Let's Start The Dance By Hamilton Bohannon
Let's Start The Dance was released in 1978. If you haven't heard this track then you've probably heard it sampled many times.
Hamilton Bohannon's Background
Hamilton Bohannon was born in Georgia and earned a degree in music education before starting his career. In the early 1960s Bohannon played with Jimi Hendrix in Atlanta before Hendrix became famous. In 1964, 13 year old Stevie Wonder hired him as his tour drummer. This landed him a role at Motown where he became the top bandleader and arranger. At Motown he worked with many of their stars, such as Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Supremes and The Four Tops.
Hamilton Bohannon stayed in Detroit when Motown moved to LA in 1972. He released his first solo album in 1973. He was an early disco pioneer with Disco Stomp in 1975.
Let's Start The Dance By Hamilton Bohannon (1978)
The chords don't fundamentally change. It's mostly just a groove with interludes to stop it getting boring. The tension and release structure is clear, but there's also non-standard tension and resolution, because the chords are sometimes are extended upwards for tension, like holding your breath and then breathing again.
A Staple Of Chicago House Culture
Let's Start The Dance ticked all the boxes for Chicago DJs. It was played by Ron Hardy, Frankie Knuckles, Hot Mix 5 and many other Chicago big names.
There were several releases of Let's Start The Dance. The second version was released in 1981, and is also a banger. This version has longer drum interludes, which was highly prized by DJs at the time because it allowed them to make live remixes easily with two copies of the same record. This isn't a remix. The band went back into the studio to record it again from scratch. The master tapes were then given to Jonathan Fearing who created the opinionated edits for the more DJ focussed second release.