Boogie Fever

"Boogie Fever" is a song recorded by Los Angeles, California-based R&B group the Sylvers, from their 1975 album Showcase. Their most lucrative single, it reached No. 1 in the US on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Soul Singles charts as well as reaching No. 1 in Canada on the RPM national singles chart in 1976.[2] It was their third of nine Top 20 R&B hits and first top 40 pop single.[3] Billboard ranked it as the No. 20 song for 1976. "Boogie Fever" is one of two gold records by the Sylvers, the other being "Hot Line".

"Boogie Fever"
side-A label by Capitol Records
One of side-A labels of the US single
Single by the Sylvers
from the album Showcase
B-side"Free Style"
ReleasedNovember 1975
Recorded1975
Genre
Length3:31
LabelCapitol
Songwriter(s)Freddie Perren, Kenneth St. Lewis
Producer(s)Freddie Perren
The Sylvers singles chronology
"Stay Away From Me"
(1973)		 "Boogie Fever"
(1975)		 "Cotton Candy"
(1976)

Content

The narrator of the song notes a change that seems to have come over his girlfriend. At the drive-in movie, she turns down the speaker volume and turns up the radio to hear her favorite disco songs. Then, at the pizza parlor, she "boogies" to the disco beat while eating her meal. He concludes that his girl must have caught the "boogie fever" which seems to be "goin' around." In the final verse, he consults his doctor and realizes that he himself has caught the "boogie fever" as a result of dancing all night, "doin' the bump, bump, bump" with his girlfriend.

History

After being signed to Capitol Records in 1975, Larkin Arnold, then vice president, hired Motown Records veteran Freddie Perren to produce the group. Kenneth St. Lewis, a long-time collaborator with Arnold, suggested that they write a song for them using one of the popular words of the day, "boogie." The song featured all nine of the Sylvers siblings, including the youngest sisters Angelia and Pat. The lead vocal was by Edmund Sylvers; Foster Sylvers was prominently featured in the bridge singing the line: "We kept it going strong".

The bass line was performed by legendary Motown bassist James Jamerson, and the opening guitar riff was based upon that of "Day Tripper" by the Beatles.

The song was featured in the Stephen King miniseries The Stand (1994) and the feature film Roll Bounce (2005). In 2010, "Boogie Fever" was briefly used in a scene in Despicable Me, and in 2012 it was used in its theme park attraction adaptation, Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem. The song has also appeared in TV ads for Intel Pentium II, Old Navy and Little Caesars Pizza. An instrumental version was also music for level 1 and level 9 of the game Frantic Freddie.

Chart performance

References
  1. Breihan, Tom (September 3, 2019). "The Number Ones: The Sylvers' "Boogie Fever"". Stereogum. Retrieved June 30, 2023. Perren co-wrote "Boogie Fever," an absolutely incandescent piece of euphoric Jacksons-esque pop-soul...And "Boogie Fever" really is top-shelf bubblegum disco.
  2. "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Archived from the original on 2016-06-03. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
  3. Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 563.
  4. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 303. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  5. "National Top 100 Singles for 1976". Kent Music Report. December 27, 1976. Retrieved January 15, 2022 – via Imgur.
  6. "Top Singles – Volume 26, No. 14 & 15, January 08 1977". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Archived from the original on March 19, 2016. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
  7. "Top Selling Singles of 1976 | The Official New Zealand Music Chart". Nztop40.co.nz. 1963-12-08. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
  8. "Top 100 Hits of 1976/Top 100 Songs of 1976". Musicoutfitters.com. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
  9. "Billboard Hot 100 60th Anniversary Interactive Chart". Billboard. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
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