Gino Soccio ~ Dancer

Gino Soccio (born September 9, 1955) is a Canadian disco record producer and songwriter based in Montreal. His only US Billboard Hot 100 entry was the hit single "Dancer" in 1979, but he did hit on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart twice ("Dancer" / "Dance to Dance" in 1979, and "Try It Out" / "Hold Tight" in 1981, six weeks each). "Dancer" peaked at in the UK Singles Chart in May 1979.[2] Soccio&third biggest hit, "It&Alright" / "Look at Yourself", from his album, Face to Face, reached for 5 weeks also on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. "Turn It Around" was released only as a single in 1984. Soccio was born in Verdun, Quebec, of Italian descent. Soccio told Wax Poetics in 2013 that he started playing piano at eight and was playing Bach sonatas by eleven. In the early 1970s, he was influenced by electronic musicians Kraftwerk, Stockhausen, and Wendy Carlos and started renting synths, becoming a sought-after Montreal keyboard specialist. Soccio got his start in disco when Montreal producer Pat Deserio called him in 1975 and asked if he would play keyboards and help compose for the Kébekélektrik album. Prior to this, Soccio was working as a local session musician. Deserio asked Soccio to make a disco version of Ravel&"Bolero," which he wanted to release with filler tracks under the fictitious act name Kébekélektrik, a Kraftwerk-influenced misspelling of "Quebec Electric." In reality, Soccio played every note. "It was very labor-intensive," Soccio later said, "but at...