Isn't it time to let some Sunshine into the Florida Artist Hall of Fame? | Mark Hinson

Why isn’t Harry Wayne Casey in the Florida Artist Hall of Fame?

Don’t feel bad if you don’t recognize that name. You probably know Casey better as KC. You know, of KC and The Sunshine Band fame. Having recently marked his 71st birthday, KC is still the leader and singer of the Miami band that dominated the pop charts with its upbeat disco groove thang in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

I mean if former Secretary of State George Firestone can get in the Florida Artist Hall of Fame, why has KC been left off the list every year since it began in 1988? That roll call now includes such deserving names as writer Zora Neale Hurston, novelist Ernest Hemingway, movie star Burt Reynolds, filmmaker Victor Nunez and singer Gloria Estefan.

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Granted, I am a little biased when it comes to my adoration for KC and The Sunshine Band. The group’s driving dance music became part of the soundtrack to my youth when I was coming of age in North Florida. The songs were full of fun, exuberant, and exquisite earworms.

“(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty,” a No. 1 hit in 1976, had a chorus that went: “Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake/ Shake your booty, shake your booty/ Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake/ Shake your booty, shake your booty.” No one ever had to ask the name of that song. KC kept the tunes streamlined and easy to identify, a lesson he learned after selling singles in a record shop as a teen.

Disco delirium

In 1974, KC landed on the ground floor of the disco boom when he co-wrote the international smash “Rock Your Baby” for singer George McCrae. The song used a drum machine on the track, which would become a staple of the disco sound.

Who cares if the song sounded more like a deep slice of Memphis soul? “Rock Your Baby” is usually thought of as one of numbers that kicked off the disco revolution.

Of course, even while KC and company charted five No. 1 hits during the giddy delirium of the disco era, critics and rock-music fans dismissed the act as repetitive or insipid. The mainstream media were suspicious of anything birthed in clubs that catered to gays and people of color. Where were the guitar pyrotechnics and drum solos? A disco backlash soon took hold.

That is the divisive world where I lived when I went to see KC and The Sunshine Band in concert at Six Flags Over Georgia in 1977.

The group put on one of the most vibrant performances I have ever witnessed, and I couldn’t gush about it to nearly anyone when I came home. Let me tell you how I arrived at the disco show.

Road trip springs a leak

In the summer of ’77, not long after I became legal to drive, my parents handed me the keys to the family Blazer so my two pals and I could go camping in the hills of Tennessee. Why my parents agreed to let three teens travel from North Florida to Far East Tennessee, I will never know.

The road trip started fine but literally sprung a leak. We had to vacate our poorly sealed watery tent at our campsite deep in the booger woods. We slept in the Blazer for two nights while it stormed. Ghost stories and beer don’t mix if you’re living in your auto.

After loading up our soggy gear, we found out about the KC appearance down in Atlanta while drying out in a motel room in the tourist trap of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We laced up our boogie shoes and headed south.

We arrived at the outdoor concert park early and snagged chairs five rows back from the stage. By showtime, the place was packed. When KC and the Sunshine Band hit the stage, we had to stand in our seats to see. Three girls asked if they could join us on our perches. We said sure, come on up. Hey, we were teens. Our hormones were in charge.

The 'Boogie Shoes' fit

There were probably 15 people onstage – backup singers, a horn section, a conga player, KC center on keyboards – but it looked more like 115. Always in action, always moving.

The multi-colored jumpsuits were covered in sequins and rhinestones as the players performed wild dance steps, some choregraphed, some spontaneous. The girls sharing our chairs sang along with “Get Down Tonight,” “Keep it Comin’ Love” and “I’m Your Boogie Man.” The brunette sharing my chair let me rub close and she turned to smile at me. Abandonment crackled in the air.

By the time the band churned out the slinky, faux rocker “Boogie Shoes,” Six Flags had turned into a sweaty dance party. KC taught me that everything could not be approached in the same manner. Sometimes you just needed to lighten the hell up and enjoy the moment.

Florida native made 'music that is real'

Years later, when I became an entertainment writer for this newspaper, I interviewed KC over the phone. I finally got to gush over the live performance.

“People want to hear music that is real,” KC said. “My music, it’s real. It’s not computerized. Those are real people playing real music. People want to hear that.”

Now, I’m not here to say that all of disco was a gloriously delicious nectar sent down from the gods. Some of it was a cash grab. How else can you explain disco albums by pops conductor Norman Fiedler or Broadway belter Ethel Merman. The record companies glommed on to disco, making the music tinny, formulaic, or syrupy, or all three. There are disco numbers that should remain buried.

Yet, Florida native KC deserves to be remembered as more than a nostalgia act from a bygone period. He was one the architects who created a wave of new music and then made that joyful sound a great commercial success. If that’s not Hall of Fame stuff, what is?

Mark Hinson is former senior reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Why isn’t Harry Wayne Casey (KC) in the Florida Artist Hall of Fame?