How This Song Inspired a Generation of Dance Music

0:00 In 1978, dance floors across America were set on fire by a disco song called,

0:05 you Make Me Feel Mighty Real.

0:08 The track recorded by Sylvester didn't just make waves on the billboard Hot 100,

0:12 it became a pride anthem,

0:15 embodying L-G-B-T-Q expression and quickly turning into a staple in nightclubs.

0:23 But here's the twist.

0:24 It wasn't originally written as a dance song at all.

0:28 [Woman] Sylvester, widely celebrated as the queen of disco

0:31 became a star in the vibrant gay disco scene.

0:34 But his journey began in a completely different setting.

0:38 The Gospel church.

0:44 These roots heavily influenced the original version

0:47 of You Make Me Feel Mighty Real,

0:49 a song he wrote with his band mate, James Burrick.

0:52 The first draft of the song was much slower and with a lead piano.

0:56 We're excited that their band gave Sylvester pushback

0:58 on changing the song into an upbeat dance tune.

1:01 But Sylvester and Zuric insisted, no,

1:03 we have to do that because that's what's on the radio.

1:06 And they were right.

1:07 The song hit the top 10 in countries all over

1:10 the world cementing Sylvester's status as a dance music star.

1:14 This is a story of how Sylvester started as a young

1:17 boy singing in the church choir and became the queen of disco,

1:21 a pioneer in dance music history with his powerful falsetto voice.

1:25 I don't think that we arrive at the time where we have pop

1:28 artists and rap artists like Little Uzi

1:31 Vert exploring different gender expressions without Sylvester.

1:36 Yeah, I really feel like we almost are in a Sylvester world.

1:44 [Woman] Sylvester was born in 1947 in Watts,

1:47 a neighborhood in South Los Angeles.

1:49 His mom was a devout Pentecostal Christian,

1:52 and every weekend Sylvester and his brothers would join her at church.

1:55 It was there in the church choir that Sylvester started his musical journey.

1:59 Things took a tough turn when Sylvester was outed as a teenager,

2:03 straining his relationship with his mother.

2:05 He left home and found himself spending

2:06 more time with his grandmother, Julia Morgan.

2:09 Julia was a jazz singer and she introduced Sylvester to the world of jazz

2:14 vocalists like Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker

2:17 adding another layer to his musical influences.

2:20 My name is Myles E Johnson.

2:21 I'm a writer, performance artist, and I am a Sylvester stan.

2:26 Can we talk a little bit about like

2:28 Sylvester's or a little bit more about Sylvester's influences?

2:31 A ride that so many artists went like went on was like,

2:35 where are my roots, the church, gospel, soul,

2:38 blues, jazz, but where can I take it?

2:40 Funk music.

2:41 In the Sylvester's case, disco.

2:44 [Woman] As a teenager, Sylvester frequented gay clubs in LA and formed a group

2:48 with black trans women and self-identified cross-dressers called the Disquotays.

2:53 By the 1970s, Sylvester had moved to San Francisco,

2:56 a hub for the gay liberation movement,

2:59 and joined a theater group called The Cockettes.

3:02 Sylvester's unique falsetto voice and dedication to his craft

3:05 made him a standout in the group.

3:07 So much so that Sylvester thought it best to leave the Cockettes and go solo.

3:11 [Man] Sylvester put together a group of straight

3:13 white men to make up his first band,

3:15 and they called themselves Sylvester and the Hot Band.

3:18 You can hear Sylvester's gospel roots and his grandma's

3:21 jazz vocal influence on their first release.

3:29 The track was originally written for the Broadway show Sweet Adeline in 1929,

3:34 and had gone on to be covered by many of the jazz

3:36 singers that Sylvester grew up listening

3:38 to, like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

3:42 Why Do I Want For Things I Dare Not Hope For?

3:47 But Sylvester's version is a slowdown, more syncopated and soulful edition,

3:51 which features his almost felting falsetto vocals leading the track.

4:03 Sylvester and the Hot Band started making

4:05 waves with their early covers around San Francisco,

4:08 landing local gigs and even getting the chance to open for David Bowie.

4:12 They went on to release two albums blending Sylvester's Gospel Roots with Rock,

4:16 which was more commercially popular at the time.

4:19 You can really hear this mix on songs like Down On Your Knees,

4:22 written by the band's bassist Kerry Hatch.

4:28 Unfortunately, neither of the band's albums sold well,

4:31 and by 1974, the Hot Band had left Sylvester.

4:35 Determined to keep going, Sylvester put together a few new lineups,

4:38 this time with the help of drag queens,

4:40 but despite their talent and flair, they struggled to find commercial success.

4:44 Then Sylvester auditioned new background vocalists and struck gold.

4:48 He discovered Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes.

4:51 If those names ring a bell, it's because they later formed the Weather Girls

4:55 and gave us the iconic hit, "It's Raining Men".

4:58 Martha Wash in particular went on to lend

5:00 her powerhouse vocals to hit dance tracks throughout the nineties,

5:03 including "Gonna make you sweat (Everybody dance now)".

5:11 But before all that, they started as backup singers in Sylvester's new band.

5:16 The year was 1977 and disco was on fire.

5:20 Sylvester and his new band put together an album

5:22 titled "Sylvester" leaning heavily into the disco craze.

5:33 "Down, down, down, down", written by Sylvester himself,

5:36 cranked the tempo up to a blazing 135 beats per minute,

5:39 faster than most dance hits at the time.

5:42 The track reached number 18 on the Billboard

5:44 dance chart marking Sylvester's most successful release up

5:47 to that point,- The singer in church knows

5:50 this note is what gets people out their seat.

5:52 So the person whose church is the dance floor knows that this BPM is

5:57 what's gonna get them on the dance floor- By embracing the popular disco sound,

6:01 Sylvester's solo career was finally finding some commercial success.

6:05 A lot of artists will just write the music

6:07 for themselves and then just put it out.

6:09 And aren't necessarily like thinking about like who are they speaking to?

6:12 What message are they giving, how do they wanna make people feel?

6:15 And I feel like to me, Sylvester gives the opposite.

6:18 I think that it's something that a black, queer,

6:21 person has in the back of their head where it's like,

6:24 okay, well bills are still real and I

6:27 have to understand what's happening on the dance floor,

6:30 but also just being a good trend forecaster and just being

6:34 like an innovative person and having your ear to the street.

6:38 [Woman] But the real breakthrough came with his next album.

6:40 Step two.

6:41 [Man] While at City Disco, a popular disco club in San Francisco,

6:45 Sylvester met a technologically savvy record

6:48 producer working the lights named Patrick Cowley.

6:50 Cowley had studied music in college

6:52 and specifically electronic music production, which was novel at the time.

6:57 Sylvester intrigued by Cowley's electronic instrument wizardry

7:01 invited him to work on his new album, and the rest, as they say is history.

7:09 The mix of Cowley's electronic instrumentation with the band's

7:13 traditional instruments created a new groovy sound,

7:15 reminiscent of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love",

7:18 what Giorgio Moroder had produced a year earlier,-

7:26 And like Donna Summer and "I Feel Love".

7:27 Sylvester delivered a powerful vocal performance

7:30 that evoked pure euphoria on the dance floor.

7:36 But it wasn't just the production of "You Make Me

7:38 Feel" that made it a lasting standout in music history.

7:41 In fact, it wasn't even the most popular song on the album at the time,

7:45 that honor went to "Dance Disco Heat".

7:51 Yet over the years, you make me feel has eclipsed dance,

7:54 disco heat in popularity.

7:56 Why?

7:56 Because of what it represented during a time

7:59 of intense homophobia in the United States.

8:02 The song's lyrics talk about the sensuality

8:04 of meeting someone on the dance floor, and then there's the chorus.

8:08 You make me feel mighty real.

8:10 The word real could mean so many things,

8:12 including finally feeling like yourself.

8:15 This message, whether or not it was immediately recognized

8:17 by the general public became an anthem for gay liberation.

8:21 It becomes really interesting and radical that you had this person who was being

8:26 as queer as he was and being beloved by black folks in the seventies.

8:32 [Woman] The author of Sylvester's biography, Joshua Gamson said: "In a way,

8:36 if I'd felt that earlier, I'd have come out earlier.

8:39 Embracing who you are, celebrating who you are,

8:42 being as fabulous as you could possibly be.

8:45 I think that's the message that he's preaching in the song,

8:47 and I could have used a dose of that as a teenager".

8:50 The album's two hit singles catapulted it

8:52 to the top of the billboard dance chart, and a year later it was certified gold.

8:58 Sylvester really was that person who was glamorous, black,

9:04 and this is how you navigate this, with this identity.

9:08 More than that, Sylvester brought representation

9:11 to the growing L-G-B-T-Q movement through his disco music,

9:14 a genre rooted in the black and brown gay community.

9:17 This is important because Sylvester refused to stay closeted even when

9:20 his label tried to conform his image to be more masculine.

9:24 What does Sylvester mean to you?

9:26 I can't really articulate how much being 10

9:29 years old and seeing somebody who a grownup

9:34 be themselves and be visibly queer and glamorous

9:40 and being embraced by other black people.

9:42 It really showed that, oh no, this can be a warm world too, you know?

9:48 As the 1970s ended, disco's popularity waned partly due to anti disco sentiment,

9:53 but dance music evolved into new styles like High Energy, House, and Techno.

9:58 Sylvester would go on to release seven more albums throughout the seventies

10:01 and eighties and kept the dance floors pumping with tracks like,

10:04 "Do You Wanna Funk?" in 1982.

10:10 Sylvester and Cowley recaptured the magic of "You Make Me Feel",

10:14 by blending the traditional disco sound

10:16 with the new electronic dance sound of high energy,

10:19 the song became a hit in Europe further cementing

10:22 Sylvester and Patrick Cowley as innovators in dance music history.

10:27 Sadly, Patrick Cowley died from AIDS later that year and six years later,

10:31 Sylvester passed away from AIDS in 1988 at the age of 41.

10:36 In his will, he declared that the proceeds

10:38 from his music should go to HIV AIDS charities.

10:41 To still be activated enough to support your community.

10:46 We not only see that as brave and as beautiful, but also as a blueprint.

10:52 Here's how you can be in the midst

10:55 of a struggle and still create relief for yourself and others.

11:01 Though Sylvester has been gone for over 30 years,

11:03 the power of his music continues to impact people.

11:06 In 2019, "You Make Me Feel Mighty Real"

11:09 was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation,

11:13 and to this day remains a powerful celebration of L-G-B-T-Q pride.

11:17 When I think about the artists like Lil Nas X, when I think about Lady Gaga.

11:21 Of course, when I think about Beyonce and the Renaissance album,

11:25 I think that you can really see their influence on a lot of things sonically,

11:28 they were one of the people to really show this is how soul

11:32 music and gospel music and blues music and dance music can live together.

11:37 Wait, yeah, Sylvester's Mighty Real, Sylvester was mighty real, mighty complex,

11:42 and a mighty soulful artist inside of black music,

11:47 and American music in general.