The leader of the Sunshine Band endured some dark clouds with drug addiction.
“I’m sure of one thing: My love of music got me away from drugs,” Harry Wayne Casey, the voice of KC and the Sunshine Band, said in a telephone interview. “I had a choice – music or drugs. I choose music.”
KC – who plays The Sharon on Nov. 29 – was among the hottest acts in music during the 1970s. At the height of the disco craze, the group had such hits as: “Get Down Tonight,” “That’s the Way (I Like It),” “Shake Your Booty” and “I’m Your Boogie Man.”
KC and the band were part of the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack (“Boogie Shoes”), the best-selling soundtrack album ever with more than 45 million sold.
In the mid ’70s, KC and the Sunshine Band had four No. 1 singles in a 12-month period – the first band since the Beatles to do so. KC and his band sold over 100 million records.
Life at the top was a blast, but KC understood the vagaries of the music business. Taste, styles and record sales can change in a hurry.
“I grew up in the business, I knew it was never easy – and I saw the ups and downs,” said KC, who was raised in Hialeah listening to gospel and R&B music. “It’s not only hard at the top; it’s lonely at the top.”
By the mid-1980s, KC and the Sunshine Band was finished and he had his fill of the music business.
“I was sick of it and I had to make a break from it,” KC said. “I didn’t want anything to do with the so-called music business.”
He was severely injured in a 1981 head-on car crash. A few years later came some heavy use of drugs and alcohol. But, during the 1990s, there was a wave of ’70s’ nostalgia, and KC kicked the drug habit and found new life in his old music.
“Music lends itself to being positive and it helped me,” he said.
KC bristles when asked if his musical work is relevant to the present.
“What is relevant,” he asked. “Once you’ve recorded something, it’s there for all time and people can listen at any time. The people who listen to our music know it was relevant to their lives and still is that way.
“I made records when I was 23 and I’m still singing those songs at 67. People still want to hear my music.”
Just don’t call it disco.
“Labels destroy music’s credibility, especially the disco label,” he said. “People always try to come up with a label to describe music – like new wave or alternative. But music is always changing, and always influenced by what came before it.”
KC is more than an oldies act. He has had five hits on the dance charts over the past few years. He has earned Grammy Awards for his music and in 2002 received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And if that’s not enough, his hit “Keep It Comin’” can be constantly heard on Applebee’s commercials.
A new generation of rappers and singers have sampled lots of riffs from KC and the Sunshine Band.
“Everyone had dipped into our music and it feels good,” KC said, noting that such contemporary performers as Bruno Mars and Katy Perry offer a heavy dance sound straight out of disco.
These days KC is at peace with his music and himself.
“I’m having more fun now than ever,” he said. “I’m more relaxed and I’m just going to keep on making music.”
Tony Violanti is a veteran journalist and writes for Villages-News.com.
