The Hues Corporation

This song sounds more like 1974 than any song on this countdown.

It's the Hughes Corporation's Rock the Boat, the breezy 1974 hit that had America dancing before disco had exploded.

Now,

formed in Santa Monica in 69, the group signed with RCA and released their debut album, Freedom for the Stallion.

For months, it went nowhere.

That is until a New York dance club DJ discovered it, and he played it two or three times in a row to extend the groove, and it became a smash from there.

Many say it was the first disco hit, so for all you disco haters, Hughes Corporation is the blame.

All right, coming in at number one.

huge corporation.

Hughes Corporation.

There you go.

The Hughes Corporation actually had a very big hit in 1974.

Which one? Rock the Boat.

Oh,

hit that marked disco as the main thing on the scene than two consecutive number one hits with the word rock in the title.

The Hughes Corporation's Rock the Boat we heard at song number 1721.

The international hit that knocked Rock the Boat out of the top spot in the U.S. was George McRae's Rock Your Baby.

It was written by Henry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch, Henry Wayne Casey of the Casey and the Sunshine Band fame, who would go on to have four number one disco songs in the next couple of years.

Debbie Harry and partner Chris Stein had originally penned it in 1974, just after they formed a group together as Angel and the Snake.

Their inspiration was the Hughes Corporation's early disco hit Rock the Boat.

And they called the first version Once I Had a Love.

We were living in a loft in New York's then notorious Bowery area, Harry told the Guardian newspaper in 2013, rehearsing at night in rooms so cold we had to wear gloves.

Big old hit over there.

Now, arguably, if you think it's disco, it's the first disco number one, six months before the Hughes Corporation rocked the boat.

Oh, okay.

And the disco elements, I suppose, are the lush strings, the drums...

Wonder if I know that song.

Average White Band, Staple Singers, "Respect Yourself", Hughes Corporation, "Rock the Boat." I love that song.

The Three Degrees, "When Will I See You Again?", Tower of Power.

"Rubber Band Man" by The Spinners.

[singing]

Um, Rock the Boat, Hues Corporation.

Rock the boat, don't rock the boat, baby.

Baby.