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I wonder how many of you would be surprised to know that I was a big disco fan?* I’m talking in-the-era, mid-to-late ’70’s sequin-suits Dance Fever disco. I came by it honestly, being a formative and music-hungry adolescent at a time when my only available airwaves were awash in the AM stylings of Diana Ross, Tavares, Donna Summer, Captain & Tennille and similar hi-hat hit paraders. Oh, the cassettes I owned!
So it was that I was more than nostalgically pleased with the closing night of the 2006 instalment of the Ottawa Bluesfest (on July 16th), when the mainstage was taken over by a string from megastars of the roller skate spin cycle, a Vegas-style melange of 70’s eighth-note masters, a virtual who’s who of where-are-they-now’s in the form of Sister Sledge (We Are Family), Tavares (More Than a Woman), Gloria Gaynor (I Will Survive), and KC & the Sunshine Band (do I really have to list songs by KC & the Sunshine Band? Everyone knows KC & the Sunshine Band, right? C’mon, they did That’s the Way (I Like It), Boogie Shoes, Get Down Tonight, Please Don’t Go, I’m Your Boogieman, Keep It Comin’ Love, (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty, and so, so many more…damn, I did it…).
Of course all the acts did their signature tunes and for all the criticism the Bluesfest received for booking such a non-blues revue for their closing night everyone seemed to really like it, myself included. When I wasn’t mumbling half-remembered lyrics and shaking my booty whilst biting my bottom lip I was concentrating on the bass player, who must have just loved having such a gig. Overall it was a great opportunity to have a fun time grooving to some solid retro music on a warm summer’s eve with good friends.
It was obviously a pretty big night because the Bluesfest booked basically the same thing the following year, when the final night of the festival featured A Taste of Honey, The Village People, and Peaches & Herb.
(Oh, before the discorama I also saw The Kentucky Headhunters. I liked ‘em. They were more raunch than twang and much ballsier than I was expecting. Good band.)
*Even more surprising – if admittedly unconnected whatsoever to these stories – is the fact that I spent a good year and-a-half of my formative years practising as a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian. It started when I met a girl at an all-nite roller skating event. I was much too full of myself to notice that it was a Christian event replete with nothing but Christian rock music, but one way or the other I started hanging out with Lori whenever I could. This, despite the fact that she was (at age 17) engaged to another Christian, who happened to be a professional jazz saxophone player.
One thing led to another – which in the hands of a headstrong, rambunctious, and independent 16-year-old can be quite drastic – and I moved in with her family, which meant giving up all television, all music and books that weren’t officially Christian, and going to church four times a week (yes, there are some pretty good Christian rock bands out there. Authors…not so much). Oh, how I thrived! I decided that I would become a faith healer and I started working quite steadfastly towards it (seriously), but you know, the thing that finally pulled me away from the church was the musical limitations (and the insurmountable leaping of faith I suppose). I remember hearing Xanadu by Rush after not having heard a Rush song in at least a year and I tell you, that music spoke to me just as loudly, just as strongly as Jesus did. I was flooded with joy. I realized that despite what my youth leaders had been telling me there was nothing inherently wrong with rock music. Quite the opposite actually: there was something unearthly right about it, and I wasn’t about to become chaste to such glories.
I was initially quite concerned that I was going to go to hell because of my musical heathenship, but eventually it occurred to me that if there was indeed a God then he could clearly see into my heart, and there was simply no way my heart could hide my love, my devotion, and my unadulterated reverence for music as a whole and that hiding my worship of the sonic beast was impossible, so I just decided to stop worrying about it.
Then I did an undergrad degree in the study of religion and was exposed to enough facts, history, opinions, and information to remain healthily skeptical.
In religion of course, not music (God forbid).
Oh, and I never got the girl. Even after all that.
Todd Man Out 