The Birth of Disco

"No one agrees on what the first disco record was. Shapiro votes for two Motown records from 1972-'73, Eddie Kendricks' "Girl You Need a Change of Mind" and the Temptations' "Law of the Land." Lawrence advocates for "Soul Makossa," by Manu Dibango and Isaac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft." (I'd argue for the much earlier "Band of Gold" by Freda Payne and Marvin Gaye's cover of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine.")

What Shapiro can state for sure is that a distinct sound began to emerge from these clubs that combined the heavy bass of Motown, the percussion of rock, the syncopation of Tin Pan Alley and hi-hat hissing from the new synthetic music machines.

One of the many revelations in this book is Shapiro's insistence of the primacy of 4/4 time. He shows how nearly all disco songs imitate marches, albeit at much faster b.p.m.'s (beats-per-minute).

In a larger context, he shows how New York's woes contributed to the emergence of disco. The city in the '70s was a broken-down mess, with the Bronx burning, the government broke and garbage and crime everywhere.

It was precisely that crucible of crumminess, however, that provided the subtext for a subculture built on hell-bent hedonism and coke-fueled all-night danceathons. "