From 1976 through 1980, when disco was king, the music of D.C. LaRue ruled the underground and avant garde dance floors of the world. With #1 hits like “Cathedrals,” “Let Them Dance,” “Do You Want The Real Thing” and “Hot Jungle Drums & Voo Doo Rhythm” he was a major creative force behind a movement that evolved into the pop/dance music of the 80s, 90s and this current decade.
Making one’s mark as a spokesman for any genre on the first try is not easy but his premiere dance recording “Cathedrals” was such an influential hit that it prompted Casbox Magazine’s Aaron Fuchs to rave: “Cathedrals” is to discos what “Blue Suede Shoes” is to rock dance halls. By mid-1976 “Cathedrals” had become a top ten dance record throughout the world. D.C. LaRue was the first white male to ever hold the #1 R&B/Soul chart position in England. “Cathedrals” was the first commercially available 12” 45 rpm disco single in the USA and the only 12” single ever to be charted on the Billboard Magazine Top 100 Singles Chart before or since. And this was just the first in a string of D.C. LaRue musical firsts!
About the extended break on the 12” remix of “Indiscreet” (until now commercially unavailable) rapper Grandmaster Flash is quoted as saying: “It was the first Hip Hop break I ever heard…the start of all the Hip Hop and Rap beats to come.” That was 1976!
“Let Them Dance” (released in 1978) was the beginning of D.C.’s successful quest to change album tracks into radically different remixed 12” dance singles. And by 1979 his 12” remix of “So Much For L.A.” (from LaRue’s “Star, Baby” album) saw a remix containing new lyrics, revised arrangements, erased tracks, looping and sampling. It was the fruition of the consummate “cut and paste” recording. Needless to say, it was nothing like the original LP track!
And now, with a genuine world wide re-interest in the disco/dance music of the 70s, it appears that D.C. LaRue’s time has arrived once again. And his music continues to titillate the musical palette of the discriminating dance music lover around the globe via the world wide web. With each reissue and sample of one of his dance classics his enduring legend of fans are now being joined by a whole new group of people who are finding his work not only the perfect reflection of the dazzling disco era gone by but an example of an art that is even more relevant today…over 30 years later.
Back in 1981 the editor’s of GQ Magazine voted D.C. LaRue one of the 6 creative artists who would epitomize “success in the decades ahead.” Little did they know how right they were!!
D.C. LaRue - Ca-The-Drals
