🎧 📺 THE WAR ON DISCO will air/stream Monday, October 30 at 9/8c on #PBS AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.
It's no secret that the backlash against Disco was racist and homophobic. People of Color and queer people came together to dance and have fun, in public, in a safe space, and the "Afraid Somebody Somewhere Might Be Having Fun" crowd hated us for it.
In the summer of 1971, "Mr. Big Stuff" raced up the Top 40 and Soul charts, and was Billboard's #1 Soul Single that year. The record sold more than 2 million copies and was nominated for a Grammy.
"Mr. Big Stuff" was Knight's signature song, but she made many other soul and R&B records.
📷 This old "Mill House" is one of just a few left from the village near the cotton mill that closed 15 years ago. The mill was razed and is now "New Townhomes from the Low 210s!"
See the steps to nowhere? The sidewalk they led to is gone, paved over to widen the road I'm sitting on, waiting for the light to change.
#CSNY's "Carry On" played on the FM as I snapped the house through my driver's-side window at dusk, June 24, 2023.
#TonyBennett & Me | Tony was also a painter. In the Spring of 1987, he could be seen at midday, donning a smock and erecting his easel under a tree on Farragut Square, a park in downtown DC. Office workers brown-bagged there; I did every day.
One noontime, Tony started singing a cappella, "It Had To Be You." Just a few bars, and when he finished, we shouted "Bravo!" and clapped. Tony smiled big, bowed deeply and went back to his canvas. #RIP
📷 I parked beside the supermarket, left the door open and #TheGoGos were "Head Over Heels" as I snapped this series. Nina Blackwood's "Absolutely 80s" on the FM.