Lasers, Light Shows and Roller Skates

Sylvester : You Make Me Feel Mighty Real (radio version)

[Purchase]

On January 16, 1979 readers of Billboard Magazine learned "a growing number of affluent, single playboy types are turning the bedrooms of their plush co-op apartments and homes into mini-discos, according to Jack Ransom, head of MGM Stage Equipment, one of the leading suppliers of disco lighting equipment in the country."

The art of seduction circa 1979 begins with a fancy $10,000-$20,000 light show, as well as the pulse pounding sounds of disco music. Ransom says the equipment is especially popular in the oil rich Middle East and in South America. 

Why private discos? Ransom has a theory:

Part of it is snobbism but for the most part they are being ordered by people in the public's eye, who love to party but want to enjoy themselves without being constantly oggled,  photographed or written about.

Disco was a worldwide phenomenon in 1979. This three minute Australian news story,  which focuses some of its time on roller disco, is well worth your time.

Flipping over to the Hot 100 charts , Billboard readers discovered  Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" debuting at US#85. Born in Watts, Sylvester James pushed social boundaries with gender-bending performances, his openly gay lifestyle, and his belief that gender was a choice. He had sung with a group of black cross dressers and trans women in L.A. before moving to San Francisco. He became the "Queen of Disco" thanks to this early electronic dance music classic, produced by Patrick Cowley, which had already peaked at U.K. #8 and would break into the US Top 40 in February of 1979.

This same week, Herbie Mann's "Superman" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at US#90. It would peak at #26 in April.