Starting in the middle of January 1979 with Chic's "Le Freak" and going until mid-August 1979 with Chic's other chart-topper, "Good Times," every No. 1 song on top of the Billboard Hot 100 was a disco/dance tune with the exception of Peaches & Herb's "Reunited."
Disco saturated the proverbial musical earth and quite frankly, there was a ground swell of hatred toward the disco monster.
If not for Doug Fieger's obsession of a 17-year-old girl, who knows how long disco's overbearing self would have dominated the top of the charts.
So in that regard, a 17-year-old is either to blame or thank for disco's death.
It was the summer of 1979 and much of the music coming out of the radios were songs that had a pulsating 100-beats per minute sound that sent people young and old dancing, whether at a discotheque or in the safety and comforts of their own homes. Disco was everywhere. Even established stars like Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney and Barbra Streisand -- Barbara Streisand! -- were indulging themselves by dipping their hands and voices into the seemingly safe waters of disco music.
The top of the chart the week of July 21, 1979 was a practical disco lovefest -- Donna Summer was at No. 1 with "Bad Girls" and No. 3 with "Hot Stuff," while Anita Ward was at No. 2 with "Ring My Bell," Chic was No. 4 and flying fast up the chart with "Good Times," David Naughton's high-energy theme from the ill-fated TV show he was a star on, "Makin' It" was No. 5 and the collaboration between Earth, Wind & Fire and The Emotions, the roller-disco anthem "Boogie Wonderland," was at No. 6. There seemed to be no escape from the disco craze that was strangling us.
But it was that week a song called "My Sharona" debuted in the Top 40 at No. 34. It leaped from No. 53 to No. 34 and was getting nationwide attention. It was a new single by a four-man band based in Los Angeles called The Knack. The Knack were signed to Capitol Records -- the same label that once was the home to four guys named John, Paul, George and Ringo a decade earlier. And to say The Knack embraced that "Beatles feel" would be an understatement. Like the Beatles on their debut "Meet The Beatles!" album in this country, The Knack did the same kind of album cover for their debut, "Get The Knack."
The band had come together just one year earlier, led by Michigan native Fieger, who had performed in bands called Sky and the Sunset Bombers, who made the decision to move to Los Angeles in 1977. It was there singer-guitarist Feiger met three guys eager to make it in the music business as he was: Berton Averre, a lead guitarist-keyboardist-songwriter, Bruce Gary, a session drummer with experience, and Prescott Niles, a bass player. Niles joined what would become The Knack right before they started to tour in June 1978.
Meanwhile, Fieger found rejection at his doorstep at every turn from one record company after another that weren't into his kind of straight-forward rock and roll since disco was the way to go at that time. But Fieger didn't quit and neither did his three new friends, who got a following doing shows locally and were brought out to jam, playing mainly at the L.A. club Sunset Strip, with established acts such as Tom Petty, Ray Manzarek of the Doors and "The Boss" himself, Bruce Springsteen.
Word of mouth certainly could get any act far and in 1979, it finally did for The Knack. A bidding war began -- one that seemed unlikely just six months earlier -- and Capitol Records won the battle by signing them in the winter of 1979. So with the contract's ink dry, Fieger went to work to write songs for the debut album. He had already written a number of songs -- the same songs he got rejected for by those record companies the year before -- so he and the band were established when it came to start recording.
But he needed more.
Enter Sharona Alperin, a 17-year-old who was introduced to Fieger by none other than ... Fieger's own girlfriend at the time! It was obvious that from the moment Fieger laid on the beautiful blue eyes of that 17-year-old, he was hook, line and sinker in love with her. Fieger was suddenly motivated to do what he would ultimately call "the best songwriting of my life" in a two-month period.
By April 1979, all the songs were ready to go to record for what would be the "Get The Knack" album, and Alperin explained in an interview with NPR Radio in 2010 that she had a break from the clothing store she worked at to stop by the recording studio. It was there, she said, that Fieger and Averre, who worked on the song with Fieger, introduced the finished product to her. She said to NPR that as she left, she was questioning what she just heard, saying, "Did I just hear a song with my name in it?"
If you thought Alperin was surprised by the sudden obsession by 26-year-old Fieger, imagine how Fieger's girlfriend felt the day before as she heard the song when Fieger and Averre were finishing up composing it in the apartment that she and Fieger shared. As Averre would say in an interview years later, "I told him, 'You can't do that!' His girlfriend at the time was in the other room. Judy's right there. I told him, 'Doug, stop, she'll hear it." Fieger would say in an interview about that moment, "I said it's OK. I just 'feel' it."
With legendary producer and songwriter Mike Chapman doing the production and admitting he didn't have to do much for this composition other than to "hit the record button," "My Sharona" was finished the next day. "Get The Knack" was finished two weeks later and in June 1979, the 12-track album was released to a huge promotional blitz by Capitol Records. And the focal point of the album was the hard-driving "My Sharona," as anti-disco a song as you would ever come across. The song was highlighted by Gary's memorable backbeat starting the song off in the way an Elvis Costello record would begin and sound throughout, Averre's guitar riff that seemingly was duplicated for years to come and Fieger's sexually obsessed vocal that spelled out his feelings for this young lady that no one knew was 17, stuttering over the "My" part of "My Sharona" when he sang it.
As the members of the band would admit for years, it was simply a song written from the vantage point of a teenage boy "wanting so bad to screw a teenage girl."
Whether people enjoyed it because it was straight-forward rock 'n roll or tolerated it because it wasn't disco, the song was being requested at all hours on the radio and the single release -- which featured Alperin on the cover of the 45 in a revealing white tank top and jeans and holding a copy of the "Get The Knack" album -- was getting bought up quickly. "My Sharona" was becoming the fastest-selling 45 single in Capitol's history since the Beatles' debut hit "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in 1964.
"My Sharona" jumped from No. 34 to No. 18 the next week. The week after that -- August 4, 1979 -- "My Sharona" leaped into the Top 10 from No. 18 to No. 6. From there, it cracked the Top 5 at No. 4, then got to No. 2. And on the week of August 25, 1979 -- the week Fieger turned 27 years old on August 20 -- "My Sharona" knocked Chic's "Good Times" out of the No. 1 spot and would begin a six-week run as the biggest song in the country, ultimately becoming the No. 1 song of 1979.
And the band's persona was becoming bigger as everyone wanted to "Get The Knack." "My Sharona" was being played everywhere. The album spent five weeks at No. 1 and sold one million copies within the first month of release, not bad for an album that cost $18,000 to make and took two weeks to record. The band received critical praise for the album and the comparisons to the Beatles were becoming more and more commonplace.
But instead of retreating from that, Fieger and his bandmates continued to breathe it all in. And that was where the problems began with the band. In the following months, the band continued to refuse doing any interviews and were being called brash and arrogant by the music critics. And some began to question the band's hype, even misogynous views on women in their songs. All this led to conceptional artist Hugh Brown's campaign which would famously be called "Knuke The Knack," a kit that would include a T-shirt, buttons and bumper stickers sullying the band's building reputation.
And as "My Sharona" was finally ending its run on the top of the chart, their follow-up, another sexually charged record aimed at teens called "Good Girls Don't," began to fly up the Top 40. But it didn't have the magic of "My Sharona" and would end up peaking at No. 11.
White hot from the success of "My Sharona" and the "Get The Knack" album, the band jumped right back into the recording the studio at the end of 1979 with Chapman to do a follow-up for Capitol called "... But The Little Girls Understand." The album was rush-released and the tracks on it were nowhere near the genius that "Get The Knack" had. And the first release from the new album was the "My Sharona" copycat "Baby Talks Dirty." It only got to No. 38 and that seemed to sink the band lower than ever. As Rolling Stone magazine writer-critic Dave Marsh said of that song, "The kid in 'Baby Talks Dirty' is a foul-mouthed windup doll."
And that wasn't all Marsh said. He also wrote, "All of Fieger's lyrics finally boil down to one sentiment: F*ck- me, honey."
Ouch! And you'd thought the main criticism was that "Baby Talks Dirty" sounded almost note for note like the band's biggest hit ever.
The band released one more album in 1981 -- "Round Trip" -- which was produced by Jack Douglas, who produced the late John Lennon's comeback 1980 album, "Double Fantasy." The album drew mixed reviews, but they were better than the previous album. It still, however, didn't keep The Knack together and in 1982, the band called it quits.
Over the years, The Knack would get together three more times, but made it permanent in 1996 with the original four members getting together and two years after "My Sharona" found a new and younger audience thanks to its use in the Ben Stiller-directed slacker film Reality Bites. Over the years, some members left and others came on, but The Knack continued to persevere. On their 2001 CD, "Normal As The Next Guy," Fieger described the process of making that CD as "doing whatever we wanted to do." They released three CDs between 1998-2003 and released a live recording in 2001. They were having fun and had none of the pressure involved with it.
Sadly, Father Time caught up with the band. In 2006, Gary, who became a very well-respected producer in the business, lost his battle with lymphoma at the age of 55. And during that year, Fieger got dizzy and disoriented during a show in Las Vegas. It turned out he had two brain tumors. He had surgery and radiosurgery to remove the tumors and continued to tour feeling better. But he never recovered from the battle with those tumors and a couple of years later, doctors found he also had lung cancer. On Valentine's Day, 2010, the end came for Fieger at the all-too-young age of 57 at his home in Woodland Hills, Calif.
Before he passed away, many of Fieger's friends and influences came to visit. And he also had another visitor on occasion in those last few months -- Sharona Alperin, who Fieger won over a year after "My Sharona" became a hit and dated for almost five years before breaking up. But even though the pair had married separate partners, they were still close friends until his passing.
Today, Alperin is a realtor for Sotheby's International Realty to some of the top entertainers and stars in the L.A. area, a job she's done for over 20 years. And no matter where she's gone or what she's doing, she said that song became her life even as she became a mother at the turn of the century.
She may have been obsessed about in those lyrics, but she could also claim to putting the first death knell into disco.
Not too many 17-year-olds can say they did those kinds of things.
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