Stars on 45

The story of Starsound, who started the medley craze in 1981, began two years earlier in a disco in Montreal, where one of the resident DJs was Michel Gendreau. Into his club walked Michel Ali, who had with him a tape created from a bootleg white-label recording originating in Holland of a medley of Beatles songs called "Lets Do It in the 80s Great Hits" and credited to an unknown group named Passion. The record used excerpts from the original Beatles records as well as snippets from the Archies' "Sugar Sugar," Shocking Blue's "Venus," and the introduction to the Buggles' major hit "Video Killed the Radio Star." The bootleg was poor quality, the tape contained more noise than music, and it was badly produced, but Gendreau believed it was a good idea, although he was reluctant to play it at peak time. This was the very late '70s and disco had been king of the dancefloor for several years, with new tracks created by the Bee Gees, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, and a host of new producers with new groups and singers. The last thing the disco-going clientele wanted was a series of Beatles and other 1960s material. Ali began working with sound engineer Paul Richer to create a cleaner version of "Let's Do It in the 80s Great Hits," and in order to satisfy Gendreau's fears about oldies, they added some recent hits, including "Funky Town" by Lipps, Inc. and "Working My Way Back to You" by the Detroit Spinners. By starting with current hits, then introducing the Beatles tracks, the dancefloor would not empty as was feared, but the dancing would continue as the 1960s hits were set to the same definable beat as the current hits. One of the 1960s hits used was "Venus" by Shocking Blue, the copyright of which was owned by a Dutch record company, Red Bullet Records, and when...