The Village People
| Village People | |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Disco |
| Years active | 1977–1985, 1987–present |
| Labels | Casablanca, Black Scorpio, RCA, Polygram |
| Website | www |
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Village People is an American disco group well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American masculine cultural stereotypes as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics. Originally created by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo to target disco's gay audience by featuring popular gay fantasy personae, the band quickly became popular and moved into the mainstream. The group scored a number of disco and dance hits, including "Macho Man", "Go West", the classic club medley of "San Francisco (You've Got Me) / In Hollywood", "In the Navy", and their greatest hit, "Y.M.C.A."
The group was the creation of Jacques Morali, a French musical composer. He had written a few dance tunes when he was given a demo tape recorded by singer/actor Victor Willis. Morali approached Willis and told him, "I had a dream that you sang lead on my album and it went very, very big". Willis agreed to sing on the eponymous debut album, Village People.
It became a hit, and demand for live appearances soon followed. Under the collaboration Can't Stop Productions, Morali and his business partner Henri Belolo hastily built a group of dancers around Willis to perform in clubs and on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. The band's name refers to New York City's Greenwich Village, at the time known for its large gay population. Morali and Belolo created a group of stereotypes based on the fantasy attire often worn by gay men of Greenwich Village when socializing. As the Village People's popularity grew, Morali, Belolo, and Willis saw the need for a permanent "group". They took out an ad in a music trade magazine which read: "Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache."
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