Dan Hartman

  Before we get on with today's story, let me just say this: next week we'll be presenting Disco hits from various artists. If you want to hear any song in particular (from the ones not already presented), write the name of the song in today's comments and I will dedicate it to you next week. I already had a number of songs that where suggested/requested by the good friends of this blog, Alan and the Record Man, so these will be dedicated to them. Also, if somebody else has already asked for your favorite song, don't fret: I can definitely dedicate a song to more than one person. After our prologue, time for the introduction of today's subject. It's a low-profile man who, however, is responsible for some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and 80s, in rock, disco, and pop. I suspect that many have been intrigued by the man who wrote hits spanning such diverse (and mutually hostile) genres as Classic Rock, Disco, Pop and New Age. Most people like at least a couple o

 He had no proper man's clothing of his own in his younger years in the early '70s while he was with the pop/rock group, The Edgar Winter Group . He couldn't wear a tuxedo. A family life he couldn't afford to live. He never had a wife. He couldn't find a new fiance, named, Michelle Kepler . He was never married to her; they had no children. He never became a father. No straightness. No masculinization surgery for him. He wouldn't be transformed into a straight man with a straight attitude. He became HIV-positive in the late 1980s. There was no one call 911 anytime he fell down to the ground. He wouldn't have time to get a flu shot. AIDS  came his way and ate up his life. So did brain tumor. Since there was no cure for him, his life ended on March 22, 1994.