Dance With Me: How Peter Brown’s 1977 Disco Classic Captured the Moment Just Before Saturday Night Fever Blew It All Up

The Twelve Inch 155 : Dance With Me (Peter Brown)

“What did disco really sound like in 1977—before Saturday Night Fever turned it into a global cash grab?”

That’s not a rhetorical question. Seriously, think about it. Before John Travolta strutted across a Brooklyn dancefloor and the Bee Gees’ falsettos dripped from every radio speaker, disco was already everywhere. But it hadn’t yet gone fully mainstream. It was still on the cusp—a massive, thriving subculture poised to burst into something even bigger.

And right at the heart of that moment was Peter Brown, a soft-spoken, multi-instrumentalist from the Midwest who somehow found himself in the sweaty center of Miami’s burgeoning disco scene.

His 1977 twelve-inch “Dance With Me” didn’t just soundtrack the clubs—it captured that rare window when disco was still underground cool, still countercultural, still art. Before Hollywood polished it into a plastic fantasy, disco was raw, diverse, and alive. “Dance With Me” was one of its most stylish and forward-thinking invitations.

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Welcome, I’m Pe Dupre and I’m really glad you’re here. This is “The Twelve Inch”, my newsletter that tells the history of dance music between 1975 and 1995, one twelve inch at a time.

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1977: Disco Before the Storm

By 1977, disco wasn’t just a trend—it was a $4 billion industry in the U.S. alone. Clubs evolved from gritty underground havens into sleek, aspirational playgrounds of light and sound.

New York had Studio 54, but disco fever was igniting across the country, from San Francisco to Philadelphia to Miami—each scene adding its own flavor. Across the Atlantic, Munich developed the Eurodisco sound, France was a major contributor to the development of disco, and Italy’s early Italo experiments were taking shape.

What made 1977 special was that disco was still, at its core, multi-racial, queer-friendly, and rooted in Black, Latin, and gay club culture. Every twelve-inch released was another piece in a sprawling cultural mosaic—and “Dance With Me” was one of those vital pieces.

Who Was Peter Brown Before the Disco Lights?

Peter Brown wasn’t born in Miami’s tropical heat. His roots were in Blue Island, Illinois, a Chicago suburb where he grew up absorbing pop and rock. But Brown wasn’t just a listener—he was obsessed with the process of making music.

A self-taught musician, Brown played drums, guitar, piano, and was an early adopter of affordable synthesizers. But his real obsession? Recording technology. His basement became a homegrown recording lab, stocked with Revox tape machines and primitive multitracks, where he layered every part himself.

“I played various musical instruments when I was growing up (although I never had any formal music lessons of any kind) and was always trying to get a band started with my friends. Music was a perpetual hobby, but I never envisioned myself becoming a professional musician when I grew up. A painter maybe.
I loved recording too, and would spend hours over dubbing myself playing one instrument after another on to a primitive 2-track tape recorder my father (an electrical engineer) supplied”

A Chance Meeting with Cory Wade Changes Everything

If you dreamed of becoming a world-famous producer in the seventies, you’d better invest in a sleek leather jacket to make the right impression.

In 1976, Brown’s homemade demos landed in the hands of Cory Wade, a producer already deep in Miami’s disco ecosystem, working with acts like KC and the Sunshine Band, T-Connection, and Foxy. Wade immediately saw the potential: a bedroom genius who could play everything and craft it all himself.

Wade brought Brown into Tk Records, Miami’s hottest label and the epicenter of the city’s signature disco sound.

“Do You Want To Get Funky With Me?' was the song that got me my first recording contract and album deal. Cory Wade played my demo for Henry Stone who wanted to release it just the way it was. I recorded it at home in my bedroom on a 4-track recorder. I played all of the instruments except for a saxophone solo

Inside TK Records: The Sound of Miami Disco

Henry Stone (right) with his major income source (left) : KC aka Harry Wayne Casey

Founded by Henry Stone, TK Records was a powerhouse of 1970s disco and funk, specializing in sweaty, sun-drenched grooves with Latin and Caribbean undertones. At its peak, TK ran over 20! labels, becoming the largest independent record company in the world.

The iconic TK Disco twelve-inch label, with its yellow background and tropical palm tree artwork, became one of the most instantly recognizable visuals of the disco era.

The iconic TK Disco sleeve

The TK family included:

• KC and the Sunshine Band, defining the Miami Sound.

• George McCrae, whose “Rock Your Baby” pioneered early disco.

• T-Connection, blending funk with Bahamian rhythms.

• Betty Wright, who brought soul grit into disco.

Other artists like Anita Ward, Foxy, Bobby Caldwell, and Jimmy “Bo” Horne rounded out the roster. By the time “Dance With Me” hit, TK was grossing over $7.5 million annually.

Peter Brown’s Sophisticated Approach: Disco Meets AOR

Unlike the group-focused TK sound, Brown’s one-man-band approach stood out. With Cory Wade, the vision for “Dance With Me” was disco with sophistication—more layered, melodic, and polished than the typical club banger. It leaned closer to AOR (Album-Oriented Rock) than many dancefloor fillers.

The production budget allowed for the inclusion of strings performed by the New York Philharmonic, adding a lush elegance that elevated the track even further.

1977: The Breakthrough Year

Signed to Drive Records, a TK sublabel, Peter Brown was its only artist. His first single, “Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me”, was a unique blend of tight rhythms, soulful horns, quirky synths, and sweet female vocals. It became the first twelve-inch to sell over a million copies, instantly putting Brown on the map.

The first time this brilliant marketing trick was pulled off (a tactic I happily used many times myself 😃): create a “making of” feature and hand it to a popular TV show — in this case, 60 Minutes.

The follow-up, “Dance With Me”, wasn’t just a club anthem—it crossed over to the pop charts, peaking at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topping dance charts globally. In the UK, it hit the Top 20, and it was a club favorite across Europe.

Betty Wright, the biggest soul star on TK’s roster, provided the track’s signature female vocals.

The Fall of TK and the End of an Era

Despite massive success, TK Records was one of the first casualties of the 1979 disco backlash, folding in 1981. Brown moved to RCA for one album (1983) and then to Columbia for his 1984 release “Snap.”

One last windfall came when Madonna recorded “Material Girl,” co-written by Brown. The track hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Plagued by severe tinnitus, Brown retired from music in the late 1980s, launching a successful design company that even led the award-winning redesign of the Chicago Board Options Exchange website.

Peter Brown’s Legacy: DIY Disco Pioneer with a Broader Vision

“Dance With Me” represents something bigger than just a hit—it’s the moment a self-taught bedroom producer stood alongside studio pros and proved that disco belonged to the DIY crowd, too. Brown’s elegant production style, blending synths with organic grooves, would help set the benchmark for the later dance records.

Peter Brown never saw himself as a disco artist: "I never thought of myself as a disco artist and never really tried to write dance songs. When I wrote 'Do You Want To Get Funky With Me' I'd never even been to a disco. Naturally, with the extraordinary popularity of disco music at the time, you had to write dance songs to survive. Every artist from The Rolling Stones to Ethel Merman put out a disco song or album. People tend to forget that."

His debut album leans far more towards AOR than disco. The two follow-up singles to Dance With Me — A Fantasy Love Affair and You Should Do It — were never released as twelve-inch versions and didn’t receive extended mixes. That’s especially surprising in the case of You Should Do It, as it’s built on nearly the exact same elements as Dance With Me, including backing vocals by Betty Wright.

Call to Action: Share Your Memories

Did you know “Dance With Me” (or any of the other Peter Brown songs?) Join in the discussion and let me know what your favorite period in discomusic was? 🔊 🎛️

Further reading (or should I say watching)

There are a number of interesting video’s/links :

1. The official video

2. Usually, there’s no video footage for most seventies disco hits — but this time, we actually have two different clips. Both follow a similar setup, though it looks like they lost one of the backing singers in this version. Plus, instead of the extended twelve-inch mix, this one features the shorter single version.

3. But this is the true gem : The Making Off

So You Wanna Hear More ?

I thought you would !

It’s fun to write about music but let’s be honest. Music is made to listen to.

Every week, together with this newsletter, I release a 1 hour beatmix on Mixcloud and Soundcloud. I start with the discussed twelve inch and follow up with 10/15 songs from the same timeframe/genre. The ideal soundtrack for…. Well whatever you like to do when you listen to dance music.

The MIXCLOUD Mix Of The Week

So what’s in this week’s mix ?

A carefully selected batch of mid-tempo disco gems from 1977 — arguably the greatest year in disco history. The mix features two tracks from the iconic Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, released in the fall of ’77: Yvonne Elliman’s brilliant If I Can’t Have You and David Shire’s instrumental disco classic Night On Disco Mountain. Everything else in the mix, however, is solidly pre-SNF.

You’ll also find some pop-flavored dance cuts like Peter Brown’s Dance With Me, Boz Scaggs’ Hollywood, and Keep It Comin’ Love by KC & The Sunshine Band. But soon enough, the vibe shifts into funkier territory — with tracks like Stargard’s Which Way Is Up, LTD’s Back In Love Again, and Rose Royce’s It Makes You Feel Like Dancin’.

I’ve also included Carl Davis & The Chi Sound Orchestra with their tribute to Peter Brown’s hometown, Windy City, plus two of the most sexually charged records of 1977: Brenda & The Tabulations’ Let’s Go All The Way and Let’s Get Together by Pam Todd & The Love Exchange.

The mix wraps up with Bumblebee Unlimited (in a PAJ Bootleg Disco Mix), Loleatta Holloway, and the sublime Love Chant by Eli’s Second Coming.

Enjoy !

Next week, I’ll be taking a deep dive into the Freestyle phenomenon that swept through the US dance scene in the back half of the 80s. And I’ll be doing it by tracing the story of one of the era’s most popular boybands — signed to one of the biggest dance labels of the time: Tommy Boy