A prototype of the extended play disco mix several years before club DJs prodded the industry into actually producing 12" dance singles. "Papa" doesn't have the love train locomotive drive of the O'Jays proto-disco stereotype but works a slower, simmering, bubbling gumbo funk groove, exquisite in all its musical parts the way Detroit still turned it out in those days. It models the disco song as an epic dramatic journey; churchy handclap breakdowns, doowop vocal group blues choruses, "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone/wherever he hanged his hat was his home," and inadvertently works as a early gay dance club anthem. Early disco DJs wanted longer songs for the dancefloor and Motown and Philly International delivered them. I remember an old rocker friend, a musician, once complaining to me about the monotonous repetition of dance music. I knew what he meant, I mean, I know monotonous examples of dance music, but when dance music works, moves you, the repetition is in fact the essential appeal or hook. It feels like the funky groove line could go on forever and you want that, you never want it to stop. The repetition in the groove is precisely what many people crave most in dance music. TGIDF.
The seven minute single:
Here's the 11 minute album version:
Remix set to visuals from a film called Wattstax (1972):
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