Disco Files December 74 – Part One
January 9, 2019 — The show this week starts off with a slice of Canadian disco courtesy of Montrealer Gerry Bribosia's G.B and the Tracks project. He was also responsible for the Montreal Sound Christmas Disco Party record I played a couple of weeks back. But then I dive back into the Disco Files columns to bring you more of the fresh new music that was landing at the very end of 1974, including music from the Blackbyrds, Ultrafunk, Carl Douglas, Love Unlimited Orchestra, The Temptations, Return to Forever, and Ramsey Lewis.
Disco Files was a weekly column written by Vince Aletti that reported what club DJs in New York and across the US were playing that week, and, as a regular feature on this show, I'm tracking it week by week, exactly 45 years later. This is the first part of a two-part look at the final weeks of 1974.
The Ultrafunk cut is a 6 minute instrumental of their song Kung fu man, which is pressed—incredibly—on the B side of a 45. Kung fu movies were just starting to filter into mainstream western culture from Hong Kong in the early 70s, and you see a number of songs with that theme crop up, including Carl Douglas' Kung fu fighting. But Aletti and other DJs actually skipped that song, deeming it too commercial or gimmicky even then, and it was a different cut off the album that was gaining traction. That song was Blue eyed soul, produced by Indian-British producer Biddu, and it turned out to be the only Carl Douglas song that would chart on the Billboard disco charts, which is ironic, because it's an instrumental.
On another note, keep your eyes peeled for a new monthly disco party starting up in the next couple of months in Edmonton. More details to come.