1976 · Behind the Songs
A funky backbeat aimed at the discos — and a ticket to the biggest soundtrack of the era.
October 1976 was a busy month for Kool & the Gang: Open Sesame was their eighth studio album and their second of that year, released on Mercury/De-Lite and produced by the band themselves. The title track, written by Ronald “Khalis Bayyan” Bell with the group, was released as a single on October 24 — three minutes and forty-six seconds of pure invitation.
Record World heard it exactly right, calling it “a funky backbeat geared for the discos,” and disco audiences agreed: the single reached the R&B top ten, while a twelve-inch extended version, “Open Sesame (Groove with the Genie),” stretched the party to 8:44. A year later, the song found its biggest audience of all when it was included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack — the defining record of the disco era — and the album itself reached No. 9 on the soul chart.
The follow-up single, “Super Band,” reached the R&B top twenty in March 1977, but “Open Sesame” remains the moment the band’s Jersey City funk opened its doors to the mirror ball. The chant of the title still works like an incantation: say the words, and the dance floor appears.