One Song - Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff"

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

If you’re trying to bring a wild man back home, have we got the song for you. This week on One Song join Diallo and LUXXURY as they break down Donna Summer’s 1979 hit “Hot Stuff.” They discuss Donna Summer’s theater roots, discover a secret sax, and analyze where the disco ends and the rock begins in her genre-blending banger. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/onesong today. Get to Insurify.com to compare car insurance quotes in real-time and start saving today! Have you ever dreamed of starting a business? Go to tailorbrands.com/podcast35 for 35% off all Tailor Brands services today. Songs Discussed: “Hot Stuff” - Donna Summer “I Feel Love” - Donna Summer “Sunset People” - Donna Summer “Bad Girls” - Donna Summer “Our Love” - Donna Summer “Blue Monday” - New Order “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” - Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” - Kiss “Miss You” - The Rolling Stones “Emotional Rescue” - The Rolling Stones “Street Player” - Chicago “The Bomb” - The Bucketheads “Love To Love You Baby” - Donna Summer “One Blue Morning” - Amon Düül II “Rasputin” - Boney M “Daddy Cool” - Boney M “The Number One Song In Heaven” - Sparks “Axel F” - Harold Faltermeyer “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” - Gary Portnoy “Dream Police” - Cheap Trick “Hot Stuff” - Hatsumi Shibata “New New York” - Tes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two, three, four. Can I sell Bobby snow about some one song staying on topic? I'm talking one song just for an hour. Gotta have some one song. It's a fun podcast. Talking about one song, Son by Miss Donna Summer. Luxury today's song is a hip-shaking, fist-pumping, genre blending banger.

It's this artist's second number one hit at the time. And amazingly, it's the first. time, a female artist had two songs on the Billboard top three. That's right, Diallo. This song was performed by an artist who is known as the Queen of Disco. But with this song, she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Vocal Performance. A disco queen and a rock star. I love it.

That's right. Yes, she was a musical shapeshifter indeed, whose work with Italian producer, Georgia Maroder. We all love to love. Yeah, we do really love Georgia Maroder. And if you still haven't guessed it, this song is what we would call a sexy strut of a ditty that makes you want to bring a wild man back home. How do you like that? We're talking about one song,

and that song is Hot Stuff by Donna Summer. I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ Diallo Rural. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist Luxury, aka the guy who whispers, Interpolation. And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode. And while you're there, please like and subscribe.

All right, so Luxury, I know we're both fans of Donna Summer. Huge fans, my God. is something we share. I'm wondering what, what in your opinion makes hot stuff stand out from our other songs? Well, let's just be clear from the get-go. Choosing Adana Summer song for our one song episode, it was very painful.

It was painful. There are so many great songs in our catalogs. Fishtickups brawls were had in the men's room here at Heartbeat Studios. Your phrase is fight me. Yeah, it is true. My other cash phrase recently has been fight me. It's true. It didn't mean for you to take me literally.

Hot stuff, though, rose to the top of the pile because it is arguably her most well-known song. It's certainly her biggest on all the streaming platforms. Bigger than I Feel Love. So we have to talk a little bit about I Feel Love because we are definitely going to do another Dinosema episode one day with I Feel Love. I'm holding out hope that we'll get Giorgio. So this is our second. Georgia, I mean, I don't know about this exact moment, but he was at least through most of the early 2000s based here in Los Angeles. I feel like he's, Georgio, if you're listening, we would love you to come on. We definitely want to do I feel love, but we are also massive fans of this song. Like I said, we love this woman's

entire catalog. Even the record that this comes from, the bad girls record, has like seven bangers we were just talking about before the episode began. Real good bangers. I mean like sunset people, I've actually listened to sunset people while driving down sunset. That song is so good. Some of those landmarks still stand. Yeah, I mean, don't forget bad girls is on the bad girls record as well. Bad Girls is on there. It's linked to this song, Hot Stuff. It's a medley. The first two songs go into each other. We'll be talking a little bit about that. We're talking about all that. And dim all the lights is another song. And our love will last forever with that famous kick drum as borrowed by exactly as reused or as inspired in the Blue Monday kick drum. A few years later comes from this record as well.

I mean, one fun thing about this song is that she's the disco queen, but in this moment, she's wanting to branch out a little bit and try a new character. I didn't know that. I think this is a disco song, but apparently this was like her sort of like, I'm bigger than disco. I'm move into rock. We are going to talk about that because this song is ostensibly, is it a disco song? Is it a rock song? We're going to talk a lot about it on this episode. In their minds, though, when they were making it, they thought they were breaking her out of her disco shell and moving into this new realm of rock. I didn't know that. It's a little bit happening. It's a little bit nut. We're going to get into it. I didn't know that. I mean, like, if you asked me, like, what I thought made hot stuff special,

like, I would have said, it's a, it's a disco song. It's like, you know, in some ways, it's like, both really in the moment and cool and also like super cheesy like it's like yeah hot stuff the title right there yeah born you know around this time right by the time i'm hearing and i'm like oh this is some cheesy stuff but it's a very 1979 title dino might hot stuff um just sounds like an uncle uh at the time but like now that we're learning more about it i can't even believe the story about it i can't wait to share it with the folks you know i feel that i feel love is one of my absolute all-time favorite songs. Mine too. It's such an influential track

in terms of dance music. But I've come to find out that when Hot Stuff came out in 1979, it was actually Donna Summer's biggest year yet. She had not one, not two, but three number one hits with bad girls, hot stuff, and some song called No More Tears.

I'm not going to lie. I don't think I know no more tears. I don't know if I know. Can we play No More Tears right now? That was the chorus. That was the chorus. I've never heard the song in my entire. Amazing. How have I gone this long, loving disco. Yes. And Barbara Streisand. As you frequently talk about. DJing disco nights. I've DJed whole disco nights. I have dug some, some records out of the dust. And you have that one of history. Barbara Streisand altar at your home. I've seen it. You're a huge fan of Babs. I told you, not to come on my house anymore. Come over unannounced. It's not cool. My kids are scared of you. No, but seriously, I'll be honest. I don't think I've ever heard no more tears. Well, today's a big day for you.

This is a big day. I'm really happy to be sitting next to you. I was experiencing this. Well, look, no thanks to me. This album, Bad Girls, was certified platinum the same week it was released. It was a huge, huge album. So Donna Summer's having a great year. Yes.

You know, 1979 is her year. To my untrained eyes and ears, I would say that disco's on the rise. But you're now going to tell us that there was another something in the cultural stew, another movement, if you will, called disco sounds. It's a big transitional year. There's this moment where the record industry is booming, and disco is also booming, and it's on the rise. And there's kind of a collision of cultures, if you will.

We're going to get into what that means. A culture war, if you might. If you wish, if you must. But you're not wrong to say that. In 1978, the record industry is at an all-time high. Rock music has never been more successful. But disco suddenly is also coming in and eating 40% of record sales on the Billboard Hot 100. So you get all of these rock bands who are like, oh, damn, we'd better.

or do a disco record, and they come up with some of their best songs, arguably, in this moment. For example, I submit to you at number one on my list would be this one. We can lay some groundwork for this conversation, because like, where's the disco and where's the rock in here? Instrumentally or vocally or like, what makes one or the other? Rolling Stones, I miss you. You know, there's so many in this period. I think Emotional Rescue by the Stones is actually a really good song.

Stones fans don't like it, but I like it. Chicago's Street Player, which got sampled by Masters at Work. Yes, yes. It was technically, it's the bucketheads, and the song is called The Bomb. Yes, they sample Chicago's Street Player. Peter Satera, Chicago. Still such a fun song to drop in. It's only ironic we're doing Donna Summer after I just DJed here in L.A.

at a disco party. And if you put this song on for the right crowd, yeah, the original Chicago song. It's so iconic. kind like people are like oh right but let's play the house version which made the original even more famous to a new generation here's the bucket heads with the bomb such a simple formula but effective i mean get that loose get that house it's that same uh formula i would i would i would rank that sampling up there with fate shocka con turning into star dust music sounds better with you it's just you know something that's lazy that's not even chom of the fancy but if you take something so

small in one song and you it's like the Jay-Z incorporating the Nause line into dead presidents and then saying, you made a hot line, I made it a hot song. It's like, these guys are like, you made it a hot second of a song. I made an international platinum hit. Yeah, exactly. It's a different song. It's transformed. And it's, it's new. It's renewed in that way. It's a new audience that goes back and learns the old one as you've just described. Yeah, they wouldn't have known that Chicago track. Hey, so all you boomers out there who made songs and people come along, they want to sample it, just clear it. I'm telling you, it's going to make people go out and buy the original.

And it's fun having this conversation too in the context of like rock bands adding dance beats. And then the next generation adding a danceier beat to that rock song with a dance beat. And it's funny because we talked about the Rolling Stones. They had a couple of disco trucks. They were clearly into disco. I mean like their album, some girls, not to be confused with bad girls, is a great snapshot of New York at that time. It feels like a very shatter. It's a great tune too.

All that stuff. It's a great tune. and into that same cultural stew out of that, you know, rock artist trying to land a disco song. Right, but they're struggling with it too. They're sort of like trying to have their cake and eat it too because they know that the market share is there. They want to be played by the DJs at Studio 54. They want to be in the clubs. We talked about this a little bit on the Phoenix episode, like that sort of line between it's either a radio song or it's a functional dance floor record, right?

So they want their functional dance floor record. But then we found a quote where Mick says, he tries to distance himself and goes, Missy wasn't disco disco disco records at that time didn't have guitar as much. And they all had shimmering string lines and ooh-you girls. It was influenced it but not it. This is him saying something which is not completely true or accurate. Where's Mick? I got to say, hey, I think you're wrong, Mike.

I think you're wrong about that. Come on, Mick, it's a disco song. This actually goes to my larger point on this particular episode of one, on a very special one song. on a very special one song. I actually feel like disco almost can't be recorded in 2025. How do you mean? I'll explain. I think that there are rock songs,

pure rock songs. I'm using air quotes for those of you not watching us on our YouTube channel, that there are rock songs that sound more disco from 1979 than intentionally sounding disco songs made on laptops or even recorded in studios now. There's just like a grit there. There's just a, you can hear the 70s. You can hear, oh, movie studios say,

we've got to get our own Star Wars. Like, there's just something dated, wonderfully dated in a, in music that's recorded between like, let's say, 1975 and 1980s. You can tell it's preserved in amber that it's from this era. That's why I feel like disco is more a time than even a genre. So what makes disco disco is the question. And the answer is it's, I'm not sure that it's an easily,

it's a bit of a checklist thing where any one of the items on the checklist doesn't have to be there or necessarily. only be there. In other words, you probably have four on the floor. You probably have a BPM range of 118 to one, whatever, 27. Who doesn't? But my point is, is like, how would you define disco? Well, clearly it's not, it has to be this BPM or it's not disco. It isn't that it's kick drum with an open eye at equals disco, because you can have non-disco songs that also have that. That's true. It's hard to like put your finger on what it is. And as we get into the stems of the song, let's be listening for, okay, what about this is disco? What about this is disco? What about this

isn't disco because they certainly thought they were making a not disco song. To them, it was like, oh, we're making our big rock break through here. We're making our big rock song. Did they? We will find out. We will find out. Okay, so now that we've set the backdrop of 1979, we're in the time machine, we're in 1970. That's where we are. A wonderful place to be, especially if you're the New York Yankees and Reggie Jackson. Let's talk more about how Donna fits into all of this. Yeah, and I think for that, we got to back up a little bit. One thing to know about Donna was that, and I am on a first name basis, I refer to her as Donna. was that she was not only a singer, she was a theater actor, you know?

So she approached being a singer as if she were basically performing a character. And I think one song in particular makes us remember that. There was actually a great clip of her talking about how she used her acting trade while recording Love to Love You. Basically, I was a theater singer, so I had been, you know, much more of a belter. And it was really different and difficult for me to tap into who this person was. So I imaged Marilyn Monroe and just began to think, well, how would Marilyn sing this song? And she would be very soft. And I began to understand who the song was for and who the song was about and the girl singing it.

It was so good just to hear Donna's speaking voice there. You know what I mean? Like it just, you know, we come into every episode, usually loving the band or the singer. Donna's not somebody who has a million interviews out there the way that some of our people who can't even escape them it's just good to hear her voice and hear her humanity I mean like we hope that other Donna Summer fans love this episode she seems like such a good person like that documentary was so moving

I shed a few tears it's like she's like a super good person who you know had an incredible voice an incredible life and a very tragic she you know she left us too soon but just like a you could you cried when she died I believe I did I cried when she died and I cried watching the documentary the second time and the first time. But anyway, it is wonderful to hear her voice. It evokes so much of, I think, the pain that she experienced in her life, like sort of in her singing, it's like it's buried in there. She talks about how there's a voice within the voice, even when she's singing these like, you know, belting out these songs about hot stuff and bad girls, et cetera, and loving to love you.

There's something deep down that really comes out that's between the lines. I'd say. And I think sometimes she sort of gets misplaced or I'll just say like relegated to like, oh, she was the queen of disco. And the way the disco sometimes has suffered reputationalally, that seems to also marginalize her. But at the end of that, she's one of the great singers, one of the great R&B singers, pop singers of all time. Exactly to your point.

I mean, like in this moment, as we alluded to, she was feeling like with all of these rock bands also encroaching on her terrain, she started to feel like, well, I want to break out of my, you know, the queen of disco is wonderful. I found a quote from her. Disco got me here, but that's not all that I am. That's not all that I do. That's not all that I do. So one of the intentions going into recording the song was, and the timing couldn't have

been better because the song comes out in April 1979. It adds a little bit of rock to her to her disco formula right in time for disco demolition a couple months later where culturally this idea of disco starts to become persona non grata in the culture wars of the time. To be disco was to be maligned, in other words. Unfortunately, it also meant to be ethnic, black, and brown, and gay. And all of the above. All those things.

But it was almost like she saw the writing on the wall coming. It was almost like she saw the 80s coming. She's ready to do something a little bit different. Yes. So because Donna was so much more than just a singer, her star rose, and she continued to look for ways to showcase her talents as a performer. In 1977, she released a disco concept album with Giorgio Maroder called Once Upon a Time, which was basically a modern-day Cinderella story.

Then the following year, she made her film debut in one of my guilty pleasures. Thank God it's Friday. That's a great, great movie, man. Oh, my gosh. So fun. That's the one to say about, thank God it's Friday. Donna played a struggling singer named Nicole Sims. Who are you?

You mean, you don't know who I am? No. Why, I'm Nicole Sims. The hottest thing in all the New York Piscos. I'm surprised that a big DJ like you wouldn't know that. It is really one of my guilty plays. pleasures. Like the music is so over the top. Such a joy. I love anything that allows me to see like footage of like the LA I know. Yeah. Like in a much earlier time. Oh, me too. Oh, that building is still there. What. Oh, that's downtown. That's sunset. Right. Totally. The billboards. Thank God it's Friday. It's Sunday. Oh, that's Friday. Oh, that's Friday. It's supposed to be the West Coast version of Saturday Night Fever. And it just didn't accomplish. It's, it's, it's, it's, it was. It was. It was. It was basically the brainchild of one of our favorites, Neil Bogart.

Yes, the head of Casablanca Records, right. Which used to sit on sunset right across the street from the standard hotel, right down from Saddle Ranch. The building is no longer there, but they apparently had a big camel in the lobby that greeted you. And that makes sense. All Casablanca thing. Because Donna Summer's obviously in the movie and on the label. And I think he's, I think he's like taking a cue out of Robert Stigwood's playbook. Because Robert Stigwood managed the Bee Gees.

He got them into Saturday Night Fever. Biggest selling record of all times. so Bogart's like, I want one of those. Yes. Yeah. And who wouldn't? That was such a huge, huge seller, huge cultural moment. Who wouldn't want their own?

Yeah, fever. Well, that's what they thought. Thank God it's Friday was going to be. Instead, it just gave us some really wonderful over-the-top disco music. I also wanted to point out that the nightclub that was in the film was a spot called Oscos. That was a real disco. Really? And it was a little south, Las Etona Boulevard, which is just down the street.

It was apparently right across the street from where the Beverly Center sits empty to this day. It's empty. this very day. I've been there years. Really? I'm just like, how is this? I saw Outcast. It's still a going concern.

Time here. That place used to be popping. That place used to be so cool. The men store, the Macy's min store used to be popping. It's not longer the case. All right. So we're going to take a quick break,

but when we get back, we're going to hear how a $25 guitar played a huge role in the making of this song. And we'll be able to say definitively whether the song, Hot Stuff by Donna Summer, is rock or disco.

There will be an answer. will be no ambiguity left until we have certainty. Absolutely. When we get back. Okay, listen, you sign up for something. Forget about it after the trial period ends, and then you get charged month after month after month. The subscriptions are there, but you're not even using them. In fact, I just learned that 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused every month.

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He doesn't really play much of a part in this song. I thought we talked about Georgia this time. This is not our Georgio episode. As we mentioned before, we're saving it. We're waiting for Georgio. Don't listen to anything else, Georgio. We love you too much. We're going to be talking about him in future episodes.

We're such huge fans. Yeah. But not this one. Okay. Why is Georgia not as big a role on this one? Giorgio Moroder is credited as a co-producer of this song. All right. And he is neither in the writing credits nor apparently, according to some of the stories I've read and heard, told.

He may not have actually been in the room when it was recorded. No way. He may have delegated the whole thing to some of his other team members. So who are these other team members? Well, let's talk about them first starting with this episode's Unsung Hero, and that is Keith Forsy, who is one of the three co-writers. I'll tell you about the rest of them momentarily. He is a British drummer, songwriter, and producer who begins life being in bands in the 60s in England, but then he moves to Munich, Germany.

And he is in an early version of a crowd rock band called Amman Duel 2. And this is him playing drums. And this is important because this is one of the links between the sort of rock, disco, dance, and electronic zone is happening in this movement in Germany, in Crout Rock, like the bands like Cannes and Noi. And this one. We love Can. Amund, Duel, too. One Blue Morning, drums by Keith Forsy. Bring in the guitars.

So it's funny just because I'm pretty sure these guys in their minds were just like, we're a rock band. Like that's all we are as a rock band. But we like this disco beat over here. You think that's one of the reasons why Hot Stuff has more of a rock edge because they have a rock drummer, essentially? Oh, I thought you were going to ask something else. I'm going to cut to the taste.

I think the answer to why people call something rock versus not is simply the existence of guitar. It blinds them from the existence of the beat. being a disco beat, it blinds them from the existence of the baseline being funky.

All they hear, especially in this moment, is like, look, if we add a guitar, and actually with Mick Jagger's quote, it's a little bit what he was alluding. He was like,

look, once we put a guitar in there, it's no longer disco. So it's rock. It's almost like, yeah, okay, if you say so, buddy, sure. Because it's still something you can play in the middle

of a disco set. It still has all the other qualities of a disco song in terms of tempo and the drums, et cetera. So I think my hypothesis for this song is like, this is how they thought they would solve the problem of being disco all the time

gets Jeff Skunk Baxter in the mix. But I'm jumping ahead of myself a little bit. So Keith Forsy, who played drums in this band, goes on to meet Georgian Roder, because this is Munich in the 70s and all the musicians. It's a small scene over there. By the way, he's also worked with Frank Farian, also known as the producer behind Boney M.

And later on, of course, Millie Vanilly. Millie Vanilla. Yeah. Frank Farian liked the idea of a fake band. So much, he did it twice. Wait, you're going to tell me Boney M is not the band Boney M. He's crazy like a fool. Fun fact, for people who don't know in the video,

you see the guy dancing, you know, the black man and the black women. That's Frank Farian doing the Rasputan vocals in the song Rasputein. That wasn't the black guy? And daddy cool. Yeah, that's all Frank Ferry and this white German do. What does a black guy do in Boney M? He danced. No.

So getting back to Forsy. So Keith Forsey becomes the in-house drummer at Music Land. That's him drumming on. bad girls. That's him drumming on Call Me. That's him drumming on hot stuff. And then last but but not least, I have to say, because it is one of my favorite records of all time. And it's also kind of part and parcel with our rock bands thinking they're not doing disco songs when in fact they are conversation. He did number one in heaven by Sparks, one of the greatest songs of all time. Great song. This is impossible to play on any dance floor I've ever, I've tried, but it's too damn

fast. I was just like, this, this BPM. Yeah, that BPM. That BPM is insane. It's insane. That's about 140 by my estimate. Yeah. And to be fair, I kind of set this up in my mind. I was like, this is... Where can you play that?

Something of a disco song, something of a synth pop song, but it's really not disco friendly in terms of like if you're trying to DJ a disco set. But Russell Mail from that band, kind of like Mick Jagger was like, no, no, it's not coming from a disco vibe or even an electronic vibe. Referring to that song, number one in heaven. It's quite for a heavenly vibe. Only angels can dance this fast.

The way he justifies that is he says Keith Forsey's drumming has more of a rock sensibility. So those fills have a rock attitude more than any other kind of attitude. So basically the male brothers, Sparks, are saying they're number one in heaven song, this Georgia Maroder production, which is super bouncy and dancey, but they will deny that it has anything other than rock in there. That's a rock song as far as they are concerned. Okay. Okay.

And he literally, this is another record he's making in 1979. That's Keith Forsey is doing a lot of incredible stuff. in this year in this partnership with Georgia Maroder and two other people that I will be mentioning in just a minute who are the co-writers of this song who are the other writers on the song so Keith Forsy co-wrote the song with Pete Belot who is Broder's long-time co-writer and Harold Faltermeyer no way go back to our blondie call me episode where we talk a lot about this gentleman and I feel like Faltermeyer is sort of like the bridge from the late 70s he has a great 1980s like his 80s with soundtracks as well so many good soundtracks and of course you can't

mentioned faltermire without mentioning ax left so then what are the splits on that so they're all 33 and a third recurring each that's the math of music man that's the math of a good relationship you're not just that but you always hate to hear like oh yeah one guy got 80 and the other guys other guys got 10% each partnership you prefer the ones where it's I prefer even split and everybody just you know pissed off forever if you want to go off and waste your money on like you know buying horses for the Belmont steaks. That's what you do. I will buy income property.

It just makes it easier, you know? Eventually one of the guys does show up and ask the other two guys, hey, can you love me a little bit? I got people ready to break my thumbs. But that's on him. All right, let's get into those stems. Luxury. What do you want to play for us first?

Let's start with Mr. Keith Forsey, the young sung hero on the drums. And one more fun thing I mentioned earlier. So this record and a few other Donna Summer records have this very disco-era thing of them being a seamless flow on each side of the record from one song to the next. They did kind of an automatic mixing thing. And what's interesting, when I went into the stems, I realized, clearly they hadn't sequenced the record yet. So this song begins with a kind of potential transition where they're ending a previous song, but that doesn't exist.

I'll play it for you. So the song begins with this. And that's it. And then we get into this. So just to point out what that was to explain. a little bit further. The song begins with just this, but they left room for the possibility that a different song might come before it. And they had this sort of generic transition. That could have gone with anything. Well, let's listen to Keith Forsey playing the beat that he plays in the song,

holding down a strict, I would argue, pretty inarguably disco beat. So you hear they recorded it with an eighth note on a high hat. But there's a second high hat, which was unusual, that was recorded separately. right and I'll isolate that so you can hear it here is that other 16th note da da da da da da da da gallop right so they recorded that separately to give it a little more

disco feel I think and then with the original beat it's like this you can hear the bleed of that guitar in there yeah and even the like in the fill at the end

it's just it's super disco it's super disco it's hard this is our departure from disco hit it fellas tic tic tic tic tic yeah They didn't go as far as they think they went.

Guys, I want this to be the most undisco song of all time. Hit it, fellas. And even more so when we start to build the other instruments on top. For example, if we play to the bass, and this is Scott Edwards on bass, he's playing this. Which is not not disco by any stretch of the imagination. No. Especially when you add the beats back. Nothing has ever been more disco than this at 121.1.

P.m. That was Neil Bogart College Studio. It's like, fellas, fellas, disco's dead, all right, it's dead. I need something that's not disco. He's like, perfect. Incredible. Signs still delivered.

The perfect, not discos are. Perfect. We're going to change rock and roll. Wolfman Jack, where are you? So this is another situation where we have multiple bases in the base zone. So there is that bass guitar by Scott Edwards,

but then we've got Harold Faltermeyer playing a couple of different synth bass. And as far by, is he American? He's German. He's German. Right. And then here's another bass, some more bass content on Moog. I'll play it isolated and then put it in the mix together.

With the bass guitar together. And now with the drums. And there's one more synth in there. I had to mix this to sort of match the actual song. It's really buried in there. So I'm going to artificially bring up this other one last kind of ARP synth, just so you can hear that it's there. next time you listen to the song, maybe you'll notice this.

But it's not really that loud, it's more like this. Really subtle. That synth is like the cowbell sketch. Yeah. I need more art synth. And boy, so far we have not. And it wasn't even loop. That guy just had to sit there and be like, don't mess this up, Carl.

Actually, his name is Harold. That joke would work just as well. Oh, I was this close. Then when we get to the chorus, the bass changes to this. I can't hear that bass line. without imagining Bert Reynolds with no shirt on

on a fur-skin rug because I think that was like one of those like that was the... That's the soundtrack to a naked man in 1979. Absolutely. Harry, a very hairy naked man.

Dude, yes. Nothing but Chester. It's just, yeah, that is pure disco. We have so far, we have built out... I haven't heard one element

that is not disco. The proto disco, everything. That foundation is only disco to my ears. They were. so kidding themselves. Or were they? So now we get to the guitar. Okay, this is where we're going to

break free of disco. It's going to be completely undisco-like. It's just going to, it's going to feel like we are in a sweaty blues bar. So let me just say at this point that bad girls the record. It's one of those records that the entirety of the credits are, it's not song by song. It's like the whole record. So they just have a list of like three guitar players for the whole record. Those Casablanca Records inters were so lazy. They're just like, I just dumped those names onto the sleeve. Who cares? No one's ever going to know. No one's ever going to read this. I had to do a little deciphering. So there's three names on the guitars for the whole record.

It's Jay Graydon, we may remember, from the Steely Dan episode. He's the one with the successful solo on Peg, the one they kept. Okay. Paul Jackson, Jr., another callback from a previous episode, played guitar on Michael Jackson's Beat It and Daft Punk's Get Lucky, among other things. Amazing. And last but not least, we have Jeff Skunk Baxter, another amazing, first of all, nickname, but second of all, just like, L.A. Session icon.

starts life in Steely Dan. You know if you were like, hey, bring in the skunk. Bring in the skunk. Hey, we need somebody to bring in the calls skunk. To this day, he's never revealed the source of where that name, the nickname comes from. Oh, I can imagine.

I think it has something to do with those puffs of those clouds of smoke coming out of sunset sound. There was some way to know. Yeah, exactly. So after Steely Dan, he joins the Doobie Brothers. He actually brings Michael McDonald to the Doobie Brothers. He's like, guys, I got a great singer I was in with his last band. To go to the streets. Exactly.

And he talks. tells the story about he was called to be on this song, but it almost didn't happen because, quote, my assistant forgot to tell me that Giorgio Moroder had called. I saw it on a message pad. I called it back and I said, hey, what kind of music is it? And once he was told disco, he was like, eh, he wasn't feeling it. He wasn't feeling it. Because him and Jay, who played together, Jay Graydon, they played together a lot on sessions at this time. His joke was they'd get together on a Monday, decide what riff they were going to play in all of their disco sessions. week. This has like an inside joke. They would play like 30 disco songs that were generic to them.

And they would play like the same joke riff, like inside musical joke to them. So they would be the whole week. Which killed when your audience is all session guitars. Yeah, exactly. It's a killer, killer joke. So again, to be clear, I'm not sure which guitar part. There are two is played by which of those three names. I'm pretty sure this first one, the crunchy one. I think this is Jeff Skunk Baxter. So let's start with that. The crunchy guitar, which is quite possibly where we start to get away from disco territory and into the rock. Okay. That's some rock riffage right there.

That's rock. That's rock riffage. Even when you get that beat underneath it right. I think we've got to give it up to the rock. What I was saying about the checklist, because listen to what I just did. The guitar, undeniably rock. That drum pattern, but without the 16th note high hats, we're kind of still rock. It honestly sounds like ACD.

to me. It's not a little bit like, you shook me all night long. I agree. But then let's bring in the bass. Now, it's a little half and half maybe. Yeah. The guitars definitely add a rock sensibility, but the rest of what I was adding to it, those disco beats, disco bass line, disco high hats, I do think that that was enough for them in the moment to be like, oh, this is a rock song. You know, the guitars that, yeah, the rock song too bad. Especially if you on the high hats in there, that is a rock song. I think so. I think it's safe. You think the high hats were the moment where it switched over? I think that's

where it becomes a genre blend. But, hold that thought, because the second guitar also balances out the rock crunchiness, because it's a little more on the funky side. And again, this might be Jeff Skunk Baxter, but this might be, I think this is the Paul Jackson Jr., but let's just listen alone to the second guitar, then I'll put them together.

So this is a funky guitar part. It's not crunchy. It's not distorted. And if you add the drums to that, This is a funk beat. This is a funk groove. But then that other guitar, I just love how every single thing we do tips the balance.

49% rock. 51% rock. It's just like right on the edge teetering the entire time as we get through this. I dig it. My personal take is that what really puts this in a

interesting genre blend category of songs is the famous guitar solo at the end. What can you tell us about that guitar solo and how it came to be? Right, right. So Jeff, you have to say all three names every time. Jeff Skunk Baxter.

Tells this story on the Vertex FX website. Really, really fun website for guitar fans. They go real deep dives into nerddom. He talks about how he was moving. He didn't have his guitar. So he went to Guitar Center in Hollywood. And there was a box. He's like, I need a guitar right now.

There was a box in the middle of the floor. It said 25 bucks, buy me. Which I love. Like, just like $25 for a working guitar. And he said most of the guitars of the box were like really weird. Yeah. They were just like no one else was buying them. Like we got to get rid of this stock.

Yeah. So he buys a Burns, a baby bison. Apparently he gives the, he gives them $35. Not sure why he was extra generous. Not sure why he charged himself such an upcharge. He was just feeling, you know, generous. Some people were not master negotiators. Go ahead.

So he goes down to, uh, to, to Rusk Sound Studios in L.A. Uh, answers the call. And, um, he says, turn the amp up, roll tape. And in one take, he plays this. That's so rock. He's playing a rock solo. That's rock and roll. That is rock and roll.

but that also sounds like that was recorded a tin can. Like, you could never accomplish that amount of just dirt. You know, that that solo is super dirty. And, you know, definitely that's a rock and roll solo. A little more than it's a disco solo, I'd say. That's fair. By the way, there's a second solo on this record, which is lesser known. I found it in the stems.

You can actually hear it on the 12 inch, but there's a saxophone on this song. There's a saxophone on this song. There's a secret sax. There's a secret sax. So we hear a little bit of the secret sacks. there's he's this guy called Gary Gerbig he's on this track Gary Gerbig Gary Gerbig yeah oh this this guy by the way he's not nobody uh he played with Herbie Hancock he played with

Dolly Parton Patty LaBelle Ray Charles he's on Olivia Newton John's physical and he plays the clarinet solo on the theme song from Cheers I'd argue that's disco too all right um let's hear Gary Gerbig on on hot stuff Gary Gerbig plays the sax solo, which, unless you have a 12 inch, you may have never have heard before. I think just because you play the cheers first, I fully expected to hear a cheers-esque saxophone. You were shocked.

Which I would argue is weirdly not disco. I don't care what beat you put underneath it. Let's move on to things with keys. We're talking about keyboards and pianos. What can you play for us? So Jay Winding is the piano player. He plays. I actually only learned this in doing my researched for this episode. He is the secret piano. He is the secret keyboard player behind one of my favorite bands, which is cheap trick. They have records where there's keyboards on them, but like none of the guys are playing it. It's J. Winding on Heaven Tonight and like the dream police. So he's also playing piano on the song. He's kind of emphasizing what the bass is doing, kind of the same. Just an octave or two up and giving it a little more different timbre. And then in the chorus,

he moves on to this, which is great because it's like, It's church and you feel it more than you hear it, I'd say. I love it. I love it too. It's church piano. It's church piano, yeah. Yeah. But we're back into disco.

We're back to disco. This is absolutely disco. But we're on Casablanca. In the mix, I'm at 51% rock right now in my estimation based on what we have heard. I'm at the 51% mark that we've crossed from disco into rock. Personally speaking. I feel like the guitar, the guitar solo, and then the sax, slightly, slightly pushed me in there.

I don't know. That's just me. We're going to have to come to an agreeance on this because we promised the people that we would know definitively. We're not leaving this room until we have a definitive answer. We're like a jury.

It's a questered. Look, we would be remiss if we didn't play just some isolated, beautiful vocals by the queen of disco. We would be beyond remiss. We would be terrible people. We'd be in jail.

Let's hear some vocals from Donna Summer. Verse one, Hot Stuff. Donna Summer. Sitting here eating my heart out waiting, waiting for some lover to call. Daugled about a thousand numbers lately. Almost rang the phone of the wall. It's going to stop it there for a second because, like, that's the entirety of the lyrical content. Basically of this song outside of the chorus.

It's like, we got those two lines in the verse. There's not a verse two. There is a verse two. I was oversimplifying. But like, do we have these super short verses? Yeah. And then lots of hot stuff. And I like it

Because she's like You know what? I'm going to get trouble For saying this But it's like When you're in the mood You don't want a whole lot of talking Don't give me five verses

Give me good chorus That's what I say I'm going to give you some good chorus Right now my friend Looking for some hot stuff Baby this evening I need some hot stuff Baby tonight

I want some hot stuff Baby this evening It was blue notes To those listening That was not Donna but the one and only luxury summer. Hard to tell the difference, I'm sure. No, that was really good.

Oh, my God. Love this. That sounds like, you know what? Sounds like a theater kid. Sounds like somebody who could have been in Wicked if Wicked was a thing back then. I can hear, and I didn't know about it until we started working this episode. That is absolutely a theater voice.

Like you feel like you can hear the Broadway in it now. Totally hear that too. When you don't have all the guitars and the bass and the drums all around it. I absolutely agree. And let's start building a little bit some of the stacks because when you heard that, I'm sure you want to hear the background vocals. Yes. On BGVs, it's Maxine Willard, aka Waters, and Julia Tillman, also AKA Waters,

also known as the Waters Sisters with Stephanie Spruill, Spruill. And here's what they sound like. Three-part harmony right there. So sweet. And I'll put Donna back in so we can hear that all together. That's so fucking intense. I like I can hear a little bit of her growl. Like you hear a little bit of Donna's, this evening.

You know, like you can hear like sort of like, I'm misbehaving. It's a little bit of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like a little growl with my chorus. And then on the last backing vocal, they keep it a little bit longer. And let's hear that one.

All right, listen, we do this thing on the show. This is the best part of the song. Fight me. Are you ready? It's this one. What you're talking about, bleak? Ooh, that bends. Ooh, that bend.

Let's hear it again. I was say as a casual listener, I didn't realize that they went down on the second hots. That Ben right there. I thought it was always, I always thought it was that high hot Yeah, yeah, yeah There it is

Okay, and towards the end of the song As often happens, especially in this era There's like a minute and a half Basically of just ad libs and like alternative versions That made the cut But maybe you didn't notice before So here's a little bit of Donna Summers Adlibs in the last minute of the tune

I love that Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah That's sort of the Donna you hear on She works hard for the money You know what I mean? That's full on rock on That was great. I've never heard that.

before. That's like for the fade out. Well, it's not the fade out. It's just the long version. This is one of those songs. This is the digital air. There's multiple versions. There's like a 12 minute version. There's one more just kind of fun thing. I found long-ass note in my in my notes. I wrote long-ass notes. Let's hear the long-ass note. Here we go. This is good singing. Thank you so much for anything I say now. This is one of those moments. Like when we do vocals on so many songs, but especially Adana Summer's song, I am struck

dumb. I'm silenced because it is just so good. And sometimes all I can think to say when we come back is like, that's so good. That's all my God. That's incredible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, for sharing your gift with us. And, you know, it'll last forever, or at least as long as there's recording music. There was one more thing you wanted to play, wasn't there? Well, listen, we've been talking about where the line is between rock and disco. And I'm not sure that we'll ever have a definitive answer. I suppose in the room we made the promise. Oh, no. It's disco. It's disco. Okay. I did a very silly thing and I replaced the beats with some like super rock beats just to test it out, But also to demonstrate the theory that like replacement of a single element can make a massive difference.

So let's take out Keith Forsey and try. Providing one of the disco elements for those of you watching at home. Exactly right. And let's put in some silly like big rock drum beats and hear what that does to the song. All right. We're rock now, right? We could even go like double time or we could go like halftime. I just found the dumbest rock beats I got by.

You made this at home, didn't you? I made this at home. You were not returning my tech. Because you were playing on your little laptop. I was like, wait a second. What if I put a new metal beat underneath this? And it made it into a new metal song. I don't know.

I'm just saying. The person you have called is forwarded your phone call to voicemail. That's what I was hearing last night. You were playing around. No, I love that. And I think you've actually driven home the point that I want to make, which is that even if you add a great rock guitar solo, this is disco. I mean, this is truly disco.

And I think that that is not to diminish the rock element in it. It is just to say that disco was an. incredibly diverse, adaptable type of music. 100% agree. Well, said. That a lot of people, I mean, like I always said, there was almost no line in the sand between R&B of the era and disco of the era. In fact, disco grabbed the R&B of the era and all these rock musicians.

Sorry, Mick. More of a Keith guy anyway. But sorry, Mick. It is absolutely disco. And whether, you know, there's Indian music from this era that sounds very disco to me. Everybody was kind of playing to the dance floor. Whether you were dancing at 104 BPMs or 140 like sparks, I think that all of it sort of feels like disco,

it all sounds like disco. I think you're nailing it. And one thing it makes me think about is how, you know, we're trying to like pinpoint what is disco. And I think the answer is it's a checklist, but it's elusive. Like it's a checklist where it's a case-by-case basis, right? And even within the song, when you replace the beats or maybe the baseline, the same song goes from maybe being disco to not disco.

but also disco is very part of why we both love it is what you just described, which is its flexibility, it's expansiveness. I love house music as well, but it's harder to mix stuff into house music because house music is so much about a BPM, but it's also so much about the sound of the Roland 909. So if you play something that doesn't have, or basically drum machines,

if you play something that doesn't have a very specific sound, it can be done in house music, but oftentimes it's not as expansive as disco, which I think you can play the Tavares into Blondie into Rolling Stones. And I think it works a little bit more in disco than it does in some other genres. Just to really drive home my point to this absolutely disco song, I would argue, look at the artists on Casablanca Records. Yes, of course, we have definitively disco acts like Donna Suver and the village people

and Lips Inc. But we also have Kiss, which everybody would consider a rock band. Yeah. But a lot of their music sounded pretty disco to me. you've got Cher who's a pop diva she did the classic disco song take me home great song by the way saw share perform at SNL she was 78 and man oh you're so lucky tore down the house she just talk about how jealous I am that you saw that live in the room oh my god that was incredible she was amazing yeah but her music on costalblunk was disco and then you've got parliament which is a funk group by any

definition right but a lot of their songs absolutely controlled the disco so I think In some ways, it was almost like Casablanca Records was incapable of putting out music, regardless of rock, pop, disco, it was always going to be disco at the end of the day. That, to me, is the legacy of Hot Stuff. A very beloved label from my youth. So many of the records and bands I loved were Casablanca Records and great logo with the camel and everything. Yeah, and Hot Stuff was a Casablanca song. Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song.

This is a segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem with you, the One Song Nation, and with each other. luxury, I heard you want to go first. All right, well, this is a song whose legacy includes many, many wonderful covers. So I picked one of my favorites. And by the way, the list includes there are Indian covers,

there are Czech covers, there are Hungarian covers. But my favorite might be this one. This is a Japanese cover by Hatsumi Shibata from 1979. Singing Hot Stuff in Japanese. That's Hot Stuff by Hatsumi Shibata, 1979. I like it. I really like it.

What about you, Diyalda? what you got for one more song to see um i have a song going all the way back to 2003 uh this is by an artist uh real name terence tessoria but went by the rapper named tess uh this was some experimental new york hip-hop from the early 2000s and this was a song that really wowed me it contains an andy gibb sample this is test a song new new york from 2003 i just remember when i heard it i was just like wow that That is a really cool flip of an Andy Gibbs song. I'm expected, too.

And Tess had a flow that at the time really reminded me of Ghost Face Kill and a couple of other real New York raps. At a time when everybody was really trying to go to the mainstream, they were going very experimental. So shout out to Tess. I don't know what actually happened to Tess, but it's a great song. And it is available on digital platforms. That's awesome. And I love how it has that kind of classic, oh, yeah, like Beastie Boy sample, Run, Run. It's got a couple of, yeah, really fun.

I like how discord in the in the city is with the rest of it's not in the same core. I love that. No, that's good. But it makes it kind of like raw. Yeah. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, DIA, L-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo Rittle. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-Y and on TikTok at Luxury.

One Song officially has its own Instagram account and TikTok account now. So go follow at One Song Pot. for exclusive content and all the music debates that you love. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube right now. Just search for One Song Podcasts. We'd love it if you'd like it. And if he made it this far, we think that means you like this podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review, and share with someone you think would like the show.

It really helps keep it going. Luxury help us in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist Luxury. And I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ, the Aller Riddle. And this is one song. We will see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duanyez and Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Binbo.

Engineering for Marcus Hahn and Eric Hicks. Additional production support from Razak-Boykin. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Addings, Eric Wilde, and Leslie Gwam.