Chords for Yearbook: A Snapshot of Chicago's Music Scene in 1979

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_ _ _ July 12th, 1979.
At [Bb] Comiskey Park, the White Sox had just lost 4-1 to the Detroit Tigers.
But [N] the stands are still packed.
It's an evening doubleheader.
And most of the 59,000 or so people in the stadium,
and thousands more crowding the parking lot outside,
aren't even there for baseball, but for what's happening in between.
[E] _ _ Steve Dahl, the shock jock morning DJ at the rock station [G] WLUP, The Loop,
has promised to blow [B] up a [E] giant crate of disco records.
[A] The source of [N] Dahl's animosity towards disco is fairly direct.
The year before, he'd been fired from another Chicago station, _ [Dm] WDAI,
when it switched formats from rock to disco.
On his Loop shows, he regularly played his [F] own parody version of [A] Rod Stewart's
[Bb] Do You Think I'm Sexy?
called Do You Think I'm [F] Disco?
with lyrics that send up the [D] disco scene's materialism [Dm] and sexuality.
Do you think I'm disco?
Am I superficial?
[F] Look, and it's my only goal.
[Dm] _ Earlier, I asked Steve just what he has against disco.
I hate the taste of pina [N] coladas.
I'm allergic to gold jewelry, so there's nothing there for me.
An anti-disco rally culminating in exploding a pile of records
perfectly fits Dahl's talent for self-promotion and juvenile sense of humor.
That felt good.
His fans' reasons for wanting to blow up thousands of disco records are more muddled.
Part of it's [Dm] simple aesthetics.
[D] With bands like Styx, [Em] Survivor, R.V.O. Speedwagon, and Cheap Trick
living in and around the city, Chicago is solidly [G] rock and roll.
At least in parts.
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Dbm] But there are [Bm] murkier motives at play, [D] too.
The troubled American economy is acutely felt in the Midwest,
and one of the side effects of the white working class's growing anxiety
is a hard swing into right-wing [Bb] populism.
_ Disco has a reputation as music for gays, blacks, [G] Latinos, and the wealthy,
[D] and a resentment towards all those groups bubbles just under the event's surface.
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[D] _ _ _ _ The lead-up to the detonation is chaotic.
From center field, Dahl delivers an [G] improvised rant over the stadium PA,
[N] and then finally blows up the crate of records. _
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[D] _ _ _ [E] After he leaves the field, the scene's chaotic mood explodes into a riot,
with hundreds of fans swarming the fear of the lighted fires.
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_ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ [Bm] The White Sox are forced [G] to forfeit the second game to Detroit.
[E] _ _ _
_ _ _ [B] Working in the stands that [G] night as an usher is Vince Lawrence,
[Bm] the teenage son of Namaia Mitchell [C] Jr.,
who co-owns the Funk and Soul label Mitch Ball Records.
He notices [Bb] men bringing in records that [C] aren't even disco,
but happen to be made by black musicians.
It's a symptom of the racial resentment that's helped make Chicago
one of the most segregated cities in the nation. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ But even as Dahl [G] stokes anti-disco fervor in Chicago,
the city's gay, black, and Latino club scene is sowing the seeds of rocks down.
[D] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [B] Two years ago, a transplanted New Yorker named Robert Williams
opened an all-night club called The Warehouse in the West Loop
and persuaded [F] another New Yorker, Frankie Knuckles,
to follow him to Chicago to be its DJ. _
Before his move, Knuckles was the resident DJ
at Manhattan's famous gay bathhouse, the Continental Baths.
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And his mixes of [Ab] disco, funk, [Gb] soul, and European electronic music
have made The Warehouse the center of Chicago's gay, black nightlife.
Since the club doesn't serve alcohol, it doesn't have to close at 2 a [Em].m.,
so Knuckles' Saturday night sets often stretch all the way to Sunday afternoon.
_ [N] As word starts getting around about the wild scene at The Warehouse,
Knuckles' distinctive style earns its own name, house music. _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ House music quickly becomes the core sound of the Chicago party scene.
The Warehouse crowd starts to diversify,
as the music and LSD-driven partying attracts straight people,
white people, and South Side [Ab] teens.
_ Knuckles' distinctive stylistic blend also starts showing up in other clubs around [Eb] the city. _
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_ _ _ A few years from [Gb] now, Knuckles will leave The Warehouse to start his own [B] club, Power Plant.
_ [Gb] Robert Williams opens a competing spot called The Music Box,
headlined by Chicago native Ron Hardy.
Vince Lawrence, the teenage usher from the disco demolition,
will start booking his [D] own parties with a young DJ named Jesse Saunders.
And in 1984, [G] the two will record what many consider to be the first [C] original house record. _ _ _ _
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_ _ [Gm] The revolution begun in [D] Chicago's gay clubs will go on to conquer the globe,
and not only reshape dance music, but pop in general.
By the time Frankie Knuckles dies in 2014, at the age of 59,
he'll have seen the style he helped [C] pioneer become [Dm] bigger than rock and roll.
_ House, he'll famously say, is disco's revenge.
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