Billboard Says Massachusetts’s Donna Summer Has ‘Best Dance Song’

On any given Friday night in Greater New Bedford in 1977, the strains of disco music pulsed under the glitter of a rotating disco ball and strobe lights, as flashing colored squares lit up dance floors well into the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Either you know, or you don't.

Back in those days, New Bedford and the surrounding towns were flush with clubs featuring live music – and then there were the discos.

Marco's Pub, Chippy's, Billy Wood's Wharf (upstairs), Alhambra's, The Hangers, and so many more. Those were just some of the straight dance clubs.

The disco era was a subculture as much as a music genre in the 1970s. It was escapism from the real-world drama of Vietnam and Watergate. The war was over. Nixon was gone. It was time to be decadent and have fun in New Bedford, which was on the front lines.

Not only was the club scene in New Bedford huge, but we had skin in the game. New Bedford's own Tavares was burning up the charts with dance hits such as "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel," More Than a Woman," "It Only Takes a Minute," "Don't Take Away the Music," and "Whodunit."

Tiny Tavares once told me that "Don't Take Away the Music" was probably the group's most impactful song.

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Another Massachusetts native, Donna Summer, from Boston, became known as the "Queen of Disco." Summer simmered during the disco era.

Billboard recently shared its "100 Best Dance Songs of All Time," as determined by staff members, and Donna Summer appears twice on the list.

Summer's "MacArthur Park Suite" (1978) was voted 73rd Best Dance Song of All Time, but her sultry, steamy, "I Feel Love "(1977) was voted the No. 1 Best Dance Song of All Time.

Summer, who was inducted posthumously into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, passed away on May 17, 2012, at age 63, after a long battle with cancer.