Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Kindle
$17.02

Available instantly

Hardcover
from $592.99

Paperback
$29.95

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

FREE delivery Tuesday, February 6 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35

Select delivery location

In Stock

$$29.95 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.

Read full return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

$3.99 delivery February 7 - 13. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Goodwill Southern California

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Follow the author

Tim Lawrence

Follow

Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979 Paperback – February 2, 2004

by Tim Lawrence (Author)

4.7 200 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$29.95","priceAmount":29.95,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"29","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"95","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"fUO25J9ahI%2BSYqYdtDIcyctgCuaaU7cH5orduq7rlB1Oyzvvcst%2F7%2BtF%2FD%2Fdp%2BYz%2FM9swBjXlk0SndjDPHy8eROi8foAZ6lCXLhKDpK9rOlGBrUCDT%2FKIBnAD2VoXSZkOrjL%2Fg6jU%2B8%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$25.31","priceAmount":25.31,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"25","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"31","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"fUO25J9ahI%2BSYqYdtDIcyctgCuaaU7cHdt%2FB%2Bz9836AD1TYKcMaV09fYhDlz2Jziqy4gId7BAB8FgThVo0H7hPHB2QL0ege%2F2inpxBHMnWVSABRu6JadT6CjxIk0p1In80wfcY%2BQK2P%2F8e3RNHoDlj2%2BSkiyt%2BpQRudiKPdneWTcZRbMux%2BiB0%2BDNoqCrY10","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Opening with David Mancuso's seminal “Love Saves the Day” Valentine's party, Tim Lawrence tells the definitive story of American dance music culture in the 1970s—from its subterranean roots in NoHo and Hell’s Kitchen to its gaudy blossoming in midtown Manhattan to its wildfire transmission through America’s suburbs and urban hotspots such as Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Newark, and Miami.

Tales of nocturnal journeys, radical music making, and polymorphous sexuality flow through the arteries of Love Saves the Day like hot liquid vinyl. They are interspersed with a detailed examination of the era’s most powerful djs, the venues in which they played, and the records they loved to spin—as well as the labels, musicians, vocalists, producers, remixers, party promoters, journalists, and dance crowds that fueled dance music’s tireless engine.

Love Saves the Day includes material from over three hundred original interviews with the scene's most influential players, including David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Tom Moulton, Loleatta Holloway, Giorgio Moroder, Francis Grasso, Frankie Knuckles, and Earl Young. It incorporates more than twenty special dj discographies—listing the favorite records of the most important spinners of the disco decade—and a more general discography cataloging some six hundred releases. Love Saves the Day also contains a unique collection of more than seventy rare photos.

Print length

528 pages
Language

English
Publication date

February 2, 2004
Dimensions

6.13 x 1.31 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

0822331985
ISBN-13

978-0822331988
See all details

Frequently bought together

Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979

$29.95

Get it as soon as Tuesday, Feb 6

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

+

Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980–1983

$25.75

Get it as soon as Tuesday, Feb 6

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

+

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey

$15.70

Get it as soon as Tuesday, Feb 6

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Try again!

Details

Added to Cart

Choose items to buy together.

Bill Brewster
312
Paperback
43 offers from $9.98
MIXMAG
35
Hardcover
49 offers from $18.99
Ian Schrager
801
Hardcover
22 offers from $54.99
Rickey Vincent
155
Paperback
34 offers from $2.90
Michaelangelo Matos
102
Paperback
16 offers from $5.65
David Byrne
1,956
Paperback
65 offers from $8.44

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Love Saves the Day is what we need for generations to come: it’s the real history of dance music and dj/club culture.”—Louie Vega, dj/producer, Masters At Work & Nuyorican Soul

“As authoritative as it is gossipy, Love Saves the Day is the ultimate backstage view of disco, the underground phenomenon that ended up defining a decade. Tim Lawrence talked to virtually everyone who shaped ‘70s urban nightlife, but he keeps his prime focus on the djs who created its seductive soundtrack. With them as your witty, opinionated guides, you’ll find yourself well past the velvet ropes, deep inside a scene that has never been so thoroughly or lovingly illuminated.”—Vince Aletti, Village Voice

“At last disco gets the history it deserves. Tim Lawrence tells the story of ten years that shook the musical world with the scholar’s concern for detail and the fan’s concern for honor. Great tales of the humble and the ahubristic, of money, sex, and the utopia of the sound system. Illuminating and moving.”—Simon Frith, author of Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music

“At long last, a candid, detailed, and authoritative look back on one of dance music’s most seminal moments in time. This book on the genesis of the movement in 1970s New York will delight anyone from the researcher wanting some serious unbiased fact-checking all the way to the casual music lover curious for juicy anecdotes. It’s about time!”—François K., dj and founder and president of Wave Music

“I wish I'd written it myself.”—Barry Walters, Senior Music Critic, Rolling Stone

“[A]n extraordinarily rich work that ought to transform the ways we write the history of popular music. . . . [A] marvelous book. . . .”―Mitchell Morris, Journal of Popular Music Studies

"[A] fine, groundbreaking history filled with fresh information and thoughtful perspectives on the disco decade, the result of his hundreds of interviews and exhaustive research. Scores of photographs and signature discographies nicely complement the text."―Library Journal

"[A]s Tim Lawrence illustrates in Love Saves The Day, the story of disco is richer than its battered reputation lets on. . . . [A]n exceedingly well-reported history. . . . Love Saves The Day works as an eye-opening history of a movement that found a nation taking time out to dance."
―Andy Battaglia, The Onion

"[P]acked with detail . . . without turning dull; [Love Saves the Day] offers a non-hagiographic treatment of dance-music icons. . . and, perhaps best of all, Lawrence's riveting storytelling puts you deep in the proto-disco moment. . . . Love Saves the Day not only gets dance-music history right--it refocuses that history to include those unjustly excluded from it."―Ethan Brown, New York

"[T]his is as close to a definitive account of Disco as we're likely to get, and as entertaining as a great night out."―Richard Smith, Gay Times

"[T]o some, a respectful history of disco may seem as perverse as a paean to strip malls. Tim Lawrence's Love Saves the Day boldly overturns that story. . . . I, for one, won't be able to dismiss dance culture so quickly, and his book should become a fixture in the libraries of serious students of American pop."―Philip Christman, Paste

"Lawrence has documented the scene with a fan's affection and a scholar's thoroughness. . . . His interview subjects, veteran DJs and clubgoers all, best convey in their own words what it was like to be on the dance floor at the Loft, the Gallery or the Paradise Garage when the crowd--drenched in sweat, screaming and whistling, arms in the air--gave itself up to rapture."
―Tom Beer, Newsday

"Thanks to an impressive amount of research Tim Lawrence . . . creates an evocative portrait of the Big Apple DJ demimonde of the 1970s."―Peter Shapiro, The Wire

"THE book on club music in America—a massive volume that contains more information about the New York scene than we'd ever hoped to learn! The book fills in gaps that we've always been unsure of, and tells the full story of the evolution of New York dance in the 70s—going way past the hype!"―Dustygroove.com

"Tim Lawrence's disco culture tome is one of the sharpest books on dance music to date, striking a balance between you-are-there club descriptions, socioeconomic analysis, and musical critique."―Tricia Romano, Village Voice

"A fantastic history of the birth of disco." ―Tracey Thorn, Everything But the Girl, The Guardian

Review

“I wish I'd written it myself.” -- Barry Walters, Senior Music Critic, ― Rolling Stone

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Duke University Press Books; Illustrated edition (February 2, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0822331985
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0822331988
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 1.31 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #764,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #65 in Dance Music
- #754 in Music Reference (Books)
- #3,322 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.7 200 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

Important information

To report an issue with this product or seller, click here.

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Tim Lawrence

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5

200 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

RR

The Truth About Disco

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2007

Verified Purchase

Thank you Tim Lawrence. This book is the antedote to all the haters out there who still believe that "Disco Sucks" after the post-Comiskey Park backlash. This book is such an amazing and wonderfully readable document that I would recommend anyone interested in 20th century American musical history, or the [...]/black urban experience of the 1970's, or relatively recent New York history read it. Of course if you're interested in disco music or dance music the book is absolutely essential.

This book goes much deeper than the usual Studio 54 cliches that people associate with the genre (although Studio 54 is included, of course) and discusses the origins of the sound and the largely unhearalded people who made this scene happen. David Mancuso is described as a pivotable person here, and the folks who were there will confirm it. The book begins in his legendary club, The Loft, and lovingly details his obsession with sound and the disco experience. Other innovators from the early 70's are also featured including Francis Grasso, Steve D'Acquisto, Bob Casey, and many more. The scene is chronicaled from humble beginnings through the glory years of the mid 70's and ends the decade with the backlash in full swing in mainstream culture but continuing to thrive in clubs like Paradise Garage and Better Days. Along the way you meet producers like Walter Gibbons and Tom Moulton who made some of the classic recordings of the era, and Lawrence takes the time to explain what is so remarkable about their work. You also get delightfully naughty stories about some of the key players in the scene including DJ's, artists, and of course, the patrons that illustrate some of the excesses of the time . Personally, I think that it's this superb combination of detailed research and bitchy gossip that makes the book so thoroughly readable and fun.

I loved reading this book; the only drawback for me was that I couldn't help pining for the days when New York club culture was this incredible before AIDS and Rudy Guilliani conspired to very nearly kill it off (fortunately they weren't entirely successful).

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

JustMike

A must for any historian of the era

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2016

Verified Purchase

What a great find, this book is like a college text of the disco era, from the early radio and club DJ's and record clubs to Salsoul, Disco-45's, and Casablanca Redcords. It also covers David Mancuso's house parties, early DJ's such as Francis Grasso, Nicky Siano, Walter Murphy, Robbie Leslie, Larry Levan and others, and the rise of private clubs on Broadway below Houston, including Odyssey, the Flamingo, the clubs like USA and Xenon, and downtown clubs like Paradise Garage and Mudd Club in later years. The book traces the origin of the dance movement to its origins in Africa and Europe and is New York-centric to some extent, but it does credit the influence of Philadelphia and Chicago and covers the scenes in those cities to some extent. It also devotes considerable attention to the music and brilliantly presents how the music, DJ's, clubs and socio-economic factors of the time coalesced into a pivotal time in music history. The material is meticulously curated and retold here in detail. Especially enjoyed the attention given to Mancuso;s selection of speakers. The book reads more like a textbook than a novel, and some readers may be put off by its clinical tone, but I appreciated its academic approach and anyone interested in the historical aspects of dance culture will find it informative.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

azélie

did save the day indeed !

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2012

Verified Purchase

This book is very tempting : I mean, I read it months ago and at that time, wished that it would never end (I'm dedicated to pleasure, I'm afraid);
but it did.
So, now & again, I grab it & try to get more substance from it, be it the souvenir of the thrills I once got, at night, in bed.
I learned and connected lots of things from this era, I dived into 70's high-class disco sounds head-first because of Arthur Russell and this book, the story of David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Larry Levan, the magnificent Walter Gibbons, Bob Blank (wizzard) and oh ! all the ItaloAmericans who dedicated their talent and enthusiasm to giving pleasure vibes to people on improvised dancefloors, the love vibes, the sensual surroundings of it all, the nonstop motion which motor was love, party, get high, love again ! Reading, I was completely taken by that part of contemporary social/musical history. Said Robert Fripp about disco music : "now people are going to vote with their feet". So thanks Tim Lawrence, bless you.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jeffrey Capshew

for any serious reader of music history, and it's fun!

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2009

Verified Purchase

Not only is this important narrative non-fiction that blends music history, sociology and politics, it's a total blast. I came of age in the 70's yet was never a huge fan of dance music or disco at the time. I wish I had paid more attention because after reading LOVE SAVES THE DAY, I clearly felt like I missed something really special. The development of the story from the earliest discotheques of the mid 60's in midtown Manhattan grew the inevitable birth of discos in the 70's where gays, straights, blacks, Latinos and whites got all mixed together with the magic elixir of dance music. For the most part it didn't matter who you were or where you came from in the pulsating, hot, hedonistic dance clubs of downtown and midtown, that quickly spread all over America and the world. Many of the key dj's are sadly no longer with us but their legacy will live forever in this marvelous book.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

A. J. Mcghee

Dry, But Valuable

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2016

Verified Purchase

My only complain with the book is that it's dry, historical focus robs it of much of the cultural criticism and readings that it could contain, although there are moments--e.g. "the interpretation of [Donna] Summer's oooh and aahs" and its relation to the liberation of female sexuality in comparison to songs like Gainsbourg's "Je T'aime...Moi Non Plus" on p173-174, or the explication of the cultural import of Saturday Night Fever on p307.

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2020

Verified Purchase

If the Disco era was your coming of age or you are just interested in this particular time frame regarding good music, this read is PACKED with important history and background stories you may never have known.....EXCELLENT!!!!!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

MANUEL

Best Disco Dance book.

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2022

Verified Purchase

Reading.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Andrea Anzani

Indispensabile!

Reviewed in Italy on August 24, 2023

Verified Purchase

Insieme a 'Life and Death on the New York dancefloor', libro fondamentale se si vuole conoscere il mondo della Disco Music durante i suoi anni d'oro.

Translate review to English

Typitus

Dj Bibel

Reviewed in Germany on January 7, 2023

Verified Purchase

Das beste Buch über den Clubsound und DJ Kultur. Klassiker!!!

Translate review to English

Paul Jeffery

A book that fully explains the Disco Revolution and the rise of the dance remix

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 25, 2018

Verified Purchase

As a writer of a Modern Jive Dance Blog I’m always interested in the origins of the great music we dance to. As some one who was brought up on Motown and Philadelphia International I always knew the ‘70s were an important resource of great dance music. What I hadn’t realised was how it grew out of a New York club culture that transformed the way dance music was perceived and produced. I’d already heard of Tom Moulton before reading this book, but I loved reading more detail about the man who created the studio remix. In an article on my blog I once implored everyone who loved dancing to listen to Tom’s remix of New York City’s I’m doing fine now. I don’t think that the present generation know just how much they owe to the people who created the first wave of music especially designed for the dance floor.

4 people found this helpful

Fred Xanadu

Love Saves the Day = LSD

Reviewed in France on December 15, 2016

Verified Purchase

For a movement that came to define a decade, disco has never really gone through the historical grinder. As a cultural phenomenon, it's been appraised in the tangential terms of celebrity and bad fashion. As a musical idea, it's been written off as an embarrassment, a best-forgotten affront to the righteous enterprise of rock. Of course, disco did abound in stars, flares, and dicey musical excess. But as Tim Lawrence illustrates in Love Saves The Day, the story of disco is richer than its battered reputation lets on.

Surveying the roots of a movement that would become an enormous lifestyle industry, Lawrence starts with the handful of downtown New Yorkers who set disco in motion in the late '60s. David Mancuso was a grizzled urban hippie who charted musical journeys in The Loft, a private apartment open to an eclectic mix of people—white, black, straight, gay—on utopian grounds. While the idea of the discotheque had already existed in New York, The Loft expanded it into a playground for dancing and prancing. A DJ before the distinction bore notice, Mancuso played floaty psychedelic records alongside string-swept soul and galloping African rhythms, placing an emphasis on mood and movement that signaled sounds to come. He was also a hi-fi fiend: He commissioned custom-made speakers and gear (including a $3,000 turntable needle) that goosed up drum sounds and reached previously unheard high-end peaks. While Mancuso had his disciples at The Loft, a growing number of gay clubs and bars forced the relaxation of male-on-male dancing laws, reveling in the newly open environment that would fuel disco's glamorous rise.

The parallel lines of changing music and changing social norms bracket all of Love Saves The Day, an exceedingly well-reported history that reads as too focused on occasion. Regarding the music, Lawrence traces the disco sound through its roots in Philly soul and its debt to machine music flown over from Europe. He also surveys the birth of the DJ as showman, telling gossipy stories about names still getting their proper due, and tracing the lineage of turntable tricks most often attributed to hip-hop. On the social front, Lawrence proves most pointed when surveying disco's sexual and racial swirl. He keeps a steady eye on the gayness that circulated through disco, even at its suburbs-storming peak, and comes down hard on the hints of homophobia that stoked its storied backlash. Some of the abundant details seem geared to insiders only, but on the whole, Love Saves The Day works as an eye-opening history of a movement that found a nation taking time out to dance.

James Tobin

History Lessons right here

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2022

Verified Purchase

Comprehensive, well thought and detailed dance through the disco era!!

See more reviews

Image Unavailable

Follow the author