Last Dance-Lost In Music 1979: I Hear Music in The Streets by Sheldon Taylor

In 1979, the record industry rolls into its second straight year. Enormous studio bills drain label coffers and follow-ups to previous album blockbusters fall short of expectations and do little to reverse the financial slide. Floundering and out of step, large conglomerates fail to tap into a new consumer market pushing out the hippie macho posturing of arena rock in favor of punk music. Smaller boutique labels emerge to service this new college crowd tuned into eclectic proto-reggae punk acts like The Police.

Disco has officially bottomed out. Black music departments are dismantled. The heady days of the Black music executive have reached their zenith. Firmly entrenched in the corporate machine and focused on making adult-oriented music, they miss out on a brand new funk just a stone’s throw (or an uptown cab ride) from the CBS Black Rock building.

                                                                            
 

Across 110^th Street, mc/deejay culture brews in Black clubs like Broadway International, Charles Gallery and Club 371. This isn't trendy Xenon, Studio 54, or other downtown discos where superstar deejays  Bobby Guttardo, Tony Smith, Larry Levan and Nicky Siano hold court. This new music spills out of after-hours joints, schoolyards, and parks bouncing against the walls of project buildings.

Names like Eddie Cheeba, Pete DJ Jones, DJ Hollywood, Grandmaster Flash, and Kool Herc ring out loud and clear like a blast from a .38 Saturday night special. Throughout the five boroughs, there are many others. Over in Brooklyn, there's Maboya and Grandmaster Flowers. Out in Astoria and East Elmhurst, Nu Sounds, Dony Dancemaster, King Charles and the Disco Twins are rocking Queens. 

 Deejays have replaced bands. Two turntables are the weapon of choice. Elaborate Richard Long sound systems and custom made-speakers or equipment hastily pulled together from living rooms or accumulated from electronic stores piece by piece deliver choice sounds culled from obscure and dusty record collections. It was all about the break. 

Jams like MJ’s Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough or Bob James’ Westchester Lady were meant to be devoured in their entirety. In this deejay culture, the pulsating bassline intros on those songs were enough to keep the party going. The emcees were the charismatic frontmen (and women) who sang the praises of the deejay (and themselves) with vocal routines peppered with the latest slang or culled from melodies of hit records of the day and AM pop radio staples. Courtesy of crowd participation via call and response, audiences went from average spectators to active participants. Block parties and nightspots created eclectic playlists from funk, dance, rock, and soul records. Radio and club hits like MFSB’s Love Is The Message found new life as hood anthems. Funk-rock combo War's disco-nod Galaxy rocked the grown-and-sexy hard-bottom crowd. Captain Sky's Super Sporm and the John Davis Orchestra's I Can't Stop and the entire James Brown catalog resonated with the jeans and sneaker set.

                                                             

                                                                          

 Like a novice pianist intent on mastering the scales, budding deejays cut their teeth on Euro-joints like Cerrone's Rocket In The Pocket.

Obscure proto-funk workouts like Incredible Bongo Band’s Apache,  20^TH Century’s Heaven and Hell, and Herman Kelly's Dance To The Drummer's Beat became staples in every record crate. Disco and rock were notorious polar opposites above ground. 

Thanks to deejay essentials like El Coco’s Get It Together, Eastside Connection’s Frisco Disco, Billy Joel’s Stilletto, and Robin Trower’s The Big Beat, they coexisted as musical kindred spirits. These songs and others would work their way into Hip hop's greatest compositions.

                                                                                

Chic's Good Times changed everything. The record's bassline made it a hot joint for DJs to cut and emcees to rap over. The record's chorus ("These are the good times/a new state of mind") proved prophetic when Good Times anchors the arrival of Rapper's Delight on September 16, 1979 shaking hip hop loose from its underground status. Others records would follow. Forty years later Rapper's Delight still stands as the greatest rap record of all time.

                                                             

The national/ worldwide success of these seminal recordings catches rap's early stars and Black corporate executives off guard. Their indifference to making records and detachment from the streets could only be described as karmic. As the train leaves the station without its gatekeepers and conductors---Good Times' celebratory hook gives way to bitter irony: "A rumor has it that/it's getting late/time marches on/just can't wait".

The flood of rap records released between August 1979 and early '80 triggered industry reset buttons, returning to the rough-and-tumble indie days it left behind---a world of dubious sales accounting and fly-by-night record labels. Where street entrepreneurs, gangsters, and hustlers were the hood venture
capitalists funding labels, fronting artists, and funneling the music to clubs, radio, and retail.

As rap catches on over in Philly, sixty-year-old radio personality/promoter Jocko Henderson gets into the act. Back in the 50 and 60s, he was a precursor to the modern rapper---dropping slick lines in a smooth vocal style associated with radio jocks who influenced some of rap's first generation of emcees. Before Fly Jock Tom Joyner racked up frequent flier miles hosting radio shows in Dallas and Chicago in the Eighties, Henderson made the trek up and down I-95, hosting radio shows in Philly and New York at the same time. Fifty years before satellite and podcast radio, Henderson bought time from radio stations and broadcast his own shows from the den of his spacious Mt. Airy Home.

Jocko leases the rights to Ain't No Stoppin Us Now and drops Rhythm Talk. The record is a local smash and is one of the first five rap records ever recorded. It captures an international following and helps introduce Hip hop music to overseas audiences. Besides Jocko's old radio patter, Jocko's risque' rhymes (''You don't have to be a beauty queen/just know what to do with the radar beam") and materialistic product placement predate the subject matter in future rap songs.

                                                                        

  I got the fine vines/hangin' on the line/Gucci makes my boots/Oleg Cassini and Bill Blass stitch my three-piece suits/My underwear/let me make this clear is custom made to a T/Everything, baby      everything baby/looks so good on me.
                                                           ---Rhythm Talk (1979)

 

Enchanting beauty Wendy Clark, known by her righteous name of Bayaiaah--- hangs out at Kim Graves, a popular Philly nightclub frequented by local Black athletes like Sixers Darryl Dawkins and World B. Free. Kicking "toasters" on the mic and riding shotgun with Brooklyn-born Free, she soaks up Hip Hop's nascent culture on NYC road trips. Prompted to make a record, she emerges as Lady B, Philly's first female emcee/future hip hop ambassador dropping To The Beat Ya'll.

                                                                          FULL CIRCLE

In time, rap music would settle into its own self-definition and aesthetic. Back in ’79 though, the music takes its cues from R&B: Interplay between artist and audience. Funky tracks vocal chants and deliveries. The fly lover man come-ons of Spoonie Gee and Kurtis Blow’s masculine charisma evoked Teddy Pendergrass. The unified power (and apparel) of The Furious Five and the Treacherous Three echoed R&B funk bands. Atlantic Starr and Rose Royce's male-female dynamic were reincarnated in The Funky Four Plus One More. Together they were the foundation of many styles associated with many future rap stars.

                                                                             

                                                                                                 

 As the new decade surges forward, Black music once again is forced to adapt to the changing landscape. Groups like Earth Wind and Fire are no longer the trendsetters. Unlike rock peers settling into elder statesmen "classic" status, there is no extended life for R&B giants on AOR radio and MTV. They eventually disband. Unable to sustain financially or adapt to new styles, other bands follow suit. A rich tradition of communal musicianship is lost. A new British Invasion incorporating elements of soul music is just around the corner. 

Michael Jackson and Prince's corporate affiliations and commercial breakthroughs propel them to even greater heights while Rick James' one-man crusade against MTV's selective programming falls on deaf ears. His career slowly dissipates under a cloud of substance abuse. Androgynous and effeminate images retire Black masculinity in music. Talented female R&B singers unable to crossover pop success are regulated to second-tier status in the industry. Black artists are locked into their hit-making past and prematurely "Old School."

 Nearly a decade later, Hip Hop revives classic soul via sampling use of material that made 1979 an important year in Black music history.