The rapid rise and fall of KC & the Sunshine Band was, in a sense, the disco era in microcosm. The interracial Miami ensemble's earliest singles reached the Top 30 of the R&B chart, but the core of the group — singer/keyboardist Harry Wayne Casey, bassist and fellow songwriter/producer Rick Finch, and guitarist Jerome Smith — created in George McCrae's 1974 hit "Rock Your Baby" an astronomical worldwide smash, and one of the first to be labeled a disco record. That success put Miami and its initially small independent label T.K. Records on the disco-pop map, and when next year the band released its second album KC & the Sunshine Band featuring "Get Down Tonight" and "That's the Way (I Like It)," the group became crossover sensations.

Scoring four highly similar pop No. 1s, a No. 2, and two additional R&B hits in three years worked against the group's longevity. Although it closed out 1977 with its old B-side "Boogie Shoes" on the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, the Sunshine Band faced a sudden backlash only a few months later, one that most disco acts would encounter by 1980. Although later singles like "Do You Wanna Go Party" and… read more »