The definitive source document of the era. A must for fans of the history of early house and disco. ( )

I received this book from LibraryThing as part of the Early Reviewer program. Thanks! I highly recommend this book, it really transports the reader back in time to the Disco era. The oral history interviews are important contributions to musical history and to race, gender and sometimes class history in the U.S. ( )

This is a great encyclopedic-style reference to virtually all the women who contributed to the muscial genre of disco. Full of trivia! I thoroughly enjoyed perusing it. It brought back a great deal of memories of the era! Highly recommended. ( )

First Ladies of Disco: 32 Stars Discuss the Era and Their Singing Careers by James Arena is a book I received via LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. I don't really know a lot about the disco era or the singers of that era, other than just enjoying the music that I listened to at the time. Though not all female "disco" performers are included in this book, there are enough to give a good overall view of that era. ( )

This is quite an exhaustive examination of the subject. Filled with anecdotes. As it deals with mostly lesser known singers it seems somewhat incomplete. I missed sections on Donna Summer and Diana Ross, but presumably they were too famous to want to be in the same book with all these others. Donna Summer is discussed a little, but Diana Ross is entirely missing for the most part. However it does have Gloria Gaynor and Evelyn "Champagne" King as well as Anita Ward of Ring My Bell fame. As a history of the recording industry of the time, or what it was like to be a women working there and then, it is superb.