Say Anything About KC & The Sunshine Band

I used to use "Don't Stop..." as a floorstarter/filler cos how can you sit still to it? humbling moments: those times when even it won't work... I mean, how dead is your crowd then? how you gonna get them moving?

I got the CD issues of Do It Good and K.C. And The Sunshine Band, after outwearing the grooves of my vinyl copies as kids; and they're both brilliant albums. Do It Good has the best songs ("Do It Good", "Sound Your Funky Horn", "Queen Of Clubs", "Blow Your Whistle", "I'm A Pushover", and their best song ever "All My Love")..

But K.C. And The Sunshine Band is the better album.. both versions of "Let It Go" (sampled by Renegade Soundwave brilliantly on "Biting My Nails"), "Ain't Nothin' Wrong" (sampled by Digable Planets on "Where I'm From"), "I Get Lifted" (whose intro seems like an homage to the Zombies' "Time Of The Season"), "Boogie Shoes", "I'm So Crazy ('Bout You)" are great moments, but the sequencing is great here.. having the extra long version of the BIG HITS ("That's The Way"/"Get Down Tonight") back to back work well, although those songs are really boring compared to the rest of the album.

I couldn't ever get into Part 3 that much ("Shake Your Booty" is eh), and far less into the solo Casey stuff.. but I still swear by those first two albums.

Despite the rumors, i was actually a singular kid, not multiple... although I did have a swelled brain and was locked in the basement in a wheelchair by my seniors a lot. Thankfully I got to dance around a lot, contort my limbs into each other like playdoh, and shoot lazer beams around.

The thing most interesting about KC's and Rick's careers is how they stole the thunder from Clarence Reid and Willie Clark -- who were the cheif songwriters/producers for Henry Stone before them.

At the time, Rick was an engineer and KC worked in the warehouse. Henry just let them use the studio after hours, which is where "Rock Your Baby" came to life, and changed the direction of Miami (the Allman's once LIVED in that studio).

Also notable that Clarence Reid (aka Blowfly) hired The Oceanliners to play his wedding, which is when and where KC discovered Junkanoo...causing him to fuse it with the soul/funk they were previously working on.

That Junkanoo sound ran deep in the Miami sound during the 70's.

Keep in Comin' is still a fave of mine, by far.

for me anyway probably because I heard the KWS version first and the really sorta stark desperation of the original makes for very interesting contrast with the dance-pop cover.

From Do It Good (1974)
1.Do It Good
2.Sound Your Funky Horn
3.Queen Of Clubs
4.Blow Your Whistle
5.I'm A Pushover
6.You Don't Know
7.All My Love

From KC & The Sunshine Band (1975) (all of it)
8.Let It Go (Part One)
9.That's The Way (I Like It)
10.Get Down Tonight
11.Boogie Shoes
12.Ain't Nothin' Wrong
13.I'm So Crazy ('Bout You)
14.What Makes You Happy
15.I Get Lifted
16.Let It Go (Part Two)

From Part 3 (1976):
17.Wrap Your Arms Around Me
18.(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty
19.Keep It Comin' Love

Single edit from Who Do Ya (Love) (1978):
20.Do You Feel All Right (Single Edit)

From Do You Wanna Go Party (1979):
21.Please Don't Go

From KC's Space Cadet: Solo Flight (1980):
22.Do Me

From KC's KC Ten (1984):
23.Give It Up

I just bought two crucial albums (their self-titled and Part 3) and I am a happy camper all around. But I think the self-titled one is better and made me appreciate Part 3 more.

I didn't know he had a hit in 1980! That almost makes me feel like a musical virgin or something.

Brian, how do the CD reissues of those albums sound? The self-titled one is on eMusic, but it's a murky transfer.

Or Bimble, if those are what you bought.

Yeah I bought the self-titled one, and the Part 3 one.

It's great, it's fine, and the reason I bought them was because I didn't like the fact that my K-Tel compilation disco record could only go up so far on the volume scale before you realized this was 30 years ago and producers hadn't begun to learn to turn it up (which isn't necessarily a good thing, but never mind). CD's let you turn it up.

Can anyone translate the first post from Koganesque to English?

Back on topic, I'm pretty sure I haven't heard any KC&tSB since the Jock Jams era. If memory serves me right, they should probably be pretty cool.

By the way, get down tonight.

I don't like their 70s hits at all, but "Please Don't Go" and "Give It Up" are great.

No love for "I'm Your Boogie Man" ???

I feel bad for not having Do It Good, now. Must...stop...buying...CD's...

I saw them live and they were awesome. I remember exactly where I was when I first heard "Get Down Tonight" on the radio.

I wrote a tiny write-up about one of their reunion concerts for a weekly publication. An hour before we went to press, I realized that the concert wasn't until a month after we came out. I freaked out and wrote a surprisingly great Ted Nugent piece within twenty minutes, but it was too late.

In retrospect, it wasn't that big of a deal, but I was completely embarrassed then. That's a terribly boring thing to say about them, though.