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Profile: KC and the Sunshine Band

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Profile: KC and the Sunshine Bandsource: pricegrabber.com

Formed:

1973 (Miami, FL)

Genres:

Disco, Dance-pop, R&B, Funk

Principal Members:

  • Harry Wayne "KC" Casey (born January 31, 1951, in Hialeah, FL): lead vocals, keyboards
  • Richard Finch (born January 25, 1954 in Indianapolis, IN): bass
  • Jerome Smith (born June 18, 1953 in Miami, FL; died August 4, 2000, in West Palm Beach, FL): guitar
  • Robert Johnson (born March 21, 1953, Miami, FL; died 1983, Miami, FL): drums
  • Ken Faulk: trumpet
  • Vinnie Tanno: trumpet
  • Mike Lewis: tenor sax
  • Whit Sidener: baritone sax
  • Fermin Goytisolo: percussion

Contributions to music:

  • The most popular disco band of all time
  • Instrumental in getting disco music onto pop radio
  • Brought a heavy funk flavor to what had been a poppy genre
  • Mixed Latin funk and Caribbean "Junkanoo" rhythms into American dance music
  • Helped turn disco into a party music
  • Put Miami on the map as a major center for dance music, a distinction it still enjoys today

Early years:

The "KC" in the Sunshine Band is Harry Wayne Casey, a Florida native and self-taught musician who worked at a Miami record store as a teenager. There, he became acquainted with Hialeah's TK Record studio/label and soon switched jobs so he could work in the warehouse. Eventually, he befriended TK bassist Richard Finch, and they formed a group around the core of the label's house band, sneaking in at night to record and writing and recording in search of a hit. Patterning themselves after the Bahamanian "junkanoo" sound first heard in hits like Beginning Of The End's "Funky Nassau," they soon expanded to funk.

Success:

The group made an album and released two singles, but with no success. Then, suddenly, their big break came with a song they'd written and produced for a fellow native, soul singer George McCrae. "Rock Your Baby" would not only become an across-the-board smash in 1974, it would lay down the pattern for the Sunshine Band's future hits. Although disco was still an urban phenomenon, the band's pop songwriting chops and introduction of Latin funk into Philly Soul helped pave the way for the late-70s brand of disco we think of today. "Get Down Tonight" was but the first of many smashes for the group.

Later years:

Between the death of the disco boom in 1980 and the dissolution of the Casey-Finch partnership, the Sunshine Band was dead in the water. Yet KC persevered, scoring a hit duet with Teri DeSario on a cover of the Sixties soul ballad "Yes, I'm Ready" and eventually making the charts in the early Eighties with "(You Said) You'd Gimme Some More" and "Give It Up." The '70s nostalgia boom of the '90s called KC back out onto the road, where he and a reconstituted Sunshine Band remain a popular concert attraction today. However, Cuban percussionist Fermin Goytisolo is the only other band member from the original incarnation.

Other facts:

  • Other members included: Margret Reynolds, Beverly Champion and Jeanette Williams: background vocals
  • As a child, Casey played piano in the Pentecostal church his family frequented
  • Casey specifically wrote repetitive choruses into the group's songs because customers in his record store would often forget the title of the song they'd heard on the radio
  • The group's 1978 single "Boogie Shoes," while not a huge hit at the time, has become well-known thanks to its inclusion on the mammothly succesful Saturday Night Fever soundtrack
  • The guitar solos in "Get Down Tonight" are actually sped up to twice their normal speed

Awards/Honors:

  • GRAMNY Award (1978)
  • Hollywood Walk of Fame (7080 Hollywood Blvd.)

Recorded work:

#1 hits:
Pop:

"Get Down Tonight" (1975)
"That's The Way (I Like It)" (1975)
"(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" (1976)
"I'm Your Boogie Man" (1977)
"Please Don't Go" (1980)

R&B:

"Get Down Tonight" (1975)
"That's The Way (I Like It)" (1975)
"(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" (1976)
"Keep It Comin' Love" (1977)

Dance:

"Get Down Tonight" (1975)

Top 10 hits:
Pop:

"Keep It Comin' Love" (1977)

R&B:

"I Like To Do It" (1977)
"I'm Your Boogie Man" (1977)
"Do You Wanna Go Party" (1979)

Dance:

"Get Down Tonight" (1975)
"I Get Lifted" (1975)
"Rock Your Baby" (1975)
"Shotgun Shuffle" (1975)
"(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" (1976)

#1 albums:
R&B:

KC and the Sunshine Band (1975)

Top 10 albums:
Pop:

KC and the Sunshine Band (1975)

R&B:

Part 3 (1976)

Other important recordings: "Blow Your Whistle," "Do It Good," "Sound Your Funky Horn," "I'm A Pushover," "I'm Gonna Do Something Good To You," "Why Don't We Get Together," "You Don't Know," "Queen Of Clubs," "Rock Your Baby," "Black Water Gold," "Boogie Shoes," "Wrap Your Arms Around Me," "I Betcha Didn't Know That," "Hooked On Your Love," "Ooh, I Like It," "Do You Feel All Right," "It's The Same Old Song," "Who Do Ya (Love)," "Let's Go Rock And Roll," "All I Want"
Covered by: Rob Zombie, Shriekback, Giorgio Moroder, KWS
Appears in the movies: "Longshot" (2000)

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