The Deeper Meaning Of Disco

Show Note: Today we're rebroadcasting a show from last year on Disco and Donna Summer. Please click here for the original show page, and add your comments to the earlier show page, so we have them in one place. Also - no calls please! Many thanks.

They say disco is coming back, with Lady Gaga and Kesha up on the charts. For those who lived through the first disco fever, that may mean a cringe, or a smile.

Disco was a love it or hate it affair. But everybody danced.

Historian Alice Echols says it was more than glitter balls. Disco, she argues, opened up American culture for gays, for blacks, for women.

This hour, On Point: we’re looking back at disco with Echols and disco queen, Donna Summer.

Guests:

Alice Echols, professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University. Her new book is “Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture.”

Donna Summer, the 5-time Grammy Award-winning “Queen of Disco.”  Her latest album is “Crayons.”

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