The Fever Intensifies
1977 was a tremendous year of growth and expansion for the Disco community. The year was bracketed by the release of 2 movies that depict the underground culture of New York City clubs. The first film is fueled by lingering fears in the mainstream public about the Disco underground. The second celebrates Disco and would lead to a brief period of Disco dominating popular culture.
Looking For Mr. Goodbar, released on January 7, 1977, depicted a seedy, depraved world of bars and nightclubs set to the beat of such Disco classics as Thelma Houston's towering Dont Leave Me This Way. Saturday Night Fever, released on December 16, 1977, celebrated the Disco as a place where an ordinary working class man could become a hero simply by demonstrating superior dance skills. In the course of a year Disco would evolve from a popular music phenomenon still strongly identified with decadent behavior and morality to the dominant force in popular music.
The opening of the club Studio 54 and meteoric rise of the Casablanca record label contributed to increasing fascination with the Disco world among the mainstream public. Studio 54 and the events taking place there demonstrated an embrace of club culture by the most stylish and powerful members of the celebrity elite. Casablanca Records rose from nothing to become a key trendsetting Disco label.
Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, former operators of Enchanted Garden, opened Studio 54 on April 26, 1977. The first few nights were relatively slow but, following a birthday bash for Bianca Jagger on May 2 that featured Bianca riding onto the floor on a white horse amidst thousands of white balloons and legendary DJ Nicky Siano spinning the records, Studio 54 soon became the epicenter of New York celebrity. Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol, Woody Allen, Elizabeth Taylor and even a young Michael Jackson were counted among the visitors to this Disco monument. Studio 54 would eventually become notorious for tax evasion and being awash in a sea of drugs, but for the remainder of 1977 it was a very visible marker for the cultural ascent of Disco.
Neil Bogart, with background working for MGM and Buddah Records, formed Casablanca Records in 1974 with financial backing from Warner Brothers. Initial releases, including music by the rock band Kiss, sold poorly and the link with Warner Brothers was soon severed. Then lightning struck for Casablanca. Neil Bogart was introduced to Giorgio Moroder's work with Donna Summer and eventually licensed Love To Love You Baby for release in the U.S. in 1975. After generating buzz through clubs and private parties, the release of an album was a massive success and Casablanca Records was on its way.
Casablanca adopted Moroder's mechanized beat-heavy as a signature sound for the label's approach to Disco. In 1977 Casablanca consolidated its dominance of the sound soon to be known as Eurodisco. I Feel Love by Donna Summer, produced by Giorgio Moroder, is the epitome of the heavy bass and electronic textures of Eurodisco. Among Casablanca's similarly styled successes were Heart and Soul Orchestra's version of Love In C Minor and Love and Kisses' I've Found Love. The release late in the year of the first album by the Village People celebrating iconic gay communities such as those in San Francisco and on Fire Island only served to solidify Casablanca's dominance of the Disco market.
The release of the film Saturday Night Fever at the end of 1977 would begin the final push of Disco into dominance of popular music as a whole. This period would be short-lived. The inevitable backlash came later and neither Studio 54 nor Casablanca Records would survive. The sound of Disco, however, would survive and evolve to remain vibrant and relevant decades later.