May 9, 20212 min read

Native New Yorker - Odyssey (1978) 5/10/21

Updated: May 10, 2021

In my opinion as a former disco DJ, today's "Great Song of the '70s" is one of the smoothest disco songs EVER released.

Songwriters Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell wrote a number of hits for the Four Seasons back in the '60s. (Examples: "Dawn (Go Away)" and "Workin' My Way Back to You").

So, in 1978, when they came up with "Native New Yorker," they handed it over to Frankie Valli because they knew he could identify with it. After all, Frankie grew up in the Greater NYC area (Newark, New Jersey--just 15 miles from the Big Apple).

For some strange reason, however, Frankie's version didn't chart, but then something even stranger happened: an obscure group named Odyssey covered it and it it became a hit!

The single reached #6 on Billboard's Soul Chart, and the disco remix, played almost exclusively in the clubs, made it to #3 on the Dance Chart.

The single certainly stands on its own as a "Great Song," but the remix features one of the classiest disco arrangements ever recorded. (Click the link below and listen to what happens at 3:35!)

As a disco DJ in Eau Claire, it was a joy to play the song and watch the ballroom dancers (many from the local Arthur Murray studio) take over the dance floor to show us their moves. (This happened most often at Fanny Hill's Top of the Town Lounge.)

Skip ahead to 2020: The song got an unexpected revival when TV talk show hostess and radio "shock jockette" Wendy Williams (disguised as "Lips") pretty much butchered the song--in a FUN way--on the fourth season of "The Masked Singer!"

I'm sure there are quite a few people who either don't remember--or never heard--the song...but for dancing and sheer elegance, "Native New Yorker" is a "Great Song of 1978!"

Disco Remix: