Miami was a melting pot of musical styles — rhythm and blues, funk, Latino, rock and pop.
Singer-songwriter-keyboardist Harry Wayne Casey, who grew up nearby in Hialeah, Florida, absorbed it all.
That year, Casey put together a group of local musicians and called them the Sunshine Band, as a nod to Florida’s nickname, and adopted the moniker of “KC.”
The newly-formed 12-piece band, which included a four-man horn section, recorded several songs in 1974, written by Casey and his guitarist Richard Finch.
Two of the tunes, “Blow Your Whistle” and “Sound Your Funky Horn,” landed on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart.
They set the template for the KC and the Sunshine sound: unfussy arrangements, infectious melodies, singalong lyrics and a smorgasbord of rhythms.
“We just wanted to write and record uplifting dance tunes,” Casey said during a phone interview from his home in Miami. “And we wanted people to forget their troubles.”
On May 25, the band is bringing its unique sound to the Outer Banks with a performance at Roanoke Island Festival Park in Manteo, North Carolina.
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Sunshine and disco
Something else was happening in Miami in 1974; the city, along with Philadelphia and New York City, was becoming a hot spot for an emerging style of music in the U.S. called “disco” (a shortened version of the French word “discotheque,” which referred to dance venues).
Clubs started multiplying like mosquitoes, and the message to young people was you should be dancing.
To tweak a lyric from Barry Manilow’s campy hit “Copacabana,” music and passion were in fashion. And commercial radio stations embraced the trend, adding disco tunes to their playlists.
Artists like Paul McCartney, Diana Ross and especially The Bee Gees added some dance beats to their sound.
KC and the Sunshine Band’s popularity in clubs and on airwaves grew quickly, scoring their first No. 1 single (“Get Down Tonight”) on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1975.
“It had an infectious sound to it,” Casey said. “I knew it from the day I did the vocal.”
Over the next two years, the group ascended to rarefied air, hitting the top spot three more times with the nuggets “That’s the Way (I Like It),” “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” and “I’m Your Boogie Man.”
They became the first band since The Beatles in the mid-1960s to accomplish that feat. Another single (“Keep It Comin’ Love”) in 1977 reached No. 2 on the chart.
And, oh, another KC original “Boogie Shoes” was on the soundtrack of a little 1977 movie called “Saturday Night Fever.”
“It was a pretty crazy time,” Casey remembers.
The band had another No. 1 single in 1979 with the ballad “Please Don’t Go”; the follow-up single “Yes, I’m Ready” hit No. 2.
After the group’s top 20 record “Give It Up” in 1984, KC did just that, retiring from touring and recording.
But the band’s music stayed alive, playing on oldies radio stations, popping up in TV shows and movies, pumping up crowds at sporting events and, of course, getting people to put their flat feet on the ground at parties and wedding receptions.
In 1991, with disco enjoying a revival, Casey put on his flowered shirt and bell-bottom pants and came out of retirement.
These days, he travels with a 15-piece band, which includes four horns and two singers — and plays off-the-record versions of his classic hits for fans new and old.
“We definitely have a wide demographic,” Casey said. “I think people are still trying to escape from the world for a while.”
The Charlotte-based soul-beach music band Chairmen of the Board (“Carolina Girls,” “Dangling on a String,” “Give Me Just a Little More Time”) will open the show.
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If you go
When: 5 p.m. May 25; Chairmen of the Board play at 7 p.m.; KC and the Sunshine Band perform at 8:30 p.m.
Where: Roanoke Island Festival Park (lawn seating), 1 Festival Park, across from the Manteo waterfront
Tickets: $50
Details: VusicOBX.com
