Creating Hits
Village People became the first disco performance to go in an arena tour back in April 1979. The Bee Gees filled arenas, but they didn’t go on tour until June of that year. Since Morali, the group’s producer, was French and didn’t know English, Phil Hurtt and Peter Whitehead were brought in as the chief lyricist for the band’s first album.
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As a gay man, Whitehead wrote lyrics that Morali thought were way too sexual and crude for mainstream consumption. He asked Hurtt to clean them up, which he did. Hurtt was a proven wordsmith. “San Francisco (You’ve Got Me),” their first single, was more about having fun in the city and less about the gay community there, and it was an incredible success.