Rock Your Baby

When Harry “KC” Casey’s Sunshine Band-abetted rocket to ’70s omnipresence ran through this early classic of Miami (and, soon enough, everywhere-else) disco, it proved three things: one, that he could write a massive hit; two, he could write an LP’s worth of songs in a similar vein as that hit without spreading his ideas too thin (gratuitous reprise notwithstanding); and three, the right voice could turn even his simplest sentiments into something revelatory. The fact that a pushing-30 George McCrae was that right voice made for one of the decade’s great happy accidents, considering he was a third choice after the falsetto-deficient Casey couldn’t wrap his vocal cords around it and George’s more prominent other-half Gwen wound up running late to the studio. Since he sang like he saw it as the big break it was, George has this oh, I can just go for it energy to his performance that scans youthful even as his voice already feels like a music-biz lifer’s — this mixture of almost disbelieving, euphoric wonder at his good fortune, and the poise to sound grateful for it. The mellow-yet-mobile propulsion of the songs that Casey and co-writer Richard Finch provide him already do wonders on their own in making midtempo crossover dance music not only a viable sound but a versatile one — soothingly romantic in the glimmering yet easygoing contentment of the title cut and the swooning generosity of future Yo La Tengo cover subject “You Can Have It All,” jolted with remnant holy-ghost fervor in its deeper-soul connections like “You Got My Heart,” and radiating supreme confidence as a side effect of being lovestruck in the funky-piano head-nodder “I Get Lifted.” But McCrae’s voice, radiating a gentleness without weakness and putting a genuine weight and warmth behind a falsetto the Gibbs would hyperbolize a couple years later, is the keystone to one of the first truly great disco full-lengths.