The Village People were the brainchild of producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo. The 2 hailed from France and had seen some success in Europe writing and producing disco material. In particular they were the driving force behind The Ritchie Family who had hits in the mid 70’s with hits like ‘Brazil’ and ‘The Best Disco In Town’. In 1977 they decided to re-locate to New York in the hope of cracking the American market. Here they met Victor Willis who had been performing in musicals on Broadway for a while, including playing the Tin Man in The Wiz, an African American production of The Wizard of Oz. Willis would perform backing vocals on some of the Morali/Belolo tracks, but one night Morali had a dream that Willis sang lead vocals on a track and it went very big. Morali persuaded Willis to sing lead on the Village People’s debut album. At that point the group was really Willis backed by a studio band called Gypsey Lane, although future member of the band, Felipe Rose (the Indigenous Indian character) is credited for the ‘bells’ on the first album. The album was simply called ‘Village People’ and the band took their name from Greenwich Village, an area in New York City. The album was essentially one long track on the a-side (a 10 minute epic) and 2 tracks on the b-side. One of the b-side tracks, which was also called ‘Village People’, would go to the top of the Dance Club Songs chart produced by Billboard magazine. An edit of the long a-side called ‘In Hollywood (Everyone Is A Star)’, would get some attention in Europe and make it to number 27 on the charts in The Netherlands. This early success led to a demand for live shows and they needed to get a band together. Morali placed an ad in a trade magazine which read “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache.” This led to the line-up of what became the Village People’s trademark of costumed men. This band then posed for the cover of the single ‘Macho Man’ which had already been recorded before most of the band was in place. The single would become their first Billboard Hot 100 hit, going to number 25. Their next single, ‘Y.M.C.A.’ would give them their highest ever peak on the Billboard charts, going to number 2 and would be a worldwide smash hit going to number 1 in at least 15 different countries, including the UK and Australia. In 1979 they began filming a semi-biographical film about the band but at this point Victor Willis decided to leave. He was replaced by Ray Simpson who was the brother of Ashford & Simpson’s Valerie Simpson. Work on the film, which was called ‘Can’t Stop The Music’, continued and was released in 1980. It starred Steve Guttenburg as Jake Morell who essentially represented the Jacques Morali role in creating the group. However, the popularity of disco was fading and an attempt by the band to tap into the burgeoning New Romantic scene through the album ‘Renaissance’ failed in the US, but hits such as ‘Do You want To Spend The Night’, ‘5 O’Clock In The Morning’ and ‘Action Man’ received a fair bit of airplay in South Africa and some European countries. Follow up albums, ‘Fox On The Box’ and the Hi-NRG attempt, ‘Sex Over The Phone’, also failed to return the band to their former hights. Sadly in 1991 Jacques Morali died from AIDs related complications, but the band has left its mark on musical history with ‘Y.M.C.A.’ and its associated dance remaining particularly popular.
SA Singles Charts 