Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk is the debut studio album by the American musician Meco, released through Millennium Records in 1977. Meco, who had a steady career as a session musician and producer, was an avid fan of science fiction. Upon watching Star Wars (1977), he conceived the idea of reworking its score; he later had a meeting with Neil Bogart of Casablanca Records who approved the project. By June 1977, Meco was working with Tony Bongiovi and Harold Wheeler, recording at MZH Studio, New York City, for three weeks. Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk is a disco and jazz fusion album that consists of two medleys. "Star Wars" comprises nine sections, recreating sounds from the movie, and "Other Galactic Funk" consists of three sections.
Critics gave Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk positive reviews, with many complimenting the songwriting. The album peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart in the United States, at number 19 in Australia, and number 34 in New Zealand. "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" was released as the lead single in June or July 1977; it peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks. RCA Records issued the album in the UK after acquiring the worldwide rights for Millennium Records, promoting it with a 12-week-long campaign that coincided with the UK release of Star Wars at the end of 1977. The album's success helped fund construction of Bongiovi's Power Station Studios and Meco signed to Robert Stigwood Organization (RSO); he would later work on several Star Wars-related releases. Guinness World Records listed "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" as the best-selling instrumental single and the only instrumental single to achieve platinum certification by the RIAA.
Background American musician Meco Monardo worked as a session musician between 1965 and 1974. He would split his work as an arranger, collaborating with Tommy James and contributing music to television advertisements. When disco music started to emerge in 1974, Meco founded Disco Corporation of America with Tony Bongiovi. At this stage, Meco started producing records for artists; he co-produced "Never Can Say Goodbye" (1974) by Gloria Gaynor, which became a hit single, with Bongiovi and Harold Wheeler. It earned Meco his breakthrough, and he later worked on "Doctor's Orders" (1974) by Carol Douglas. By 1977, disco music had a noticeable presence on music charts. Meco was a fan of science fiction; he read novels during his high-school years and had seen various film in that genre.
Meco went to watch Star Wars on May 25, 1977—its opening day—and watched it four more times during the weekend. During the second of these viewings, he paid more attention to John Williams' film's score, having been drawn to the plot and characters on the first viewing. Meco said he "wanted to take that music and dance to it". He then proposed recording a disco iteration of Williams' score to several record labels, eventually meeting with Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart and Millennium Records president Jimmy Ienner. Bogart, who had helped popularize eurodisco and Kiss, viewed the film before agreeing to the project. Days after the meeting, work began on an album. Because the Star Wars soundtrack had not yet been released, Meco contacted the music publishing department of 20th Century Fox Records and persuaded the receptionist to give him a copy of the score.
Recording By mid-June 1977, Meco hired co-producers Bongiovi and Wheeler to assist him before sessions took place at MZH Studio in New York City with Harvey Hoffman as recording engineer. Bongiovi and Meco created a club rendition of Star Wars they hoped would sell around 50,000 copies. The former had experience with making disco albums, and had recently worked with Ramones and Talking Heads. Bongiovi recorded special studio-tape effects and acted as remix engineer. Suzanne Ciani contributed special sounds and electronic musical effects, the latter using a Buchla-branded synthesizer.
A 70-piece orchestra, with Meco on trombone, was employed for the recordings, to capture the sound of Williams and his orchestra. While sessions were underway, Williams' score was achieving success and the film's main theme had charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Sessions lasted three weeks with everyone in high spirits. One of the producers was concerned with the lack of melody while the other said; "I don't hear a single". As a result of these comments, Meco and an engineer edited the two-track master; they shortened the intro section that includes the main theme and assembled the Cantina section, looping it back into the main theme.
Composition
Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk is a disco and jazz fusion album; Cooper Peltz of Film School Rejects wrote Meco used the album medium to give an "alternate story of the characters" from Star Wars. According to Peltz; "Luke [Skywalker], [Princess] Leia, and the gang existed in our universe where Disco (not late-Romantic classical) music was the idiom of the time". Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk is split into two sides of music. Despite having experience as an arranger, Meco engaged Wheeler to arrange the album; Meco and Wheeler had several meetings discussing their plans for the project; Meco told Wheeler what he wanted to hear and allowed him to write notes. The musicians involved became more enthusiastic about the project as publicity around Star Wars was building. Meco reworked Williams' Star Wars theme and the "Cantina Theme" into a medley, adding disco drum beats and an orchestra, and extending it to 15 minutes. Meco got the idea of making a continuous medley from Tom Moulton, who used the idea on the Gloria Gaynor album Never Can Say Goodbye in 1975. When the trumpet section performed the melody line, Meco added an electric guitar to accompany it.
Journalist Vince Aletti of Record World wrote "Star Wars", the album's first side, is a blend of "moods—at times dramatically 'futuristic,' both symphonic and electronic ... [and] at other times, whimsical, big band jazzy, then grandiose, almost pompous toward the end". The medley consists of nine connected pieces of music. It is a space disco song that includes sound effects that resemble those in the film, such as the noises of R2-D2, the "pew-pew" gun sound, and the hum of a lightsaber, giving the song an electronic atmosphere. Because the album was not a licensed project, the sounds had to be remade using synthesizers; due to the basic nature of the equipment, achieving an effect resembling R2-D2 took Meco eight hours. For the "Cantina Band" section, four saxophonists recorded their parts while the tape was recording at half-speed. When it was replayed at normal speed, the saxophone parts had what Meco referred to as a "really high, funny" sound.
"Other Galactic Funk" is a 13-minute instrumental track on the album's second side; it consists of pieces that were influenced by Williams' score. All three pieces are credited to Wheeler and Solomon Smith. Meco was inspired for this side when he was walking through Central Park, New York City, where he heard music drifting over a hill. He found six children from a drum corps group performing beats; when they took a break, he invited the children to help finish the album. An hour of drum beats was recorded the following day; Wheeler turned these into three separate pieces.
Release and promotion "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" was released as the lead single from Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk in June or July 1977. Unsure of the viability of Meco's album, Bogart had to persuade Ienner to issue it through Millennium, who did not like the idea. Harris said Casablanca would not have minded having Meco on their roster; he deemed it crucial that Millennium "establish itself as a bona fide presence" in the music industry, "and nothing spoke louder than a Platinum[-certified] album." Bogart was confident in the possible success of Meco's album, with Ienner ultimately relenting to its release. Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk was issued in summer 1977 through Millennium Records, six weeks after the film's soundtrack. The artwork, which is based on Meco's idea, depicts "two space travelers bumping bottoms", which AllMusic reviewer JT Griffith called "hilarious cheese". Stephen Lumel and Gribbitt! handled the art direction and design, while Robert Rodriquez illustrated the album. Rodriquez, who was known for his artwork for the Quaker Oats Company, disliked disco music and preferred folk rock over it. He had initially tried to avoid making the cover because he was given a shortened deadline of three days, until Lumel persuaded him to do it. The album received promotion from Casablanca's R&B department; according to senior vice-president Cecil Holmes, "We're effective because all our promotion people are also capable sales and marketing people, too".
Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk appeared as part of Casablanca Records' intentionally disco-centric schedule alongside releases from Beckett (Disco Calypso), Eddie Drennon (Would You Dance to My Music), and Village People (Village People). Meco did not make personal appearances to promote the album; combined with a lack of images of him, one radio presenter thought Meco was a Japanese group. In August 1977, RCA Records acquired the worldwide rights to Millennium's output, and issued "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" and Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk in the United Kingdom as the first releases from the deal. A promotional, DJ-exclusive version of "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" was released in September 1977. An RCA-branded version of the album was released in the UK in November 1977. Coinciding with the UK release of the film in December 1977, RCA Records planned a 12-week promotional campaign for Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk that included a £10,000, 30-second advertisement that was expected to be shown in the cinemas that screened Star Wars. Product manager Greg Lynn said 90,000 individuals per week would see the advertisement, which was to be supported by placements in local newspapers. Competitions in which people would win copies of the album and tickets for Star Wars were also planned; Lynn said this initiative would help to drive disco music, which up to this point had been seen as a single-centric format, as an album format.
In May 1999, Hip-O Records reissued Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk on CD; it includes "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" and the promotional DJ version as bonus tracks. The album was re-pressed on vinyl in 2015 through Casablanca Records. The entirety of the album, in addition to "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band", was included on the compilation The Best of Meco (1997). Meco re-recorded the "Star Wars" medley, alongside pieces from the other Star Wars films, for Dance Your Asteroids Off: The Complete Star Wars Collection (2000).
Reception