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How a Hialeah Record Company Helped Make Disco
Before the music filled dance floors around the world, it passed through Henry Stone’s independent record operation in Hialeah.
The beat on George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby” sounds effortless. It repeats, McCrae’s voice floats above it, and the song leaves plenty of room for a listener to move. In the summer of 1974, that record climbed to No. 1 on both the pop and R&B charts. Its path to the world began at a small record company in Hialeah.
Henry Stone had spent years learning how to get records made, heard and sold. He had recorded and distributed blues, gospel and R&B long before disco had a name. By the early 1970s, the business he built with Steve Alaimo included TK Records and the means to move its releases beyond South Florida. Stone understood that a good recording needed more than a studio. It needed someone to press it, place it with stores and persuade radio stations to play it.
Two young men at TK were learning the other side of the business. Harry Wayne “KC” Casey worked around the company’s record operation. Richard Finch played bass and worked as an engineer. They began writing and recording together when studio time was available. Their partnership would eventually produce some of the decade’s most recognizable dance music, but first they had to make a record people wanted.
They wrote and produced “Rock Your Baby,” then brought in McCrae to sing it. His light, high voice found a place above the steady pulse of an early drum machine. The arrangement did not need to crowd him. It gave the rhythm space to do its work.
When the song took off, TK had more than a hit. It had proof that music made in its Hialeah operation could compete nationally. McCrae spent two weeks at No. 1 on the pop chart. Casey and Finch went on to build KC and the Sunshine Band’s run of hits, including “Get Down Tonight” and “That’s the Way (I Like It).” The wider Stone operation also carried the work of artists such as Betty Wright, Gwen McCrae, Timmy Thomas and Latimore. Their records did not all sound alike, and they did not all belong to the same genre. Together, they show how much music moved through Stone’s hands.
That range is easy to lose when TK is reduced to a few disco classics. The company was a place where musicians, writers and producers worked, but also a distribution business that depended on warehouse staff, salespeople and promotion. Stone’s understanding of that whole chain helped an independent label reach listeners far from Miami.
“Rock Your Baby” was neither the first dance record nor a song that one person could have made alone. Its breakthrough came from several people doing their parts: Casey and Finch finding the rhythm, McCrae giving the song its voice, and Stone’s operation getting the finished record into circulation.
The record still offers a way to hear Hialeah’s place in music history. A beat put down in a local studio crossed radio markets and national borders. People who never knew the name TK Records knew exactly what to do when “Rock Your Baby” came on.