Montréal, disco’s Second City

The origins of Montréal disco

The French word discothèque – which combines ‘disque’ (record) with ‘bibliothèque’ (library) – describes a nightclub where patrons dance to recorded music. Many claim the first discothèque to open in North America was La Licorne in Montréal in 1963. By the 1970s, the abbreviated ‘disco’ was used to describe nightclubs like the Lime Light.

Disco soon became a musical genre unto itself, rising to popularity in Black, Latino and gay nightclubs in the early 1970s, and became the soundtrack of Gay Liberation.

In Montréal, following the cosmopolitan explosion of Expo 67 and during the political and social turbulence of the 1970s – from the terrorist Front de libération du Québec to the systematic police raids of downtown LGBTQ establishments – feel-good disco music was a new salvation.

In 1979, Billboard called Montréal the second-most important disco market in North America. The city’s 50 dance clubs – including Régines, 1234 (which booked everybody from Grace Jones to Village People), and the Lime Light – fueled a thriving local music scene that produced its own artists and records, and remixed imports.

Full article: click here