pre order due 30/7/23
Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night
Artist Various Artists
Format:Vinyl / 12" Album
Label:Ace
Catalogue No:XXQLP2119
Barcode:0029667016810
Genre:Soul/R&B
No of Discs:2
• Before there was Saturday Night Fever there was underground disco. DJs across America went out and found
the music to play; dancers went out and found the clubs. At this point, in the early seventies, the disco was
the venue and not a genre of music.
• By the time Nik Cohn’s short story Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night was published by New York
magazine in June 1976, disco was the biggest genre of music on the charts and was about to get bigger still,
becoming an all-enveloping cultural phenomenon. Cohn sold the film rights to Robert Stigwood, and his
classic club yarn became Saturday Night Fever.
• “Tribal Rites Of The New Saturday Night” is the soundtrack to Cohn’s story, where disco began; a 1975 score
for the underground clubs of Brooklyn and Queens that played R&B, soul and Latin beats to people who lived
for the weekend.
• Bob Stanley has put this collection together, sourcing what was actually played in Brooklyn discos in 1974
and 1975. Only a few specific records were mentioned in Cohn’s feature, but two of them – Ben E King’s
‘Supernatural Thing Part 1’ and Harold Melvin’s ‘Wake Up Everybody’ - were cosmically great and both are
included here, alongside underground favourites like Moment Of Truth’s Four Tops-like ‘Helplessly’ and
Gloria Scott’s Barry White-produced modern soul classic ‘Just As Long As We’re Together’. Ivano Fossati’s
incredible ‘Night Of The Wolf’ has fans in northern soul, disco and prog circles.
• Without Cohn’s original story, it’s quite possible that disco would have remained an underground
phenomenon – “Tribal Rites Of The New Saturday Night” paints a scene in full flower. Saturday Night Fever
would eventually, if unintentionally, wreck the underground nature of this scene, and clubs like Studio 54
would destroy the democracy of the party, but for two or three years the scene was largely undocumented
and magical. This album is the sound of disco before it was captured.
TRACK LIST
1. HELPLESSLY - Moment Of Truth
2. AFTER YOU'VE HAD YOUR FLING - The Intrepids
3. WELCOME TO THE CLUB - Blue Magic
4. I CAN'T MOVE NO MOUNTAINS - Margie Joseph
5. SUPERNATURAL THING PART 1 - Ben E King
6. MELLOW ME - Faith, Hope & Charity
7. GEORGIA'S AFTER HOURS - Richard "Popcorn" Wylie
8. DATE WITH THE RAIN - Eddie Kendricks
9. JUST AS LONG AS WE'RE TOGETHER - Gloria Scott
10. WENDY IS GONE - Ronnie McNeir
11. GOT TO GET YOU BACK - Sons Of Robin Stone
12. NIGHT OF THE WOLF (TEMA DEL LUPO) - Ivano Fossati
13. GOOD THINGS DON'T LAST FOREVER – Ecstasy, Passion & Pain
14. TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT - Jimmy Ruffin
15. KEEP IT UP - Betty Everett
16. FREE & EASY - Satyr
17. EACH MORNING I WAKE UP - Major Harris
18. IT'S THE SAME OLD STORY - Act I
19. YOU CAN'T HIDE LOVE - Creative Source
20. THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD IS GOING CRAZY – John Gary Williams
21. IF THAT'S THE WAY YOU FEEL - White Heat
22. WAKE UP EVERYBODY - Harold Melvin And The Bluenotes
