'Shake Your Booty' after the Mutiny game

KC and his Sunshine Band made disco history in the '70s while trying to achieve the "Miami sound.''

By BABITA PERSAUD

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 12, 2000

That KC -- he's been everywhere.

Oprah, Rosie O'Donnell, Entertainment Tonight. He sat in with Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra during a South Florida taping of The Late Show with David Letterman.

WHAT: KC and the Sunshine Band WHEN: Saturday after 7 p.m. Mutiny vs. Columbus (Ohio) Crew WHERE: Raymond James Stadium COST: $21-$12 INFORMATION: Call (813) 289-6811

He popped up on Fox News, CNN, E! Entertainment's Talk Soup. On Saturday Night Live. On VH-1's Where Are They Now? And last year, at the Super Bowl, he and his Sunshine Band were the featured musical act in the post game show.

Saturday, he plays after a Mutiny game.

"I always wanted to be around a long time," Harry Wayne Casey, or KC for short, told the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., in 1996. "To still be here 23 years after my first record came out, that's cool. It makes me feel like I really did something."

Casey, 48, grew up in Hialeah and started in the record business at age 17, working at Miami's T.K. Records/Studios performing menial tasks. In 1973, while still at T.K., the Sunshine Band was formed with Casey, a novice keyboard player, and bass guitarist Richard Finch. They were to produce the "Miami sound."

But the tunes turned out would make disco history. Their second album produced hits like Get Down Tonight, That's the Way (I Like It). Their third album, Part 3, brought I'm Your Boogie Man, Shake Your Booty and Keep it Coming Love.

KC and the Sunshine Band went on to snag three Grammy awards and an American Music Award (for best r&b artist in 1975). The band has sold 75-million records.

Today, KC and the Sunshine Band's music has appeared in ads for General Motors, Burger King and Budweiser. In 1999, the band released its 25th anniversary double CD set.

Where does the staying power come from? Casey attributes much of his success to his band, from back-up vocalist Beverly Foster, who has been with KC for 23 years, to Nick Marinovic, a Yugoslavia native who joined the band in the summer of 1997.