Chart entered : 25 December 1976
Chart peak : 9 ( 20 on reissue in 1988, 18 as a re-recording in 1998 )
Number of hits : 13
The last entry for 1976 and a reminder as we enter the punk era that disco hadn't reached its peak yet.
The Rose Royce story began in 1973 when a group of L.A. musicians - Kenji Brown ( guitar /vocals ) , Kenny Copeland ( trumpet / vocals ), Lequeint Jobe (bass), Henry Garner (drums ) , Victor Nix ( keyboards ) , Terry Santiel ( percussion ) Michael Moore ( saxophone ) Freddie Dunn ( trumpet ) - got together and advertised their services as a band for hire under the name Total Concept Unlimited. They were hired for tours of the UK and Japan by Edwin Starr. Through Starr they met Norman Whitfield who signed them up to his new eponymous label under the new name Magic Wand. Whitfield initially used them both live and in the studio as the musicians behind his vocal group The Undisputed Truth. This also paid dividends when UT leader Joe Harris found them a talented and attractive female singer called Gwen Dickey in a Miami band called The Jewels. Gwen was prised away and renamed by Whitfield as Rose Norwalt . With her in the band Whitfield agreed that they were ready to make their own records.
Whitfield had been approached by successful blaxploitation film director Michael Schultz to score his next film project , Car Wash. Whitfield saw this as an ideal opportunity to launch the band and their name was changed once more both to tie in with the film and highlight their new frontwoman. He and the band visited the film set to inform the work and came up with a double LP soundtrack ( which was considerably better received than the film ) on which Whitfield wrote the lion's share of the songs.
"Car Wash" was the theme song and the first single. It was released in September 1976 and slowly clambered its way up to the top of the US charts. "Car Wash" is one of the seminal songs of the disco era, a hit four times in the UK including the Christina Aguilera cover. Its simple but instantly recognisable handclapped intro is one of the most sampled bits of music in pop and it leads into a joyful groove with strings , congas , brass and Gwen's enthusiastic if not quite expert vocal all playing their part but its Jobe's bass line that nails it , acknowledged by the periodic intervals for a little solo before the song cranks up again. The lyric celebrating the joys of a blue collar life in a service industry isn't politically popular and may have influenced the rather cold critical reception for the film.
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