The group had five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot chart in the s. During this time, bassist Richard Finch had been engineering records for TK, which is how the Casey-Finch musical collaboration began. The band's "Queen of Clubs", which featured uncredited vocals by McCrae, was a hit in the UK , peaking at number 7, [ 4 ] and they went on a tour there in This gave the band significant hometown exposure, during the rise of the disco genre in one of its epicenters.
The release of the self-titled second album KC and the Sunshine Band in spawned the group's first major U. Their success lasted until the fifth album from ; their last chart topping hit was " Please Don't Go ", hitting number one [ 2 ] for one week in January , and becoming the first number one hit of the s. With the explosion of new wave music and the declining popularity of disco, the group explored other styles and changed labels, joining Epic Records in after TK Records went bankrupt.
In , the partnership between Finch and Casey came to an acrimonious end. Two years after the release of the previous album, the band released two albums with new material: The Painter and Space Cadet Solo Flight Top Because of this, a frustrated Casey formed Meca Records, releasing the single himself on this label in a final attempt to garner the song some success in America.
It worked, but the album still failed to meet expectations. This led to the group falling into stasis around with Casey's retirement. A revival of interest in disco music in [ clarification needed ] brought Casey out of retirement. He reformed the band with some new members and two other original members, percussionist Fermin Goytisolo and vocalist Beverly Champion-Foster and began touring once again.
The new band has released a large number of compilation albums through Rhino Records , along with some newly recorded material. The album Oh Yeah! On July 28, , guitarist Jerome Smith died while working as a bulldozer operator. Both were composed of archived material recorded before their hiatus. They appeared in the remake of the movie The In-Laws.
