Composition
The song features a lead vocal by Fleming Williams, who left the Hues Corporation shortly after the song was recorded. According to The Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson, the lone female member of the group, H. Ann Kelly, had originally been pegged to sing lead, but this idea was discarded out of fear that groups with female lead singers were less commercially viable. The song also features an important post-Motown performance of James Jamerson.
Hues Corporation member St. Clair Lee claims "It was a song that you could do anything on. You could cuddle or you could get crazy if you wanted to. It was a love song without being a love song. But, it was a Disco hit and it happened because of the discos."
The 'Rock the Boat' dance also a favourite at weddings and birthday parties and involves many people sitting down in a row and 'rowing' a boat to the tune of the song.
Read more about this topic: Rock The Boat (Hues Corporation Song)
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
—Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)
“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)