K C & The Sunshine Band Part 3 CD

KC & The Sunshine Band: Harry Wayne "KC" Casey (vocals, keyboards); Jerome Smith (guitar); Richard Finch (bass, drums); Robert "Shotgun" Johnson (drums).
Additional personnel: Beverly Champion Foster, Jeanette Williams, Margaret Reynolds, Debra Carter (vocals); Mike Lewis (tenor saxophone); Whit Sidener (baritone saxophone); Kenny Faulk, Vinnie Tanno (trumpet); Fermin Goytisolo (percussion).
Producers: Harry Wayne Casey, Richard Finch.
Includes liner notes by Amy Linden.
KC & the Sunshine Band: Harry Wayne "K.C." Casey (vocals, keyboards); Jerome Smith (guitar); Richard Finch (bass instrument, drums, percussion); Robert Johnson (drums); Fermin Goytisolo (percussion).
Arguably K.C. & The Sunshine Band's best album and certainly one of its most successful, Part 3 will always be closely identified with the disco era. But for all the disco appeal that infectious gems like "Shake Your Booty," "I Like to Do It," "Baby I Love You" and "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" have, they also illustrate that this was very much a funk band. In fact, when the Floridians toured with the Ohio Players in 1976, it seemed a logical combination. Perhaps the most overtly disco-sounding hit on this album was "Keep It Coming Love," a fine example of K.C. at his most charismatic. In 1995, Rhino reissued Part 3 on CD as Part 3...And More, adding some of K.C.'s early-'80s solo work as bonus tracks. The songs demonstrate that while KC's popularity had faded, his unapologetic funkiness definitely hadn't. ~ Alex Henderson
When the original LP version of Part 3 came out in 1976, it received more than its share of negative reviews from rock critics. As they saw it, KC's funk/soul/disco was exactly the type of mindless, hedonistic escapism that punk rock was rebelling against. But the critics who lambasted KC missed out on the most important element of all: feeling. Gems like "Shake Your Booty," "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" and "I Like to Do It" may not have either Marvin Gaye's sociopolitical bite or Earth, Wind & Fire's spirituality, but they have a wealth of soul and boast infectious grooves that simply won't quit. Those grooves held up well over time, and by the time Rhino reissued Part 3 as Part 3...And More in 1995, many of its selections had been sampled extensively by one hip-hopper after another, long after KC's name had disappeared from the charts. In addition to containing the original album in its entirety, this generous CD offers over 20 minutes' worth of bonus tracks (most of which are songs that KC recorded as a solo artist in the early 1980s). The solo material is strong, and it demonstrates that while KC wasn't nearly as popular in 1981 as he had been from 1975-78, he could still be relentlessly funky. ~ Alex Henderson