The Groove
Saturday December 6th, 2014 with ELORIOUS CAIN
Rumba extraordinaire (recordings from 1953 - 1969)

In the fall of 1974 my older neighbour took me to Le Cabaret in Hull for the very first time and I spent the night watching and learning about Discos with tremendous excitment and joy. During that unforgettable evening I found myself sitting beside an older African gentleman with sunglasses who thought my excitment about what I considered to be a new phenomenon to be somewhat humourous: "This is not new young boy. It started in the Congo years ago. That was the 'belle epoque'. The clubs were much more classy than this. People dressed like millionaires. The music was richer than this stuff. People really danced well and they danced all night. The Americans act like they invented the wheel. This has all been done before.." In the spring of 1979 I would have a conversation to one of my professors at Carleton University about Disco. He surprised me by sharing something from his past: " I used to go to a Disco in France when I was studying at University there in the early 1960's. The hot thing then was Twist music like Chubby Checker from America. Everybody had their own version of the twist on the dancefloor. It was quite funny at times. There were also people who considered themselves to be 'the real disco people' and all they wanted to dance to was Spanish drum records and French African music. That was their music. Everything else was disposible music.."