Don’t blame it on the sunshine, don’t blame it on the moonlight … Irresistibly up-tempo with a joyous chorus, this song straddles my two careers as a DJ.
It was released during the first, when I was one of a team of DJs for the mobile disco owned by the Students’ Union at Queen Margaret College on Edinburgh’s Corstorphine Hill. The college is now Queen Margaret University, in a different location on an out-of-town campus; and if it still exists, I hope the disco has a new name. Back then (I matriculated in 1978) it was called Radio Claudine, a nod to the pioneering pirate radio station Radio Caroline and to our beloved principal Claudine Morgan. These are the subversive satires to which spotty students aspire.
During her tenure (1971-1985) Ms Morgan transformed the college from a finishing school for young ladies into a genuine place of higher education. Under her the college became Queen Margaret’s, where until 1972 it had been the Edinburgh School of Cookery. She greatly expanded the range of courses available, mostly therapeutic in nature – physiotherapy and speech therapy for example – but including the one I attended, a Diploma in Drama. She may have regretted the addition of theatrical students who were frequently in trouble for their attention-seeking antics, and for providing most of the testosterone at the college. There were less than twenty male drama students in a total population of around a thousand which was overwhelmingly female by virtue of the caring professions for which it prepared Edinburgh’s youth. I cannot honestly say that as a kid in a sweet shop I always behaved with restraint and honour.
Blame It on the Boogie celebrates the infectious joy of dancing, which is after all at thet heart of what DJs do. It was written by British brothers Mick and David Jackson (no relation to the Jackson Five) and Elmer Krohn, and first released under Mick’s name. They were aiming high by hoping to catch the ear of Stevie Wonder with it.
The Jacksons, formerly the Jackson Five, scooped up the song after their manager heard Mick Jackson’s recording of it at Midem, a music industry convention. Quickly re-recorded it became the lead single from their new album Destiny. Their version was almost identical to the original, but with the added dusting of magic which only the Jacksons could bring.
The two versions were released within weeks of each other in both the US and the UK and performed equally well in both countries. Mick Jackson got to #61 in the Billboard Hot 100, just behind the Jacksons at #54; and in the UK the Jacksons made #8, ahead of Jackson at #15.
In Britain the fortunes of both singles were boosted by the press, who seized on the same title being released by the same surname to declare it the Battle of the Boogie. Ultimately it was the lead vocal of Michael Jackson, not Mick, which won the day. The insistent drum track on the Jacksons’ version is by legendary session percussionist Rick Marotta.
Even in 1978, the Radio Claudine joke was thin and dated but no one seemed to notice. The very expression “mobile disco” sounds old-fashioned now. Nevertheless, twenty-one years after Blame It on the Boogie was in the charts, I became a mobile DJ once more. I moved to Cumbria in 1998 and was eager to play my part in the rural community of which I was now a part. When the village of Crosby Garrett was planning its Millennial celebrations for New Year’s Eve 1999, I volunteered my services, first for a fancy-dress fund-raising disco a few months earlier, then for the evening itself.
Both were a success and I started to advertise for further bookings. I hoped to catch people’s eyes in the local paper The Westmorland Messenger with the titles of songs about dancing, among them Ballroom Blitz by The Sweet – and Blame It on the Boogie. The latter stuck, and for the next six years I made a small but very happy living playing golden oldies for weddings and birthdays the length and breadth of the county. Sunshine! Moonlight! Good times! Boogie!
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