Another hard-partying buddy was Guy Burgos. He was handsome with slicked-back hair and was always impeccably dressed. He was a South American socialite and the ex-husband of a niece of Winston Churchill, Lady Sarah Spencer-Churchill. As Lady Sarah liked to tell it, she was newly divorced and breaking out of her conventional life as a housewife and mother in her early forties when she met Guy Burgos, twenty years her junior. “It was our first date and Guy made love to me not once but five times—at the door, on the stair, in the drawing room, etc. in the first half hour.” She said the experience was an awakening, and it changed her life forever. Their marriage ended after only nine months, with Sara filing for divorce after she caught Guy in Capri cheating on her with another man. Guy was always up for anything, with a big smile and his charming Latin accent. Nothing was too outrageous. He knew everybody from the Rio/Punta del Este/South American crowd to the chic Europeans. He could party nonstop for days and loved massive amounts of cocaine and champagne—we really got into some shit.
Any night spent with my wild friend, Prince Egon von Fürstenberg, was always full of surprises. He was a direct descendant of German/Italian royalty from the Hapsburg family on his father’s side and the Agnelli Family (Fiat) on his mother’s. Egon was baptized by the future Pope John XXIII. He must have truly loved fashion, because he did not need to work and earn money, yet he worked as a buyer for Macy’s and attended classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology at night. He married the Belgian-born Diane Halfin, daughter of a Holocaust survivor. His family didn’t approve of the marriage, as Diane was Jewish and pregnant. She kept his last name after the divorce and, at his urging, opened her own fashion house and went on to become the designer Diane von Fürstenberg, creator of the “Wrap Dress.” She married Barry Diller in 2000. Egon was bisexual and the ultimate party person. He knew everyone, always had a beautiful woman (or man) on his arm, and was always smiling, laughing, and telling jokes in five different languages. On the occasions that I would leave Studio and make the scene at other clubs, I would frequently go with Egon, Guy, and Gustavo. We might do Regine’s or, if it was close to closing time at Studio, we’d venture downtown to a party in some abandoned building. But one thing is for certain—I’d be fucked up on a shitload of alcohol and exotic drugs, laughing my ass off.
One night, Gustavo handed me what he said was a very special joint. I lit it with a match and took my first hit. It was Angel Dust and it blew my mind. I felt invincible and experienced a level of euphoria well beyond anything I got from cocaine, yet I could still function. It was fucking incredible. I urinated from the balcony off Studio’s five-story fire escape into the courtyard, with Guy and a crowd cheering me on.
After that, Angel Dust became the star of my show and my drug of choice, with an endless supply of cocaine and Quaaludes waiting in the wings.
Chapter Seventeen:
Bono and Bowie on Elvis
By the end of the 1970s, pop culture had decided “Disco Sucks.” It was declared dead in a crazy vinyl record burning, public relations stunt promoted by radio DJ Steve Dahl in Chicago’s Comiskey Park during a doubleheader between the White Sox and the Detroit Tigers in July of 1979. The time for disco-driven music and arrangements supporting the four-on-the-floor and eight-on-the-hi-hat sound was over. No longer would it dominate the radio station playlists and the focus of record companies.
But I knew that Studio 54 was not a disco. It was a venue for dancing, a dance club, a dance hall, call it what you will—but to me it was another version of Small’s Paradise, a place where I had become acutely aware at a very young age that extraordinary things can happen on a dance floor. Dancing has the power to break down barriers and bring people together. When you strip it down of any formalities, dancing is the basic act of moving rhythmically to a beat or music. It is primal, spiritual, and tribal. If you’ve ever really gotten into a beat, you know what I mean. If you haven’t—it’s never too late. When people dance for hours on end they often go into a trancelike state that encourages a sense of community with the other dancers. Particularly so when enhanced by alcohol and drugs. I felt it at Small’s and I felt it in Brazil. There is something about doing the same thing at the same time with other people that forges a bond. Military drills apply this theory, with repetitive chants, a cadence, which is repeated over and over in step with marching troops, something I saw a lot of while at Officer Candidate School in the navy. It’s a high of the highest order because it fosters group affiliation: we come to think of the group as part of us.
Throughout history, civilizations have participated in dancing, from the whole-body convulsions of African dance to the stiff posture of Irish jigs, and we all appreciate the sensual hip action and sexy flair of Latin dance. Some cultures promote dancing as part of their religious observance while others use dance to communicate within courtship and mating rituals. Some men dance to show strength and fearlessness, to intimidate—like New Zealand’s rugby team, “All Blacks,” when they perform a Haka, the Maori challenge, before each match. Unforgettable are my nights dancing with wild abandon at Le Jardin in the mid-1970s where Truman Capote could be found seated in one of the rattan fan chairs in back by the mirrors holding court next to the dance floor watching the boys—and the few females granted entry—dancing for joy to some of the best dance music ever recorded. Dancing oneself into frenetic ecstasy has been going on for centuries throughout the world. The Haitian people participate in Voodoo dances and the Brazilian people have Macumba. I still remember the heavy bass, rhythm, and unity on the dance floor of my youth, at Small’s Paradise, where my mind was transported into an altered state just as it would years later in Brazil.
Many of the rhythms that Brazil celebrates today originated in the 1550s when African slaves were imported to Brazil. They were permitted to summon their gods by playing drums and this new sound in percussion combined with the existing rhythms of Brazil—and thus the Samba, the rhythm of the saints, was born. I have returned to Brazil on a number of occasions, and I always find myself drawn to the trancelike state inspired by the continuous rhythm of the Samba bands and Batucadas. In America, many slave owners refused the slaves their drums, believing the instrument to be a tool of communication that could be used against them in an uprising. Fortunately, the percussion and rhythms of American slaves survived, then mated with our existing American rhythms, adding to it the music configurations from Eastern European Klezmer music (sometimes called Yiddish jazz) and then borrowed from some of America’s other cultural influences, and BOOM this glorious mash-up gave us the Jazz Age and the Birth of the Blues.
The Hebrew people have a long and rich tradition of spiritual release through dance as well, dating back to King David’s ecstatic dance before the Ark of the Covenant as it was being carried into Jerusalem in 875 BCE. A kind of circle dance is still practiced in Hasidic Jewish communities today, where the Rabbi will dance on his own within a circle formed by a group, creating new movements for the circle to pick up and integrate into their dance. As a child, my father occasionally took me to synagogues in Brooklyn and I watched the men dancing for hours, often stimulated by wine or schnapps. Now, years later, I still remember the energy.
In the 1950s I was listening to Perry Como on the radio one minute, and the next minute I went WILD—feeling the rhythm in my soul of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, Bill Haley and His Comets, and Elvis Presley. Alan Freed played all this great new music on his radio program. It made me wild—it moved me—it changed the way we danced and dressed and felt about music. Freed gave this new sound a name—rock and roll—and he hosted hops at The Brooklyn Paramount Theater for teens like me to see and hear it. He played all the stuff that many white radio DJs either couldn’t or wouldn’t play because it was “race music”—as it was referred to in the 1950s. Parents, teachers, churches, and public officials referred to it as the devil’s music, presumably because it was mixed with black music which many white people were prejudiced against at the time.
And then it became too big to ignore.
It all exploded in the form of Elvis Presley—a hip-shaking, hot, handsome white boy. U2’s Bono summed it up best when describing the effect Elvis had on the world: “Elvis Presley was the ‘Big Bang’ of rock and roll. It all came from there and what you had in Elvis Presley is a very interesting moment because, really, to be pretentious about it for a minute, you had two cultures colliding. You had the white, European culture and an African culture coming together—the rhythm of black music and the melody chord progressions of white music—coming together. That was the moment. That’s really it. Out of all that came The Beatles and The Stones, you can’t underestimate what happened. It all goes back to Elvis.”
One night, David Bowie was hanging in my office and said: “The first time I heard ‘Tutti Fruiti’ by Elvis, I knew I’d heard God.”
Elvis was a white boy possessed by black music, a fact of huge importance. Through his music, Elvis exposed America’s sheltered young white teenagers to black American culture. The boundaries between blacks and whites were now challenged.
That was the sound that changed music history and then came the move that changed dance history, the most liberating of all moves—the twist. It set a revolution in motion and paved the way for disco.
Traditionally, people in America danced together in very specific choreographed movements of dance—a man and a woman, holding and facing each other, the man leading and the woman following. The twist changed all that, with repercussions felt way beyond the dance floor. A woman was now free to move to her own beat. She was no longer required to follow a man or to be led by a partner. It was very liberating, and however insignificant it may appear to be today, trust me, it helped to crack open the door to the women’s movement and sexual liberation.
David Mancuso was the pioneering spirit, DJ, and owner of the world famous Loft in Manhattan. Carmen D’Alessio was an early devotee of The Loft. David believed the twist was introduced at rent parties in Harlem. Rent parties were gatherings for people to pool their resources to help a friend. People brought food and music was provided by a record player or musicians donating their time and talent. The host charged admission and the money collected was then donated to a friend in need of money to pay their rent. Some of these parties were real happenings where the music and dancing was wild and innovative. But more than that, it fostered a strong feeling of community, family, and support. Eldridge Cleaver, member of the Black Panther Party, agreed with David because he is often quoted as saying, “The twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto, right to the very heart of suburbia.”
Frankie Crocker explained it to me this way: “The twist was a form of African American dance that exploded into pop culture consciousness because it was so easy for white people to do. You know that specific hip and pelvic movement like drying yourself off with a towel—and then the ball of the foot putting out a cigarette movement? Well that definitely can be traced to the black community, back many years to slave plantations, and further back to Africa.” I agree with him that the twist permeated the American scene as it did because it was so easy for white people to do it. The number one record in America by Chubby Checker was “Let’s Do The Twist,” and all the nightly reporting of celebrities at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City definitely added to the craze of it all. It was a pop culture happening bringing the masses to the dance floor. Parents, children, politicians, garbage collectors, factory workers, and socialites—everyone was doing the twist.
This newfound freedom of movement encouraged people to develop their own style and do their own thing, laying the groundwork for many changes to come. As we moved deeper into the 1960s, a premium was placed on feeling free, not being uptight. It was about taking drugs and surrounding yourself with a loving community of peers. People were at odds with themselves and their country over the Vietnam War. The horror broadcast nightly on the evening news was inescapable, but it didn’t stop people from dancing. It mirrored a new way of living and loving, a newfound freedom of expression in the length of our hair, psychedelics, protest movements, manner of dress, and, of course, Woodstock. We were all consolidated by this new force called rock and roll. It begged you to move to the beat of your own drum, hit the dance floor, and do your own thing. It prepared America and people around the world for what was just around the corner, a movement that would bring millions out onto the dance floor once again—the disco craze.
Back in 1972, history was made once again at The Peppermint Lounge when it closed and then reopened as Hollywood, a dance club catering to a gay clientele offering the best dance music in the city. Two girls I knew that loved to dance would invite me to go with them from time to time. The club was packed seven nights a week. Hollywood is credited as being the club where most of the now legendary, but then unknown, DJs played 45s and albums, experimenting and fine-tuning a new craft whereby they extended and changed the structure of a record—making cuts, editing, and blending the records together to the delight of the people on the dance floor. The significance of what went down at Hollywood and the effect these very young DJs who played there had on the music industry and the future of dance music cannot be overstated.
The five original resident DJs who played Hollywood and then moved on to New York’s historic clubs of the disco era were: Tony Gioe to the Copacabana, the Copa’s only resident DJ until 1982; Bobby DJ Guttadaro to Le Jardin and The Continental Baths; Tom Savarese to the Ice Palace and 12 West; Joey Palminteri to Sound Machine; Richie Kaczor to Studio 54.
Steve D’Acquisto, Francis Grasso, Michael Capella, and Alfie Davison hung out at Hollywood, fine-tuning their craft, sharing music and technical ideas with the DJs playing at Hollywood. Other regulars who moved on to the clubs of that time period were: David Rodriguez to The Limelight in Greenwich Village; Tony Smith to Barefoot Boy, Xenon, and now on Sirius XM Studio 54 Radio; Tee Scott to Better Days; John “Jellybean” Benitez to The Funhouse, Madonna, and now Sirius XM Studio 54 Radio; Bobby Gordon to 12 West and the recording studio The Hit Factory; Joey Madonia to Disco II, The Garage, and now his very own DJ Heaven; Bacho Mangual to Revelations and Plato’s Retreat. Two DJs opened their own clubs downtown: David Mancuso, Owner of The Loft; and Nicky Siano, Owner of The Gallery where his now famous understudies, Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles worked and hung out. Galaxy 21 would later become the new DJ hangout where they would learn from the now legendary DJ Walter Gibbons.
Tom Moulton, a hero to thousands of DJs around the world for his brilliant mixes on some of the best dance records ever recorded and immediately recognizable by his logo “A TOM MOULTON MIX,” remembers the time period very well and had this to say: “By the mid-seventies DJs had demonstrated the power they had over the record-buying public. I will never forget the following full page commentary in Billboard magazine by its editor Bill Wardlow.”
WILL SOMEBODY EXPLAIN TO ME
HOW GLORIA GAYNOR’S “NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE”
CAN SELL 10,000 COPIES IN ONE WEEK
AND NOT ONE RADIO STATION IS PLAYING IT
People heard it on the dance floor and not the radio. These young kids were breaking all the rules and making hits out of songs that the record companies absolutely failed to hear as hits. Record executives took notice and for the first time ever chose to work with some of these talented guys and listen to their innovative ideas on this new sound in dance music. The DJs were thrilled to be included in the creative process. Receiving payment for their time and skill was a whole other story, one of the greatest rip-offs in music history.
Billboard magazine labeled it disco.
The sound exploded and the hustle was on.
From 1974 to 1979 it was four-on-the-floor, that galloping feeling of the 4/4 time, the drum and snare, lush violins, and soulful horn sections. The beat was faster, the dance floors wilder, and the song lyrics more suggestive than ever before. Donna Summer made it all about the orgasm, celebratin
g hers for eighteen minutes on “Love To Love You Baby”; Anita Ward let everyone know you can “Ring My Bell” if you do her right; The Salsoul Orchestra told you over and over that “You’re Just The Right Size”; and Barry White, the Maestro of Love, wanted us to know that—no matter how hard—he just “Can’t Get Enough.”
John Travolta, The Bee Gees, and the film Saturday Night Fever took it to a whole new level of popularity, selling forty million records—more albums than any other soundtrack in history at that time. Everyone tried to cash in on the craze, prompting artists like Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops to release the album Saturday Night Fiedler and Johnny Mathis and Ethel Merman to record disco-themed albums as well.
And then it was over.
Chapter Eighteen:
Disco to Dance Club
Radio personality Frankie Crocker became my go-to music guru. I first met Frankie at Mt. Snow in the early 1970s. A six-foot-three black man in a silver ski suit shushing over the ski trails was impossible to miss back then. Frankie had become the program director at WBLS, the number-one radio station in New York City, and a trailblazer in radio broadcasting. It was unheard of back then for a black DJ on a black-owned radio station with an R&B format to play early Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix, but Frankie Crocker did. His outsized ego, handsome movie-star lifestyle (he owned a home next door to Cary Grant in the Hollywood Hills), and knack for self-promotion were legendary. A typical intro from back in the day as a young jock making a name for himself in radio would go something like this: “Good Afternoon, New York. You have heard of the Seven Wonders of the World. You are about to witness the Eighth. This is yours truly, Frankie Crocker.”
Inside Studio 54 Page 16
