![]() ![]() Meanwhile, back in Paris, clubs are playing erotic tracks like Serge Gainsbourg’s Je T’Aime, Moi Non Plus and long, smooth tracks such as Isaac Hayes’s Walk On By.īy 1970, DJ David Mancuso and his Loft parties begin in New York, becoming a foreunner of many more private clubs to come. It is the era of the counter-culture, the dawning of the age of Aquarius and emancipation and freedom. Many disco sounds and sights also take inspiration from hippy culture elements such as psychedelia, free love, colourful clothing and drug-taking. Women seek to go out unchaperoned, get dressed up, spend their hard-earned wages and dance the night away to funk, latin and soul music. Disco also appeals to women, newly liberated by the pill and feminism now a topic of the modern workplace. In a decade of growing social fragmentation and lifestyle choices, the reaction against the dominant white rock music and culture in America champions the dance music scene of the jazz heyday. ![]() African American, lesbian and gay, psychedelic, Latino mix with hipster heterosexuals in the New York City and Philadelphia clubs during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Such clubs entertain and engage the growing confidence of marginalised groups at this time. It pioneers the Philly Sound that would become one of the most important elements of Disco music history. Jerry Butler’s Only The Strong Survive record is released. New York, 1969, and a club named The Contentinal Baths opens and the Sanctuary opens on West 43rd Street with now legendary DJ Francis Grasso. The club scene in Paris hots up with new clubs named Chez Castel and Chez Regine. Meanwhile over in Europe in 1966 records such as Hold Me Closer and Baby Come Back become hits and kickstart the Eurodisco scene. Other clubs such as Regine’s, Le Club, Shepheard’s, Cheetah, Ondine also open in the mid-1960s. It is 1965 and Arthur opens in New York City with DJ Terry Noel (the first DJ to mix records). In the UK, Roger Earle DJs at The Twisted Earle in Manchester UK, and creates the foundation of the Northern Soul scene (which would have a big impact on Disco). The Peppermint Lounge is witnessing the birth of go-go dancing. So now people are dancing frequently without a partner. By 1962 New York’s Peppermint Lounge becomes the hip place to be seen twisting the night away on your own or with a partner or two – anything goes. It is early 1960s, and Mark Birley opens a members-only discotheque nightclub, Annabel’s, in Berkeley Square, London. In 1950s London, the rock and roll hipsters prefer bars and taverns to nightclubs (the nightclub is not really mainstream here until the 1970s). ![]() Frequented by French and Italian immigrants, they cater to the very young who want to dance in the afternoon. Meanwhile in London, coffee bars in Soho become the trendiest places to be seen such as was Les Enfants Terribles at 93 Dean St. There is a dance-floor, coloured lights and no juke-box. The term ‘discotheque’ is used in Europe to describe clubs where there is no live music played.Later in Paris (1947) Paul Pacine opens the Whiskey A-Go-Go club – one of the first ever nightclubs.Īt Whiskey A-Go-Go in 1953 DJ Regine uses two turntables with no breaks between the music. Dancers wear zoot suits just like the swing dancers in America.ġ942 – La Discotheque, a basement nightclub with only one turntable opens in Paris. They dance to swing music played either on a juke box or on a single turntable. French Resistance groups meet at hidden underground dance clubs called ‘discotheques’. They are labelled as degenerate influences. In Occupied France, jazz and bebop music and the jitterbug dance are banned by the Nazis. Despite being a non-violent refusal of the dominant culture, the group is closed down by the SS (try the movie Swing Kids – 1993- to see the story). The Swing Kids are reacting against the growing Nazi movement (which saw jazz culture as a bad influence with it’s ethnic and international culture). They come together to dance and to show off their latest moves and jazz clothes. Spring 1939 – The Swing Kids are a small middle-class German youth movement dedicated to jazz and the flamboyant fashion that accompanies the music. This nightclub scene goes underground with Prohibition until 1933 when nightclubs become popularised again with the use of big bands and swing music. ![]()
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