On November 19, 1979 Sheila and B Devotion entered the U.K. singles charts with "Spacer", a Top 10 hit throughout Europe that would sell 5 million copies thanks in large part to the can't miss production of Chic's Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers. The duo would spend most of December producing Diana Ross' biggest selling album of her career, Diana, which would feature "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out".
Sheila was a popular ye-ye singer in the 1960's who scored a European Top 10 hit with the disco tune "Love Me Baby", sung in English and performed without shame years before Madonna would do the same. Her voice is of the generic breathless variety but that's hardly the point. Chic is going to outer space!
"Spacer" was ranked at number eight among the top "Tracks of the Year" for 1979 by NME.
In July of 1979, Chic's "Good Times" skyrocketed up the American and U.K.charts where it would peak at #1 and #5 respectively. What the record buying and disco dancing public probably never guessed is that the grooviest tune of the summer was a protest song. Nile Rodgers broke it down in an interview at Seattle's Experience Music Project ( now MoPop):
At the time that we wrote Good Times, the country was undergoing the worst economic depression that it's seen like the since the Great Depression, which is what they used to say, and people were furious with us for writing a song Good Times. And we used to look at people, and we were befuddled, and we went, What are you talking about? And we realized that we had done our job so effectively that all of our lyrics were shrouded in double-entendre because there was no way that I was ever just gonna write a song about partying and dancing. I mean, I'm a Black Panther, what are you talking about? And so it was always about compromise.
So when we wrote Good Times, what did we do? We went back to the Great Depression. Here's Good Times, the lyrics are [sings from "Good Times"], "Happy days are here again," which is directly [sings "Happy Days" from 1930s]: "Happy days are here again, the sky's na-na, let's get together, how about a quarter to ten? The stars are gonna twinkle and shine this evening about a quarter to nine."
I mean, this was all seriously thought-out stuff. We didn't just randomly write this. This was protest shrouded in double-entendre. I mean it was all of this stuff that had, as Bernard and I used to call it, DHM: deep hidden meaning.
If the song didn't have any DHM, we weren't putting it out! We, we would work on a song until it had a sufficient amount of DHM, and then we were cool with it.
If 1978 belonged to Bruce Springsteen ( Darkness, Patti Smith's "Because the Night", The Pointer Sisters' "Fire", some of Southside Johnny's Hearts of Stone), 1979 belonged to Chic ( "I Want Your Love", Risque, three Sister Sledge hits, "Rapper's Delight" and Sheila + B. Devotion's "Spacer").
On January 22, 1979 Sister Sledge released We Are Family, the third album for the then virtually unknown quartet of Philadelphia siblings. They got a whole lot of help from their RCA label mates. All of the songs were written by Chic masterminds Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers who once said "pound for pound, I think We Are Family is our best album hands down." That's despite the fact many of the songs were written before the Chic team ever met Sister Sledge.
The title track, sung in one take by 19 year old Kathy Sledge, is one of the most memorable songs of the 1970's, and can still liven up any wedding reception. The Pittsburgh Pirates made "We Are Family" their theme songs on the way to a 1979 World Series victory. The song topped the US R+B chart and peaked at #2 in the US pop chart.
The first single from the album was "He's the Greatest Dancer", my favorite on the album and one that might have charted higher than US #9 had Atlantic Records not released "We Are Family" right on its heels. Edwards and Rodgers wrote the song for their own band, but gave Sister Sledge the song. The production values are top notch, featuring some classic Rodgers guitar lines.
The critically acclaimed album sold in multi-platinum numbers. Rock critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ The disco disc features identical versions (at 8:06 and 6:04) of the two side-openers--the title track, a magnificent, soul-shouting sisterhood anthem that could set straight cheerleaders and militant lesbians dancing side by side, and "He's the Greatest Dancer," a seductive tribute to a fellow who gets to doff his designer clothes in the presence of countless panting women. (I wonder if I would have been so amused by the boy from New York City in 1965 if I'd known that in 1979 he'd be taken seriously.) All that's missing from the album is "Lost in Music," that one-in-a-hundred I-love-you-know-what song that illuminates its subject. Plus a couple of useless slow ones and some chic riffs. So the d.d. would be your buy--if you could buy it.
On August 11, 1978 Chic released its sophomore album, C'est Chic, their most popular album . And for good reason. It's home to "Le Freak", the biggest single in the history of Atlantic Records. And "I Want Your Love" is another huge hit. Listen carefully to just one instrument at a time and you'll learn a lot about what mad the best disco music irresistible. The guitar of Niles Rodgers, the Bernie Edwards bass and the drums of Tony Thompson could pack any disco floor in the world. The band would get one more album on the charts before the "Disco Sucks" backlash ran them out of the city.
In 1978 Robert Christgau, the self-appointed dean of rock critics, gave the album a B, writing :
The hooky cuts are more jingles than songs, the interludes more vamps than breaks, and I won't dance, so don't ask me. Well, maybe if you're really nice.
And from Billboard Magazine ( missing the obvious appeal of "I Want Your Love"):
Although "Le Freak," already a disco, soul and Top 40 hit, is the standout cut of the eight songs offered, the band proves it is able to work in styles other than disco. "Savoir Faire" features some nimble guitar work reminiscent of George Benson, and "At Last I'm Free" is a straightforward soul ballad. The rest is disco saved from being run-of-the-mill by the vocals of Alfa Anderson, Bernard Edwards, Diva Gray, Luci Martin, David Lasley and Luther Vandross. Best cuts: "Le Freak," "Happy Man," "Chic Cheer," "Savoir Faire."
