Get ready to boogie, ‘cause the gang are here!
Kool & the Gang, that is. The band formed in the mid-60s when brothers Robert and Ronald Bell founded a band with some friends in their native New Jersey. They started out as an instrumental band and played jazz, then explored many musical styles and band names before settling on Kool & the Gang in 1969. Although achieving some fame with their fourth album and when their song Open Sesame was included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, their real break-through came when they enlisted a dedicated lead singer and began making mainstream pop with catchy hooks. The hit singles kept flowing: Ladies’ Night, Celebration, Get Down On It, Let's Go Dancin' (Ooh La La La), Joanna, Cherish… It made the band one of the leading funk/disco bands of the late 1970s and well into the mid-1980s. Still making people dance to this day, Kool & the Gang were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2024.
