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:
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“The proposed Constitution ... is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)