How The Stonewall Riots + Gay Club Culture Set The Stage For Disco

Listen Here: https://ihr.fm/3eZ81zO

Today, iHeart's Speed Of Sound — the new podcast hosted by Grammy-Award winning Record Executive/Producer Steve Greenberg which immediately shot to #1 on the Apple Music Podcast chart when it debuted in July — begins its most ambitious series to-date: a massive 4-episode foray into the history of Disco.

As Steve notes, Disco began and ended with riots, 10 years apart, almost to the day —  the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 and Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in ‘79 — but its roots stretch back much further.  Here’s what we learned in Episode One, now available wherever you get your podcasts:

—How discotheques rose to prominence: from the very first clandestine dance club — ”La Discotheque” in Paris - where members of the French resistance met to dance to jazz music outlawed by the Nazis, to the inaugural use of a velvet rope at the entrance of the famous Arthur club in NYC, where  DJ Terry Noel popularized the use of two turntables so that the music never had to stop.

—How early DJs like David Mancuso, Francis Grasso and Nicky Siano helped establish the archetypical stylings and techniques of DJing, establishing signature sounds, extending grooves, avoiding the hits, and stringing together disparate records. Their innovations helped make DJs the stars of nightlife.

—How Philadelphia soul artists like MFSB and Eddie Kendricks established the dominant musical characteristics of disco: the long lengths, the four-on-the-floor pulse, the open hi-hat sound, and more. 

—How The Hughes Corporation’s “Rock The Boat” finally broke disco into the mainstream with version that bolstered the bass and drums to give it a distinctive sound that would resonate on dancefloors.  It was an immediate sensation that went to #1 in the US.

Future episodes will touch on the rise of remixes, “The Hustle,” Studio 54, Saturday Night Fever, Paradise Garage, and much more. Listen here: https://ihr.fm/3eZ81zO

On Speed Of Sound, Greenberg examines the unique historical circumstances, technological advances and trends that helped create some of music’s most remarkable and unlikely success stories. Greenberg has already discussed how “The Twist” blew up, how The Beatles broke America, how hip-hop first broke through to the mainstream, and how "Who Let The Dogs Out?" became an international phenomenon.  

Part two of the four-part disco series is out next Tuesday.