MUSIC - WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING - DJ JOHN (TC) LUONGO
EXTRACT
Everyone appreciates disco for what they offer musically but in the past two years they have served an even greater value to the music industry and in particular to the artist themselves. It's no secret that the disco's are more advanced in the music they play in the radio stations and for that matter a much more likely to play music for its merits rather than to attract more advertising from a particular record company.
The unified power which the discotheques can offer in breaking records has been proven time and time again. What the discos do the best is to serve as an extended playlist for stations until such time as they can see fit to add certain songs. A case in point is the recent hit by "The Three Degrees", "When Will I See You Again" which catapulted them into national stardom but never would have been released had it not been for the steady play it and the rest of the one year old L. P. Called simply "The Three Degrees" received in the disco's.
Many of today's artist would have received no exposure had it not been for the disco followings. Names such as HUES Corp., George McRae, Love Unlimited, Ecstasy Passion and Pain, Creative Source, and even the inevitable Barry White all owe the popularity and national acceptance to the disco.
Even the true greats of music such as Herbie Mann, Donald Byrd, and Herbie Hancock have never seen such widespread acceptance of their musical abilities and would have never read the benefits had the disco impact not hit as it did.
The state of music today is a direct reflection back to crowded downs flaws, where artists of tomorrow receive an added chance to make their mark on the fudged 40 of today's stations.
When my partner and I, Warren Frank, were told we had to come up with the first cover of the Nightfall magazine. We racked our brains to come up with something that would be creative and funny and gets peoples attention.
One day Warren walked in the office with a gorilla suit, a pipe and a hat on and it just cracked he and I up so much that we thought this would be on the front of our cover as the audience grabber.
We put that photo on the first legitimate issue of the magazine and it showed the entire community that we were not monkeying around and simply wanted to change the face of dance music throughout New England and I am happy to say we did.