Synthesizers! The rise of the machines in the 1980’s didn’t only serve to benefit pale English dudes who loved eye shadow, pantaloons, and singing about feeling safe in cars, waitresses working in cocktail bars, or how they ran, they ran so far. Everyone could enjoy the futuristic, squiggly squawk swoosh sounds made by the increasingly inexpensive and portable plastic keyboards and robotic synth drums. And as more and more R&B musicians added the squiggly squawk swoosh to their arsenal, we soon bore witness to the rise of electrofunk.

Let’s ascend together.

Kentucky’s two biggest exports have always been bourbon and country singers (not really — aerospace parts and pharmaceuticals — but it seems like the first two are the right answers) and no other beverages or styles of music ever manage to emerge from the cities and the hollers. But in 1976, a group of students from Kentucky State University decided to form an Earth, Wind & Fire-style big band with horns, guitars, keyboards, and group vocals, intent on bringing the funk from the Bluegrass State to the rest of the green grass world. It wouldn’t happen overnight.

Initially, Midnight Star stuck to a natural sound, the sound you might hear if you saw the band in concert, and although the production on their records exuded pop slickness, all the instruments and voices remained mostly unadulterated and unaltered. Their place on the charts remained unaltered, as well — as in, absent.

Reggie Calloway, Midnight Star’s driving musical force, decided a change was necessary if the band wanted to survive and succeed, so he began to study the competition, and, Hey, look over there! Who’s got non-stop hits pouring forth from his funky fingertips? It’s Prince. And all his chart-topping songs sound like they’re produced in conjunction with a whole squad of funk robots. So let’s try that.

The band found the first glimmers of success in 1982 with a hybrid of the old and new styles, but exploded the following year when they went full robot, and the resulting album, No Parking On The Dance Floor, went double platinum. Shiny.

The initial single from the album, “Freak-A-Zoid,” became Midnight Star’s first Hot 100 hit and climbed up to #2 on the R&B chart (it also happened to reach #3 in New Zealand, the group’s only ever hit there, but a big one). Even bigger hits would follow, and the machines would help lead the way.

So please report to the dance floor. Get wound up …. with Midnight Star.