- published: 24 Jun 2013
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Post-disco (sometimes called club music or dance) refers to a disco music movement characterized by the heavy use of keyboard instruments, and more specifically, to a historically significant period in popular music history beginning with the commercial death of disco music in the late 1970s and ending with the mainstream appearance of house music in late 1980s.
The stripped-down musical trends followed from the DJ- and producer-driven, increasingly electronic and experimental side of disco, and were typified by the styles of dance-pop,boogie,italo disco and the early alternative dance.
Techno and house music are both rooted in post-disco.
Unlike disco music, post-disco usually lacked the typical shuffling hi-hat driven beat, walking basslines and/or string orchestration; it more featured drum machines, synthesizers, sequencers and 4/4 time signature commonly found in rock and pop music. Soulful female vocals, however, remained a part of post-disco. The main force in post-disco were mainly one-hit wonders and short-lived collaborations, while record producers played a significant role in post-disco in general. The music that mostly catered to dance and urban audiences later managed to influence more popular and mainstream acts like Madonna, New Order or Pet Shop Boys.
LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known by the stage name Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s. She had a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and was a five-time Grammy Award winner. Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the United States Billboard chart, and she also charted four number-one singles in the United States within a 13-month period.
Born into a devoutly Christian lower middle class African American family in Boston, Massachusetts, Summer first became involved with singing through church choir groups before joining a number of bands influenced by the Motown Sound. Influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, she became the front singer of a psychedelic rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. Joining a touring version of the musical Hair, she spent several years living in West Germany, where she married Helmut Sommer, whose surname she adopted as her stage name.
Mary Christine Brockert (March 5, 1956 – December 26, 2010), better known by her stage name Teena Marie, was an American singer, songwriter and producer. She was known as Tina before taking the stage name Teena Marie, then she later acquired the nickname of Lady Tee (sometimes spelled as Lady T), given to her by collaborator and friend, Rick James.
She was known for her distinctive soulful vocals which initially caused many listeners to believe she was African-American. Her success in R&B and soul and loyalty to these genres would earn her the title Ivory Queen of Soul. She played rhythm guitar, keyboards and congas. She also wrote, produced, sang, and arranged virtually all of her songs since her 1980 release, Irons in the Fire, which she later said was her favorite album.
Mary Christine, or Teena as she was called, was the fourth of five children born in Santa Monica, California[citation needed] to construction worker Thomas Leslie Brockert and his wife, home renovator Mary Anne. She spent her early childhood in Mission Hills. Her ethnic heritage was Portuguese, Italian, Irish and Native American.[citation needed] In 2005, while visiting Louisiana, she had discovered that her paternal ancestors once lived in New Orleans. Brockert took to singing naturally, performing Harry Belafonte's Banana Boat Song by age two. She also developed a fondness for singing the songs of Motown, and her self-professed “gift from God” would become fine-tuned as the years progressed.