American Top 40 PastBlast, 2/15/75: Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes, “Get Dancin'”

One of the things that was great about talking music with Kevin, the station manager at WTLX our sophomore through senior years, was that we could just about go toe-to-toe on 70s pop trivia. When we were discussing June 76 and later it was mighty hard to stump me, but the farther back in time we went, the more able he was to name songs that I didn’t know much about. Part of this could be that we grew up in different radio markets (Cincinnati for me, Huntington, WV for him), but my long-time hypothesis has been that he was the beneficiary of having two older siblings listening to the radio regularly in his presence in those earlier years (I’m the first-born in my family).

Here’s one of those songs I specifically remember Kevin mentioning that meant nothing to me in our mid-80s conversations. It’s a track that could only have emerged in the excess of the disco years: a hairdresser to the stars, Joseph Montanez, Jr., rebranding himself as Sir Monti Rock III and playing the part of a nightclub DJ on two hit records. The first, “Get Dancin’” (#14 this week, fresh off its peak of #10) was co-written by Kenny Nolan, who was red-hot at this time with his songs “My Eyes Adored You” and “Lady Marmalade” also on the countdown. Nolan is even singing in the background here.