Dancehalls, Glitterballs and DJs - From the Pleasure Garden to the Discotheque - Bruce Lindsay
Disco Britannia!
Dancehalls, Glitterballs and DJs - From the Pleasure Garden to the Discotheque - Bruce Lindsay
Bruce Lindsay [+]
Music Journalist and Social Historian
Description
Disco music, a discrete genre of music drawing inspiration from soul, funk, R&B, pop and more, arrived in the early to mid-1970s when there were a claimed 35,000 DJs working in Britain. The debate about the first disco record – as a discernible genre of music, not merely as a record popular in discos – still rages, with one of the only points of agreement being that it came from the United States. Identifying the first disco record to come from the British scene is equally contentious, but it’s clear that producers, songwriters and performers based in the UK brought home-grown disco music to the clubs and turned British disco music into a globally-successful business. They include Biddu, Tina Charles, The Real Thing, Heatwave and others: some who carved long-term careers out of the disco scene, others who shot to fame with one dancefloor hit before disappearing once more.