Alex Henderson

Kleeer
I Love to Dance

1979 went down in history as a banner year for disco thanks to definitive classics that included Chic’s “Good Times,” Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls,” McFadden & Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” and Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” But the history of dance music isn’t just about the songs that soared to the top of the Billboard charts—it is also about all the minor and medium-sized hits that rocked the dance floor. It is about all the artists who weren’t huge on the radio but were popular in clubs. And in 1979, one such group was Kleeer, a New York City-based quartet consisting of lead singer/drummer Woody Cunningham, guitarist Richard Lee (b. August 14, 1953), bassist Norman Durham and percussionist Paul Crutchfield.

Originally released on LP by Atlantic Records in 1979, the group’s first album as Kleeer, I Love to Dance, is a perfect example of a disco-funk effort that was more of a club hit than a radio hit (especially in Europe, where they enjoyed some of their best sales). I Love to Dance peaked at #53 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart in the United States, and the album’s singles included “Tonight’s the Night (Good Time)”—which reached #33 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart—and “Keep Your Body Workin’,” a #60 R&B hit in Billboard. Many club DJs were attracted not only to “Tonight’s the Night (Good Time)” and “Keep Your Body Workin’,” but also, to infectious grooves that included “Amour,” “It’s Magic,” “Happy Me” and the title song. I Love to Dance also contains a few relaxed medium-tempo items (“To Groove You” and “Kleeer Sailin’”), but energetic disco-funk is its main focus.

The guests on I Love to Dance include female singer Isabelle Coles (who is featured extensively) and jazz trumpeters Randy Brecker and Marvin Stamm.  FunkyTownGrooves’ expanded edition of I Love to Dance boasts seven bonus tracks, which include various mixes of “Tonight’s the Night (Good Time),” “Keep Your Body Workin’” and “It’s Magic.”

Under the direction of producer/engineer Dennis King in 1979, Kleeer became known for a sound that was funky yet sleek, lush and ethereal. But they didn’t start out playing disco-funk, and in fact, they had been together for seven years when I Love to Dance came out. Formed in 1972 in the Washington, DC/Baltimore area (a move to the Big Apple came later), Kleeer were originally called The Jam Band and were a backing band for the Washington-based soul group the Choice Four—and in 1975, they changed their name from The Jam Band to Pipeline. As Pipeline, they signed to Columbia Records and recorded the 1976 single “Gypsy Rider,” which wasn’t disco at all but rather, favored a funk-rock approach along the lines of Mother’s Finest and Ike & Tina Turner. Unfortunately, “Gypsy Rider” received little attention.

“The marketing people at Columbia didn’t know what to do with Pipeline,” the 60-year-old Lee recalled during an October 2013 interview. “They didn’t know what to do with a black rock band or a funk-rock band.” 

In 1976, they began working with disco producers Patrick Adams and Gregory Carmichael as part of a project that was billed as the Universal Robot Band. After parting company with Adams and Carmichael in 1979, they changed their name to Kleeer but continued in a disco-oriented direction.

“We didn’t dilute ourselves,” Crutchfield asserted during an October 2013 interview. “We just went to a different part of ourselves when we became Kleeer. We loved the gamut of music, from James Brown to Led Zeppelin to the Beatles. Music was always a learning process for us.”

After I Love to Dance, Kleeer went on to record six more albums for Atlantic: Winners in 1979, License to Dream in 1981, Get Ready and Taste the Music in 1982, Intimate Connection in 1984 and Seeekret in 1985. Kleeer’s sound evolved the way, becoming edgier and more mindful of synth-funk.

“On our first couple of albums, we had a lot of studio musicians playing violins and horns,” Lee notes. “As the albums progressed, we went more into the funk—danceable funk—and we leaned away from the violins and the horns that we had on the first couple of albums.”

Lee continues: “I think Kleeer were bigger outside of the United States than we were inside of the United States. When we showed up in England, we were treated like Earth, Wind & Fire. But here in the United States, we never got as big as we were in Europe.”

Crutchfield and Lee don’t apologize for Kleeer’s involvement with disco. In fact, they are rightly proud of it. And Crutchfield points out that one need only listen to dance-pop superstar Lady Gaga to realize that disco is alive and well in 2013.

“Kleeer grew and expanded,” Crutchfield explains. “People say that disco died in the 1980s, and I always say, ‘No, it evolved.’ Disco evolved and took on different names: dance music, techno, house. Disco wasn’t all plastic—there were people who were really creative with disco and weren’t just saying, ‘Dance, baby, dance.’ There were real stories in disco, stories with substance: I thought Cerrone’s ‘Supernature’ was an awesome record, and Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ is considered an anthem. There were people who took disco and really rocked it, and to this day, there still are. Look at Lady Gaga. I’m glad that Kleeer was a part of disco.”

Kleeer parted company with Atlantic Records after Seeekret and haven’t had a new album out since then. But according to Lee and Crutchfield, Kleeer never officially broke up—and they have plans to record a new album with a new lineup. Sadly, Cunningham and Durham are no longer living. Cunningham died of a heart attack in 2010 at the age of 61, and Durham was 59 when he died of carbon monoxide poisoning during a freak accident in 2011.

No less than 34 years have passed since I Love to Dance, and both Lee and Crutchfield still look back on the album fondly. “I Love to Dance was the first Kleeer album, and it is always going to be special to us,” Crutchfield stresses. “A lot of our hearts went into that album.”

—Alex Henderson, October 2013

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Salon.com, AlterNet, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, Latin Style, The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to The All Music Guide’s popular website and series of music reference books.