When Everett’s Richard Manzi, Steve DeYeso and Mike Matarazzo – along with their bandmates from neighboring cities – broke up their disco band dubbed The Christopher Michael Band 40 years ago, they pretty much figured their music was lost to the dustbin of good-time dance club memories.
Little did they know, though, that one of their singles has come back to pique international interest from collectors, and now that single – ‘You Make Me Happy’ – has been included on a new release of obscure Boston disco compilation.
“We are shocked at the staying-power of this simple song,” said Matarazzo, who recently retired as Everett’s City Clerk. “There was no dubbing or multi-tracking on the original recording. We just played.”
After a successful release in London, a record release party for his new compilation album Boston Goes Disco will be hosted by Serge Gamesbourg & Disconnection on Friday, Sept. 28, in Cambridge.
Boston Goes Disco is a release on legendary BBE records out of the United Kingdom, that sheds light on the history of obscure Boston disco groups from late `70s and early `80s.
Gamesbourg will be DJing the event and taking guests on a musical journey with live performances by local unsung heroes Cojo and The Christopher Michael Band, both featured artists on the album. The event, which is sponsored by Carlsberg beer, is going to take place at Sonia (10 Brookline St., Cambridge) from 10:30 p.m. – 1:30 a.m.
The idea for the disc came to Serge around 2003 or 2004, when he discovered the Christopher Michael Band’s 45 entitled “You Make Me Happy” and after further research saw that copies of the record (only 500 were pressed) were highly sought by collectors.
The Christopher Michael Band was a local band that featured Everett’s Mike Matarazzo (aka Christopher Michael), Richard Manzi, and Steve DeYeso, along with Melrose’s Mike Dotoli, Malden’s Bruce Neale and Chuck Forbes, and Medford’s Kevin Mucci.
As far as playing the song again at the record release party, Matarazzo joked, “We haven’t played together in 40 years and with everybody’s schedule, we have only rehearsed it once. So we’ll just take our cues from Rich; like we always did.”
The band has recruited Malden’s Bob Taylor to fill in on trumpet for the night.
Tickets for the event are available at TICKECTWEB.COM.