CoronaVinyl Day 209 (T): Sky High! by Tavares

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "T," and we'll stick with the disco theme.  Well, sort of.  Tavares -- sometimes known as The Tavares Brothers -- were a group of five brothers of Cape Verdean descent who grew up New England.  They started performing in 1959 (when they were teenagers or younger), under the tutelage of their father, Feliciano Vierra "Flash" Tavares Sr., who shares his birthday with me.  (A side note:  At the time of his death in 2008 at the age of 88, Flash Tavares had an astounding 53 grandchildren, 49 great-grandchildren, and 18 great-great-grandchildren.)

Though they are often associated with disco because of songs like "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" and their cover of The Bee Gees' "More Than a Woman" that appeared on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, they were more soul, R&B, and pop than disco.  That said, the line between soul, R&B, pop, funk, and disco could often become blurred in the mid to late '70s.

1976's Sky High! was the group's fourth studio album, and it's mostly soul and R&B, with some disco mixed in.  It was the band's highest-charting album, reaching #24 on the Billboard album chart, and it featured two Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 -- the aforementioned "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" (#15) and "Don't Take Away The Music" (#34), both of which were also #1 songs on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart and both of which reached #4 on the UK pop chart.

They continued to make music into the '80s, and their last album was 1983's Words and Music.  All told, the group had seven Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including one Top 10 song (1975's "It Only Takes a Minute"), as well as 11 Top 10 songs on the Billboard R&B singles chart (including three #1s).

Interesting tidbit:  In an earlier incarnation of the group, when they were known as The Turnpikes and before they had recorded anything, future Parliament/Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell and future Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer were both briefly members of the band at different points.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel"

This is a very happy-go-lucky disco hit.  You can't listen to this song without bobbing your head, shaking your hips, or all-out gettin' down.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Bein' With You"
The first track on Side 2 is a nice '70s soul song, with almost a Philadelphia soul sound.  It has horns, a prominent piano, and the group showing off their harmonies.