not meant as a reference to the culture or ethnicity of its origins, but rather the aesthetic and artistic manifestations of the music as played out in our society during the mid- to late- Seventies. It became so mass-produced, campy, transparent, and seamless that there was nothing unique about it. As with a blank sheet of paper, with most of the music there was nothing there. That is what I meant by colorless.

I can see from the domain name in your E-Mail address, Carl, that like Tim above you are also from the United Kingdom. Like I said earlier, I can only speak for what happened here in the United States. Having been to England I am certain that the music scene was quite different there than it was here. I can only hope that your observations on the disco movement in the states is based on empirical knowledge an not on hypothesis gleaned from what you either read or saw on television. Having said that, understand that while I don't think that the disco era was as bad as it is made out to be, its idiosyncrasies began years before "Saturday Night Fever" was released. The motion picture and album signaled disco's peak; it didn't take long for it to valley.

I hope I've been able to clarify my points a little better with regard to my article about disco. If I've created more discussion, then I will answer them individually via E-Mail. I've wasted enough space in this forum, and I suspect that the editor of this cyberzine would like to move on to other "abstract" subjects in future issues. I will say this: I had fun with this subject. Through writing this article I had the chance to reevaluate my youth and understand where it is that I came from. I certainly will never repeat the things I did then, but I will always acknowledge that they happened, and even though I am the mature adult that I am, I will remember the irresponsible party animal I was with a sense of bittersweet fondness.

Copyright 1996 Accurate Letters Enterprises/Psrhea Magazine