Young Americans to Emotional Rescue: Selected Meetings
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YOUNG AMERICANS TO EMOTIONAL RESCUE: SELECTING MEETINGS BETWEEN DISCO AND ROCK, 1975-1980 Daniel Kavka A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC August 2010 Committee: Jeremy Wallach, Advisor Katherine Meizel © 2010 Daniel Kavka All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Jeremy Wallach, Advisor Disco-rock, composed of disco-influenced recordings by rock artists, was a sub-genre of both disco and rock in the 1970s. Seminal recordings included: David Bowie’s Young Americans; The Rolling Stones’ “Hot Stuff,” “Miss You,” “Dance Pt.1,” and “Emotional Rescue”; KISS’s “Strutter ’78,” and “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”; Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy“; and Elton John’s Thom Bell Sessions and Victim of Love. Though disco-rock was a great commercial success during the disco era, it has received limited acknowledgement in post-disco scholarship. This thesis addresses the lack of existing scholarship pertaining to disco-rock. It examines both disco and disco-rock as products of cultural shifts during the 1970s. Disco was linked to the emergence of underground dance clubs in New York City, while disco-rock resulted from the increased mainstream visibility of disco culture during the mid seventies, as well as rock musicians’ exposure to disco music. My thesis argues for the study of a genre (disco-rock) that has been dismissed as inauthentic and commercial, a trend common to popular music discourse, and one that is linked to previous debates regarding the social value of pop music. The result is a study that compiles the work of previous disco scholars and provides a first step towards the study of disco-rock within the social and musical culture of the 1970s. iv DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this to Katherine Meizel and Jeremy Wallach for freeing me from my rock ideology, to my parents for always supporting me, and to Amanda for constantly reassuring me that everything is going to be alright. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people to whom I owe thanks. The College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University gave me a supportive environment that allowed me to explore my research interests to the fullest extent. I also owe thanks to the music faculty (Dr. Papanikolou, Dr. Corrigan, Dr. Trantham, Dr. Menard, and Dr. Fallon) for building on my undergraduate education and introducing me to new avenues of scholarship, and to Dr. Cooper for chatting with me about the Beatles, Elvis, and comic books when I needed to take my mind off of my work. I thank Dr. Harnish and Dr. Duchan for providing me with the history and tools of ethnomusicology that prepared me for this project. I would also like to express my gratitude towards my advisors, Dr. Katherine Meizel and Dr. Jeremy Wallach, for immensely improving my grasp of popular music scholarship, as well as their unwavering guidance during this process. I owe thanks to those who participated in this project via interviews. In particular, I would like to thank Dave Thompson for providing me with his detailed recollections of the disco era, and Ron Gerber for his immensely informative radio shows. I thank my parents for their unwavering support of whatever path I choose, and for exposing me to so many varied genres of music in my youth. Finally, I would like to thank my fiancé Amanda, who has consistently been at my side throughout this entire process. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………. 1 CHAPTER ONE. A COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF DISCO AND ITS PRECURSORS….. 8 Authenticity i n P opular M usic……………………………………………………...... 8 Disco’s P recursors….…………………………………………………………………. 12 A Brief History of Disco……………………………………………………………… 17 CHAPTER TWO. WORKS BY SELECTED DISCO-ROCK ARTISTS………………….. 25 David Bowie - Young Americans…………………………………………………….. 26 The Rolling Stones - “Hot Stuff” to “Emotional Rescue”……………………………. 30 KISS - “Strutter ‘78’” and “I Was Made for Lovin’ You”………………………….... 35 Elton John - The Thom Bell Sessions and Victim of Love……………………………. 39 Rod Stewart - “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”…………………………………………….. 42 CHAPTER THREE. ARGUMENTS FOR DISCO-ROCK’S INCLUSION WITHIN DISCO SCHOLARSHIP……………………………………………………………………………... 47 Disco and Authenticity………………………………………………………………. 48 What is Disco?............................................................................................................... 52 Disco as a Musical Style……………………………………………………………... 54 Disputing Disco’s Narrative of Expressive Authenticity……………………………. 57 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………..... 62 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………….. 64 APPENDIX. A SELECTED DISCO-ROCK DISCOGRAPHY…………………………...... 68 vii PREFACE This project came about unintentionally as the result of a class taken during my first year in the graduate program at BGSU. While enrolled in Dr. Jeremy Wallach’s Music and Sexuality class, I decided to write a research paper on rock musicians in the genre of disco. We had devoted an entire class period to disco earlier in the semester. I chose to examine the genre in the context of rock music, partly because of my own musical background as a rock musician and also because of my fondness for songs such as “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones and “Young Americans” by David Bowie. While researching this paper, I found that any serious discussion of rock artists’ disco-oriented material was frequently reduced to a passing mention (if not omitted entirely) in most of their biographies, as well as scholarly writings on disco. After completing the assignment, I was sufficiently intrigued by this hole in the literature to continue my research for this thesis. I began by assembling whatever writings I could find on what I have come to refer to as “disco-rock” (disco-crossover recordings by rock artists). I found that there were a limited number of sources that discussed this phenomenon, and none that focused on it exclusively. I studied the key scholarly texts that focus on disco as well as seminal articles written by both journalists and scholars since the 1970s. In addition, I spent a year immersing myself in disco’s key recordings, as well as influential recordings in the preceding genres of Motown, funk, and Philly soul. Due to my status asa straight, white male who was raised primarily in the Midwest, my attraction to disco may seem puzzling. However, I have a strong affinity for funk and soul music as both a listener and a musician, thanks in part to my parents’ eclectic musical tastes. As viii such, I view disco as a logical progression of these genres, in addition to appreciating it on its own merits. This thesis is rooted in ethnomusicology, in that it examines disco and disco-rock within the culture of the era and as products of cultural shifts during the 1970s. Disco developed out of emerging dance club culture in New York City. Disco-rock resulted from the increased mainstream visibility of disco culture during the mid seventies, as well as rock musicians’ exposure to disco music. My thesis argues for the study of a genre (disco-rock) that has been dismissed as inauthentic and commercial, a trend common to popular music discourse, and one that is linked to previous debates regarding the social value of pop music. The result is a study that compiles the work of previous disco scholars and provides a first step towards the study of disco-rock within the social and musical culture of the 1970s. 1 INTRODUCTION The 1970s saw not only the growth of rock and the rise of disco, but a subgenre influenced by both. Disco-rock, composed of disco-influenced recordings by rock artists, was a sub-genre of both disco and rock in the 1970s. Seminal recordings included: David Bowie’s Young Americans; The Rolling Stones’ “Hot Stuff,” “Miss You,” “Dance Pt.1,” and “Emotional Rescue”; KISS’s “Strutter ’78,” and “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”; Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy“; and Elton John’s Thom Bell Sessions and Victim of Love. Though disco-rock was a great commercial success during the disco era, it has received limited acknowledgement in post-disco scholarship. There is a small but comprehensive body of literature available on the history and aesthetics of disco, and overview of these writings reveals that disco-rock is seldom praised and occasionally omitted from scholarship after 1980. The earliest important writings on disco are journalistic articles by Vince Aletti, a music critic who wrote for Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and Record World, where he penned a weekly column from 1974-79. Aletti’s writings include “Discotheque Rock ’73: Paaaaarty!” (1973) and “Dancing Madness” (1975), both written for Rolling Stone, as well as “I Won’t Dance, Don’t Ask Me” (1976) in The Village Voice. Other contemporaneous articles on disco include Barbara Graustark’s “Disco Takes Over” (1979) in Newsweek and Stephen Holden’s “The Evolution of a Dance Craze”(1979) in Rolling Stone. Disco-rock appears regularly in these articles after 1975 (when David Bowie’s Young Americans was released) and is met with little of the bias that marks the beginnings of disco scholarship. The dissenting voice of the era comes from Andrew Kopkind’s “The Dialectic of Disco: Gay Music Goes Straight” (1979) in The Village Voice, in 2 which a popular DJ discusses a divide between “gay” and “straight” forms of disco. This dichotomy would return in modified form to later scholarship. One of the first scholarly works to discuss disco was Arnold Shaw’s Black Popular Music in America (1986). Shaw provides a succinct but informative essay on the key artists and recordings of the genre during the mid to late 1970s. Unfortunately, he does not cite any recordings prior to Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby,” or the influence of Philadelphia soul. Shaw acknowledges the disco-rock recordings of the Rolling Stones and others, but dismisses their contributions as a passing fad.