George McCrea

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George Warren McCrae, Jr. (born October 19, 1944) is an American soul and disco singer, most famous for his 1974 hit "Rock Your Baby".

McCrae was the second of nine children, born in West Palm Beach, Florida. He formed his own singing group, the Jivin' Jets, before joining the United States Navy in 1963  Four years later, he reformed the group, with his wife Gwen joining the line-up, but soon afterwards they decided to work as a duo, recording for Henry Stone's Alston record label. Gwen then won a solo contract, with George acting as her manager as well as doing some singing on sessions and in clubs in Palm Beach.

He was about to return to college to study law enforcement, when Richard Finch and Harry Wayne Casey of KC and the Sunshine Band invited him to sing the lyrics for a song that they had recorded for the band, but could not reach the high notes that were required for the song. The original intention was that Gwen, his wife, should record it, but she was late for the session and George recorded alone.  It suited his high-pitched voice to the extent that the song, "Rock Your Baby", became one of the first hits of the disco era in 1974, selling an estimated eleven million copies worldwide,  topping the charts in the U.S., UK. The song was so successful that Rolling Stone magazine voted it the #1 song of the year in 1974. McCrae received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Male R&B Vocalist the following year.

Two further single releases, "I Can't Leave You Alone" and "It's Been So Long", taken from his album Rock Your Baby, also reached the UK Singles Chart Top 10.  He recorded several further albums for TK, including George McCrae (1975) and Diamond Touch (1976), and also continued to record with, and manage, his wife until their divorce in 1976. While he continued to record albums including We Did It! and his second self-titled album George McCrae (both 1978), his commercial popularity slipped as the decade progressed. He remarried, moved to Canada, and entered a period of semi-retirement, leaving TK at the end of the 1970s.

He returned with the album One Step Closer to Love in 1984, the title track from which entered the charts in Britain, Canada and Holland. He moved to the village Munstergeleen in The Netherlands and remarried again in the late 1980s. His later albums found some success in Europe, and he continued to perform regularly there. By the 2000s he shared his time between homes in Florida, Aruba and the Netherlands.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arxhW1RgDDo


"Rock Your Baby" is the debut single by George McCrae.

Written and produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch of KC and the Sunshine Band, "Rock Your Baby" was one of the landmark recordings of early disco music. A massive international hit, the song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the United States, spending two weeks at the top in July 1974, number one on the R&B singles chart, and repeating the feat on the UK Singles Chart, spending three weeks at the top of the chart in July 1974. Having sold 11 million copies, it is one of the fewer than 40 all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) physical copies worldwide.

The backing track for the record was recorded in 45 minutes as a demo and featured guitarist Jerome Smith of KC and the Sunshine Band, with Casey on keyboards and Finch on bass and drums.  It was also one of the first records to use a drum machine,  an early Roland rhythm machine.  The track was not originally intended for McCrae but he happened to be in the studio, added a vocal and the resulting combination of infectious rhythm and falsetto vocals made it a hit.

The chord progression of John Lennon's number one single "Whatever Gets You thru the Night", released a few months later, bears a great resemblance to the one found in "Rock Your Baby". Lennon later admitted to using the song as an inspiration.

ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus have also cited the song as an inspiration for the backing track of their 1976 smash hit "Dancing Queen". The song was covered by indie rock band The House of Love for the 1992 compilation album Ruby Trax.