Brooklyn Dreams

Fusing vintage doo-wop vocal harmonies with the synth textures and pulsing beats of modern dance music, Brooklyn Dreams distinguished themselves among the era’s more singular disco acts. Childhood friends Bruce Sudano, Eddie Hokenson, and Joe “Bean” Esposito, all raised in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, began writing and performing together as teenagers. Sudano entered Alive ’N Kickin’ in 1968, helping the band reach the pop Top Ten with Tommy James’s “Tighter, Tighter” before the group disbanded in 1970 after issuing one album. He then returned to Brooklyn, rejoined Hokenson and Esposito, and joined them in composing original material. When their friend and eventual manager Susan Munao secured an executive post at Los Angeles-based Casablanca Records, she urged the trio westward; they signed with producer Jimmy Ienner’s Millennium imprint, a Casablanca subsidiary. Ex-Three Dog Night member Skip Konte produced their self-titled debut, released in 1977. Although the album sold modestly, the group gained unexpected visibility through their cameo in the 1978 film American Hot Wax. Their 1979 sophomore effort, Sleepless Nights, contained the hit duet “Heaven Knows” with disco queen Donna Summer. The trio subsequently toured as her opening act, and Sudano later married the singer. Even the ambitious, Juergen Koppers-produced Joy Ride failed commercially, and the similar fate of 1980’s Won’t Let Go prompted the group’s dissolution. Sudano released the solo album The Fugitive Kind the following year, yet achieved his greatest recognition as a songwriter, authoring Summer’s classic “Bad Girls” and Dolly Parton’s smash “Starting Over.” Esposito resurfaced in 1983 when his solo track “Lady, Lady, Lady” appeared on the blockbuster soundtrack to Flashdance.