Gary's Gang | |
---|---|
Origin | Queens, New York, U.S. |
Genres | Rock, [1] disco, [2] pop [3] [4] |
Years active | 1977–1985 |
Labels | SAM/Columbia Radar |
Past members | Gary Turnier Eric Matthew Bob Forman Jay Leon Al Lauricella Bill Catalano |
Gary's Gang was an American R&B/pop rock group best known for the U.S. hit "Keep on Dancin'", which reached #41 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978. The song also climbed to #8 in the UK Singles Chart, [5] #14 on the Hot Soul Singles chart in 1978 and also made #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, as did two of the group's other songs, "Do It at the Disco" and "Let's Lovedance Tonight". [6] The latter was later used as the sampling background track to Soulsearcher's 1999 #20 Dance Club Play hit, "Can't Get Enough".
The group, based in Queens, New York, consisted of Gary Turnier, Eric Matthew aka Joseph Tucci, Al Lauricella, Rino Minetti, Bill Catalano, Bob Forman and Jay Leon. [7]
In the 1980s, Gary's Gang enjoyed further U.S. and European success with the 1982 single "Knock Me Out" (#45 UK) [8] and the 1983 hit "Makin' Music", which reached #8 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart. [6] Brian Chin of Billboard described "Knock Me Out" as "midtempoed and very pop, it shares much of the soft-edged production styling and doowoppish vocals of the group's earlier work". [3]
Year | Album | Label | Peak chart positions | |
---|---|---|---|---|
US [9] | US R&B [9] | |||
1979 | Keep On Dancin' | Columbia | 42 | 27 |
Gangbusters | — | — | ||
"—" denotes releases that did not chart. |
Year | Song | Peak chart positions | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Dance [6] | US R&B [6] | US Pop [6] | UK [8] | ||
1978 | "Keep On Dancin' / Do It at the Disco" | 1 | 15 | 41 | 8 |
1979 | "Do Ya' Wanna Go Dancin'" | 54 | — | ― | ― |
"Showtime / Rock Around the Clock" | ― | ― | ― | ― | |
"Let's Lovedance Tonight" | 1 | — | ― | 49 | |
"Spirits" | — | — | ― | — | |
1982 | "Knock Me Out" | 25 | — | ― | 45 |
1983 | "Makin' Music" | 8 | — | — | 94 |
1984 | "Runaway" | ― | — | — | ― |
1990 | "Keep On Dancin' 1990" | ― | — | ― | 98 |
"—" denotes releases that did not chart. |
Dance Club Songs was a chart published weekly between 1976 and 2020 by Billboard magazine. It used club disc jockeys set lists to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the United States.
T-Connection was a funk and disco group from Nassau, the Bahamas, who scored two hits on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1977 and 1979. They did better on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, where they had five Top 10 hits, including "Do What You Wanna Do", which reached #1, and "Everything Is Cool", which peaked at #10 on the US Billboard R&B chart. In the United Kingdom, they scored five entries in the UK Singles Chart, with "Do What You Wanna Do" their highest placed success at #11.
Karen Young was an American disco singer known for her 1978 hit song "Hot Shot".
Gino Soccio is a Canadian disco record producer based in Montreal. His only US Billboard Hot 100 entry was the #48 hit single "Dancer" in 1979, but he did hit #1 on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart twice. "Dancer" peaked at #46 in the UK Singles Chart in May 1979. Soccio's third biggest hit, "It's Alright" / "Look at Yourself", from his album, Face to Face, reached #2 for 5 weeks also on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. "Turn It Around" was released only as a single in 1984.
Loleatta Holloway was an American singer known for disco songs such as "Hit and Run" and "Love Sensation". In December 2016, Billboard named her the 95th-most successful dance artist of all time. According to the Independent, Holloway is the most sampled female singer in popular music, used in house and dance tracks such as the 1989 Black Box single "Ride on Time".
Fantasy is an urban pop vocal group based in New York City who scored several hits on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, including "You're Too Late", which hit number one in 1981.
Chéri was a Canadian female dance music duo from Montreal, consisting of American Rosalind Milligan Hunt and Canadian Lise Cullerier. They had one Billboard top 40 hit, "Murphy's Law", in 1982.
Sinnamon was an American female R&B vocal trio, consisting of Connecticut natives Barbara Fowler, Marsha Carter, and Melissa Bell from New York City. The group went through an abrupt development from a minimalist contemporary R&B sound of post-disco which was dropped after a third release, moving towards mild freestyle and radio-friendly house music but still preserving their R&B affiliation. Bell is currently a writer, living in New York City.
Claudja Barry is a Jamaican-born Canadian singer. Her successful songs were "Down and Counting", "Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes", "Dancing Fever", and others. As an actress, she is known for appearing in the European versions of stage musicals AC/DC and Catch My Soul.
Jonathan "Johnny" Kemp was a Bahamian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a songwriter in late 1979 and is perhaps best known for his solo work, including his single "Just Got Paid" (1988), which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 1989.
Voyage was a French disco and pop group, consisting of André "Slim" Pezin (guitar/vocals), Marc Chantereau (keyboards/vocals), Pierre-Alain Dahan (drums/vocals) and Sauveur Mallia (bass), together with British lead vocalist Sylvia Mason-James, who sang on the group's first two albums, Voyage (1977) and Fly Away (1978).
"Turn the Beat Around" is a disco song written by Gerald Jackson and Peter Jackson, and performed by American actress and singer Vicki Sue Robinson in 1976, originally appearing on her debut album, Never Gonna Let You Go (1976). Released as a single, the song went to #10 on the Billboard pop charts, and #73 on the Billboard soul chart. The song earned Robinson a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The track also went to number one on the Billboard disco chart for four weeks. "Turn the Beat Around" is considered a disco classic and is featured on many compilation albums.
Biddu Appaiah is a British-Indian singer-songwriter, composer, and music producer who composed and produced many worldwide hit records during a career spanning five decades. Considered one of the pioneers of disco, Euro disco, and Indian pop, he has sold millions of records worldwide, and has received an Ivor Novello award for his work. He has been ranked at number 34 on NME's "The 50 Greatest Producers Ever" list.
The discography of American rhythm and blues singer Diana Ross, the former lead singer of the Supremes, consists of 26 studio albums and 116 singles. Throughout her career, Ross has sold over 100 million records worldwide. Billboard ranked her as the 47th Greatest Artist of all time and the 11th Greatest Hot 100 Female Artist of all time. In 1993, Guinness World Records crowned Ross as the "most successful female artist in music history". Her 11th studio album "Diana" remains the best-selling album of her career, selling more than 10 million copies and album equivalent units around the world.
"Be Near Me" is a song by English pop band ABC. It was released in April 1985 as the second single from their third studio album, How to Be a ... Zillionaire!. It peaked at No. 26 on the UK Singles Chart in 1985, and was the only single from the album to reach the UK top 40. It was more successful in the United States where it reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also went to number-one on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart in September of that year, remaining on top for two weeks.
Hamilton Frederick Bohannon, often credited and known professionally simply as Bohannon, was an American drummer, percussionist, band leader, songwriter, arranger, and record producer, who was one of the leading figures in 1970s funk and disco music. He worked with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, Wah Wah Watson, Ray Parker Jr., the Counts and Carolyn Crawford.
"Don't Leave Me This Way" is a song written by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff and Cary Gilbert. It was originally released in 1975 by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass, an act signed to Gamble & Huff's Philadelphia International label. "Don't Leave Me This Way" was subsequently covered by American singer Thelma Houston in 1976 and British duo the Communards in 1986, with both versions achieving commercial success.
"You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" is a 1978 song by American disco/R&B singer Sylvester. It was written by James Wirrick and Sylvester, and released by Fantasy Records as the second single from the singer's fourth album, Step II (1978). The song was already a largely popular dance club hit in late 1978, as the B-side of his previous single "Dance (Disco Heat)", before it was officially being released in December. It rose to the number one position on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. Music critic Robert Christgau has said the song is "one of those surges of sustained, stylized energy that is disco's great gift to pop music".
"Keep On Dancin'" is the debut single by Gary's Gang, a disco group from Queens, New York. The song became successful in several countries in 1979.
Vicky "D" was a short-lived New York City-based post-disco/garage house group best known for their club hit "This Beat Is Mine". Released in late 1981, the song peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Club Play Singles chart in February 1982, and peaked at number 42 on the UK Singles Chart in March 1982.