# The Strange Magic of: Tavares



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Disco! Who doesn't like Disco? It is one of the key genres that made the 1970s the rich, fertile, satisfying rock and pop decade that it was. And as long as people dance, Disco lives. It is pure escape: there is in much Disco a wistful quality, a hint of underlying melancholia, that adds to its not-so-mysterious appeal. In songs by Chic, SOS Band, Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees, there is a vision of haunted, harried people dancing late into the night, seeking release, surcease, from the growing stresses of contemporary life.

But here is another song altogether. In _Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel_, Tavares offers the Disco of pure joy. _Heaven_ is, for me, one of the two most cheerful, joyous songs I know--the other being Bruce Springsteen's Rosalita. It's impossible not to find oneself smiling at the sight and sound of Tavares in this clip, and the audience is dancing, dancing, dancing.....You come and dance too.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Now Disco was fun and some good stuff I still enjoy.
Sorry but Tavares ain't one of them and to rest my case I take the title "Heaven must be missing an Angel" just too much syrup!


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Magma Call From The Dark (Ooh Ooh Baby). Magma is a French Progressive Rock
band that is so influential it spawned a movement called Zeuhl which produced about
fifty offshoot bands over the world. Their 70s album Merci has a disco feel to some
of the songs. The leaders short lived band Offering also had a little bit of this sound
from time to time.






Offering Love in the Darkness. This song is a variation of the above.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

@regenmusic: Thanks for the Magma/Offering selections. I have heard of Magma, but never got around to hearing any of their work. _Call from the Dark_ strongly suggests Earth, Wind and Fire, and it appears the two groups closely share both initial founding and first dissolution dates--another example of the Zeitgeist at work? Also, in reading about Magma's escape from the bonds of earth notions, there is also a vague parallelism with Jefferson Starship in several of its phases, from Blows Against the Empire through to Freedom at Point Zero. BTW, I liked your selections.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Disco! The Rolling Stone History of Rock, in its chapter on Disco, called the music Punk's Secret Sharer. I think by this they may have meant that Punk and Disco went out directly to their audiences without either needing or invoking the intermediary of critical analysis or approval--it was People's Music, served up to appreciative fans without imprimatur. I loved it then, and love it now. Here are Tavares, setting a new standard for sartorial elegance, singing _More Than a Woman_......


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I wasn't crazy about it at the time, but for nostalgia reasons, I put their two greatest hits (HMBMAA and MTAW) on our car USB MP3 stick.


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