| ANNOUNCEMENT + |
We Are Family Foundation's "A Night at Studio 54" Benefit
June 8th, 2004
Roger Friedman
...Rodgers reassembled the original members of Chic for a show at Studio 54 last night, and recreated all the excitement and energy of the pre-AIDS disco movement of the late '70s. I don't know if enough pop music critics give Rodgers enough credit for inventing the one truly seminal disco beat, unlike all the others and groundbreaking enough to make him the dance equivalent of Chuck Berry. Revelers at the Studio 54 dinner and silent auction not only got to hear Chic perform lushly perfect versions of "Le Freak," "Good Times," "Dance Dance Dance" and "I Want Your Love," but they were also treated to |
 |
wonderful cameos by R&B disco kings Tavares ("Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel") and Maxine Nightingale ("Right Back Where We Started From"). There was no sampling, no lip synching and nothing artificial.
"Do you remember real music?" shouted out Chic singer Silver Logan Sharpe to the crowd. If they didn't, hearing Dionne Warwick perform "What the World Needs Now is Love" and, with Fonzie Thornton, "Then Came You," should have done the trick. There was some talk in the recent past that Dionne had lost her voice to cigarettes, but last night she showed off her famous unerring pitch and swerving filigrees,
launching some lines into the air like perfectly aimed arrows.
The We Are Family Foundation was launched right after Sept. 11 by Rodgers and Hunt with an all-star single and a video designed to raise consciousness and awareness, and, of course, to help educate children. It might very well have fallen apart just as quickly as it came together, but — nearly three years later — it seems like a group determined to grow and spread its word. It looks like they may make it after all.