The inspiration for one of the more regrettable dance crazes, Rock The Boat was also the inspiration for Rock Your Baby, regarded by many as the first disco hit.
Which is unfortunate for The Hues Corporation, who recorded theirs first but made the mistake of releasing it afterwards, thus losing their headline status in disco history.
The Hues Corporation (or The Children Of Howard Hughes until their record label drew the line at directly insulting the reclusive mogul) were unusual not only in coming from California – LA’s beach community of Santa Monica – but also for having a female singer, H. Ann Kelley, alongside St Clair Lee and Fleming Williams.
They formed in the late Sixties and did little of note besides opening for stars including Frank Sinatra and Glen Campbell and appearing in a blaxploitation vampire pic called Blacula, as well as supplying some of the songs on the soundtrack.
Rock The Boat was the B-side of the third single from the trio’s magnificently titled 1973 debut album Freedom For The Stallion and, like the previous two, it failed to attract any airplay or record sales for months.
Until DJs in the embryonic disco clubs of Manhattan flipped over the A-side, All Goin’ Down Together, and it unexpectedly became a dancefloor favourite in New York City.
It so nearly didn’t work out like that. Their manager and main songwriter Wally Holmes initially wrote the song for Kelley to sing but producer John Florez was convinced female-fronted groups were falling out of fashion and persuaded Williams to sing lead instead.
So he did. But he left the group soon afterwards, missing the group’s moment in the spotlight.
In another masterstroke – not to be confused with his decision to make the song a B-side – Florez suggested Holmes change his original opening line (“Ever since our voyage of love began”) to “So I’d like to know where you got the notion.”
The musicians are drawn from The Jazz Crusaders (later The Crusaders) – Wilton Felder on bass, Joe Sample on piano and Larry Carlton on that splendidly squealy electric guitar, with Jim Gordon on drums and Holmes himself playing the prominent trumpet part.
When the song started becoming a club sensation, Florez flipped the single to make it the B-side and remixed Rock The Boat to boost the bass and the rhythm, in tune with the emerging trend.
The rest is disco history.
Radio stations immediately picked it up, the song spreading like wildfire and going on to top the US charts – the first disco No.1 – and reach the UK top ten, selling two million copies around the world.
Richard Finch of KC & The Sunshine Band later said the song played a role in inspiring George McCrae’s hit Rock Your Baby which he wrote with Harry Wayne Casey after sneaking into Miami dance clubs to check out the latest sounds.
It also spawned the deeply regrettable novelty dance that became popular at weddings and parties where dancers would sit on the floor in a line as soon as the song came on and “row” their imaginary boat – as impeccably parodied in an episode of the sitcom Derry Girls (below).