Friday, June 24, 2011

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-KC & The Sunshine Band

Artist:KC & The Sunshine Band
Song:Get Down Tonight
Album:The Best Of KC & The Sunshine Band





KC & The Sunshine Band were one of the most popular bands of the 70s. My guess is many music fans don't look at them too fondly today. But you did listen to them back then. Get Down Tonight was the first of their five number one hits in 1975. My only problem with them is Harry Wayne Casey's mediocre vocals. He was an aspiring musician and record store employee and made frequent visits to TK Records in Miami. Eventually he was hired to work in the TK warehouse. He met TK audio engineer Richard Finch and they started working together. One of their demos was the George McCrae hit Rock Your Baby and it was at this point they became a serious band. A key addition to KC & The Sunshine Band was TK session guitarist Jerome Smith. Their first few singles did OK. But Get Down Tonight was their breakthrough hit and their first number one hit in 1975. The album KC & The Sunshine Band reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 200 and was certified 3XPlatinum. Casey and Finch wrote Get Down Tonight and most of their other songs. Finch says he got the idea for Get Down Tonight from the Gilbert O'Sullivan song Get Down. He liked the title but he didn't know that O'Sullivan wrote it about his dog. Other number one hits were That's The Way (I Like It), Shake Your Booty, I'm Your Boogie Man and Please Don't Go. And you can get them all on this Rhino budget comp. With the late 70s rise of New Wave music, Disco had faded and so did KC & The Sunshine Band. TK Records went bankrupt in 1980 and the band signed with Epic Records. That didn't work out and Casey and Finch split up. They both retired from music but Casey returned in the 90s and still leads KC & The Sunshine Band today. Here's KC & The Sunshine Band performing Get Down Tonight on The Midnight Special 1977.

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