Disco spun, shimmied and shone throughout the 1970s, but it had a dark side, and the artists
at the top of the charts would soon learn that not all that glitters are mirrored disco balls.
In the early 1970s, disco emerged from an urban subculture populated by marginalized
artists who were otherwise shut out of the mainstream, including Black and Latino people,
and the LGBTQ community. New York City DJs like David Mancuso created underground
clubs to showcase these artists and made arrangements with the police not to raid them.
Mancuso, known as one of the most influential figures in nightlife history,
threw epic underground parties every Saturday night at his apartment, known as the Loft.
"The Loft was a community. If you didn't have money,
as long as you had an invitation, you got in."
Influential sound system builder Alex Rosner remembered the Loft's underground vibe,
telling authors Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton in the book "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life,"
"It was probably about sixty percent Black and seventy percent gay. There was a mix
of sexual orientation, there was a mix of races."
This was a time when nightclubs were being raided and members of
the LGBTQ community were being openly abused and arrested by the police.
In the throes of the gay liberation and civil rights movements, people from all walks of life
gathered at house parties like Mancuso's before disco bled into the mainstream. And, as the
decade progressed, people who lived on society's margins began to come out and party in public.
The 1970s were also the height of the Disco Biscuit, also known as Quaaludes.
Ludes became a club favorite because they increased sexual arousal. What
was originally intended as a painkiller and sleep aid soon became known as a drug
that released inhibitions and had a euphoric effect when mixed with alcohol. Unfortunately,
this made it easy to take advantage of people while they were under the drug's spell.
"They can actually feel a sense of dissociative amnesia,
and what that means is essentially they may not be connected to reality."
By 1972, the drug became so popular, it created political panic.
Congress held hearings to debate whether Quaaludes should be classified as a Schedule II Controlled
Substance, and medical journals and the media began to report on the drug's dangers. But
if you think that's why the drug was banned by the Food and Drug Administration, think again.
Medically known as methaqualone, Quaaludes were outlawed in the
United States in 1982 because they were unprofitable. In 1981,
the chairman of the William H. Rorer pharmaceuticals company told the press,
"Quaaludes accounted for less than 2 percent
of our sales but created 98 percent of our headaches."
Not that making them illegal stopped people from taking them, of course.
Velvet ropes, doormen, VIP lists, and flashy DJs — these all started during the disco era. The most
infamous discotheque was undoubtedly Studio 54 in New York City, frequented by A-listers
like Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger. Speaking with CBS News, former owner Ian Schrager said,
"Studio was more than a discotheque. It was more than a night club. It was a cultural phenomenon."
"It was the first time that it felt like people
were non-judgemental. Everybody was fine with everybody else's culture."
The nightclub opened in 1977, and some truly crazy stuff happened there,
like the night they unleashed four tons of glitter onto the floor. Schrager said,
"You would see it in people's homes six months later,
and you knew they'd been at Studio 54 on New Year's."
But the fun and games would soon come to an end. In 1978, Studio 54 was raided by IRS agents for
drugs and tax evasion. It probably didn't help that, in an interview with New York magazine,
co-owner Steve Rubell made some unwise comments about the club's profits.
"Steve said, Only the Mafia does better, but don't tell anybody."
Apparently Studio 54 had paid only $8,000 in taxes in 1977. The feds found mass amounts of
Quaaludes and cocaine stored at the club. But owners Schrager and Rubell were taken off to
jail in style. Celebrities, including Jack Nicholson and model Gia Carangi,
joined the pair as they were serenaded by Liza Minnelli and Diana Ross for a proper bon voyage.
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter and his administration averted a drug
scandal that could have shaken his already rocky presidency. Carter's Chief of Staff,
Hamilton Jordan, was alleged to have been seen snorting cocaine in Studio 54 the year before,
although it may have been a setup orchestrated by the infamous conservative lawyer, Roy Cohn.
According to People Magazine in 1979,
"Not even Jordan's defenders denied his reputation as a partygoer."
One version of the story claimed Carter's Press Secretary, Jody Powell,
was with Jordan at the club. The FBI questioned them both, but they denied any wrongdoing.
"You saw, with your own eyes, Hamilton Jordan use cocaine."
"Yes."
So how did Roy Cohn enter into it?
Cohn had been hired by Studio 54's owners to help them with obstruction of justice and conspiracy
charges. When Cohn heard through the grapevine that Jordan and Powell had visited the club,
he saw an opportunity. He taped a statement from the dealer who allegedly sold drugs to
Jordan and tipped off the FBI, hoping to damage Carter's administration. Luckily for Jordan,
Powell, and President Carter, the cocaine allegations never led to an indictment.
In November 1980, disco superstar and Studio 54 regular Grace Jones was a guest on The Russell
Harty Show. During the broadcast, Grace was aggravated that Harty kept turning
away from her. Then she physically attacked him, whacking him on the shoulder, saying,
"Don't turn your back on me anymore." "I can't look at you."
"Now, hold, hold!"
"Don't!"
In Jones' memoir, she gives a bizarre, but on-brand explanation for her behavior.
The day before the show, she'd done a shoot in a location she described as:
"Piles and piles of bird s— dried up over patches of decaying wasteland."
As a result, her sinuses got infected, so when somebody offered her some, quote,
"really bad coke" to pep her up, she partook.
In Jones' defense, it's rude to turn your back on someone. Nevertheless,
it's a tad unfortunate that this clip is the first thing that comes up on YouTube when you
search the name of this larger-than-life glamazon. But that's show business.
During the disco era, members of the LGBTQ community finally
felt safe to meet up en masse and dance the night away. But
with this newfound freedom came the emergence of a horrifying disease.
"We have a disease here which is new. Which was not here a decade ago. And we have no cure."
HIV/AIDS would go unrecognized in the U.S. until 1983. But in 2016,
NBC News reported on a research study that concluded that HIV began to spread in New
York City around 1970. University of Arizona virus expert Michael Worobey told reporters,
"HIV had spread to a large number of people many years before AIDS was noticed."
The findings suggest that the virus spread from New York City to San Francisco around 1976.
Tragically, there was very little government support for those suffering from AIDS,
which became a stigma used to further discriminate against minorities. At the time,
HIV/AIDS disproportionately affected homosexual men, a tragedy that was
felt in the disco scene. In an article in Vice, journalist Steve Weinstein writes,
"Club culture inevitably affected and was affected by the epidemic. Often,
I was relieved to see people at the [clubs]; I had assumed they had died in the interim."
Freddie Mercury of Queen was a disco hero and gay icon of the '70s and '80s. But in 1987,
Mercury's HIV diagnosis saw the rock legend grow thin and feeble long before
he went public with his status in 1991, shortly before his death.
While the HIV epidemic was thought to be widely spread by the gay community,
everyone was vulnerable. Sharing needles or having unprotected sex with people
of any gender or sexual preference, but especially those with multiple partners,
were equally dangerous practices. Mercury was open about the scope of his sex life, saying,
"I'm doing everything with everybody."
Sadly, Mercury died before the development of
the antiretroviral treatment that could have helped him live longer.
Sylvester James, known simply as Sylvester, was an openly gay performer in the late '70s
and early '80s. He made a splash with the exotic drag ensembles and trademark falsetto voice that
made him a stand-out talent at the height of the disco era. When he was diagnosed as HIV-positive,
he made a conscious effort to educate the LGBTQ community about the virus,
particularly within the Black community. In interviews, Sylvester was open about
the fact that he was dying of AIDS. He lost his life to the virus in 1988.
Known as the "Queen of Disco," Sylvester's biggest hits include "Dance (Disco Heat),
"Body Strong," and the disco party anthem "You Make Me Feel
(Mighty Real)." All were dropped at the height of disco fever in the late 1970s.
Sylvester's biographer Joshua Gamson described Sylvester's music, saying,
"You've got the words of a person who is just matter-of-fact about their sexual desires,
about the freedom to do with their bodies and
their desires whatever they want to do, and you can dance to it!"
"He crossed over. He was a gender-fluid Black man in mainstream music."
While he died too young, Sylvester left a powerful, positive legacy. And he
requested that he be buried in a red kimono and matching lipstick — what's more disco than that?
Disco was at its peak in 1979. However, the anti-disco movement had also gathered steam and
would reach its boiling point in Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois on July 12 of that year.
The backlash, which had been steadily brewing for years,
came to a head in 1978. Shock-jock DJ Steve Dahl was fired when his radio
station began to play nothing but disco. He then coined the phrase, "Disco sucks!"
Next, Dahl orchestrated Disco Demolition Night.
Fans were asked to bring disco albums in exchange for cheap admission to a Detroit
Tigers/Chicago White Sox doubleheader. The event drew a crowd of about 48,000.
Darlene Jackson, who was 10 years old at the time,
remembers watching the event on television. In an interview with WBUR, she said,
"They got really, I would say, violent. It was so primal and tribal."
"A giant box full of disco records exploded, leaving a smoking crater
in the middle of center field, with records whizzing about like frisbees,
people stormed the playing surface, and the White Sox had to forfeit the game."
Many believe the anti-disco zealots were motivated by racism and homophobia. And as recently as 2019,
the Chicago White Sox actually commemorated the anniversary as a promotional event,
to much disgust. That night was the beginning of the end of disco.
At the time of Disco Demolition night, disco diva Gloria Gaynor was at the top
of the charts. The "I Will Survive" legend believed the event was a racially-charged
monetary decision set up by the record companies. By 1979, the American music
industry was undergoing its worst slump in decades, and disco was considered the culprit.
Gaynor, among other disco artists,
suspected rock music producers staged the demolition because they were losing money.
A representative for A&M Records was quoted by the Los Angeles Times saying,
"Radio is really desperate for rock product. [...] They're all looking for some white rock-n-roll."
Rock critic Dave Marsh told Today that he was appalled by the event saying,
"It was your most paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing
of the rock radio could ultimately lead. It was everything you had feared come to life."
Meanwhile, in an interview with the Independent, producer Nile Rodgers,
the guitarist of the disco band Chic who later became known for his work with Madonna,
likened the movement to Nazi book-burning, saying,
"This is America, the home of jazz
and rock and people were now afraid even to say the word 'disco.'"
After 1980, disco saw a sharp decline. Donna Summer and Michael Jackson songs
still populated the airwaves, but disco jams were now labeled "dance," "pop," or "electronic" music.
By the 1990s, the glittery hedonism of disco inspired a resurgence of nightclub
culture. Films like Boogie Nights, Last Days of Disco, and chart-toppers like
Pulp's "Disco 2000" proved '90s club culture was a direct descendant of the disco era.
But this mutated version of disco culture wasn't without its own tragedies. On March 18, 1996,
a deadly fire broke out at Ozone Disco in the Philippines, killing 162 out of 350 guests.
It was the worst fire in Philippines history and one of the worst blazes to ever hit a nightclub.
And then there was the drug-fueled 1996 killing of Andre 'Angel' Melendez by
Robert "Freeze" Riggs and Michael Alig, a New York City party promoter and Club
Kid. The crime shocked the city and many iconic nightclubs closed in its wake.