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Posts Tagged ‘Village People’

Died On This Date (May 8, 1982) Neil Bogart / Co-Founder of Casablanca Records

Posted by themusicsover on May 8, 2010

Neil Bogart (Born Neil Bogatz)
February 3 1943 – May 8, 1982

bogartNeil Bogart is best remembered as co-founder of Casablanca Records, the one time home of such acts as KISS, Angel, Donna Summer, the Village People, Parliament and Cher.  Casablanca was one of the labels closely associated with the rise of disco.  In the late ’70s, Bogart founded Boardwalk Records which he hoped would be to new wave what Casablanca was to disco.  Joan Jett was one of the flagship artists of the label.  Bogart died of lymphoma at the age of 39.

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Died On This Date (March 4, 2001) Glenn Hughes / The Village People

Posted by themusicsover on March 4, 2010

Glenn Hughes
July 18, 1950 – March 4, 2001

glenn-hughesGlenn Hughes (not to be confused with Glenn Hughes of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple) was an original  vocalist in one of disco music’s most famous and most lasting institutions, the Village People.  He was primarily known for his leather biker outfits and awesome handlebar mustache which made him a pop culture icon well beyond the group.  And although straight himself, Hughes was cast in a gay leather archetype, thereby becoming a face of that subculture.  Around 1976, Hughes responded to producer, Jacques Morali an ad looking for “macho” types for a new disco vocal group.  Immediately hired and taught to dance, he became bass voice that can be heard in such disco staples as “In The Navy,” “Y.M.C.A.,” and “Macho Man.” Those songs, along with numerous television appearances and their starring roles in the film, Can’t Stop The Music,  helped the Village People become icons of the disco era, and be affectionately parodied ever since.  Hughes left the group in 1996 and formed a successful cabaret act.  He also managed the Village People in later years.  On March 4, 2001, Glenn Hughes died of lung cancer at the age of 50.

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Died On This Date (November 15, 1991) Jacques Morali / Producer; Created The Village People

Posted by themusicsover on November 15, 2009

Jacques Morali
July 4, 1947 – November 15, 1991

Jacques Morali was a French record producer who achieved fame and fortune by creating, producing, and branding the Village People who were arguably the flash point of disco’s crossover during the mid  ’70s.  While working in a record store during the early ’70s, he began to hear the early records of dance and what would soon become disco, and immediately fell in love with it.  He moved to the United States and found work at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia so he could be near the Philly Sound he had learned about in France.  While there, he co-produced or co-wrote songs for several albums by the Ritchie Family.  While visiting a gay disco in New York’s Greenwich Village, Morali took note of the various manly male stereotypes, and thus the concept of the Village People was born.  He put the group together and landed a deal with Casablanca Records.  Between 1977 and 1979, he produced a string of hits with the Village People.  That list includes such disco staples as “Macho Man,” “YMCA,” and “In The Navy.”  During the late ’70s and early ’80s, he produced nearly 70 disco albums.  But soon the disco craze would die as fast and as hard as it had burst on to the scene, and Morali all but disappeared from the music industry.  Jacques Morali was 44 when he died of AIDS on November 15, 1991.



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