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Album Re-release

Album Re-release

album Re-release

 

Product Description

This 2 CD collection features Kid Creole And The Coconuts‘ two albums recorded and released by Columbia Records in 1990 and 1991 respectively.

CD 1 – features the 13 original album tracks of “Private Waters In The Great Divide” plus six related bonus tracks sourced from 7″ and 12″ singles derived from the 1990 release.

CD 2  – features the ten tracks from the 1991 album “You Shoulda Told Me You Were…”. Featured remixes include contributions from; ‘The Sex Of It‘ – House Version was remixed by Justin StraussThe Sex Of It‘ – Extended Remix Version and ‘I Love Girls‘ – Femme Fatale Mix were both remixed by Richie Jones.

This 2 CD collection has been re-mastered using the original master tapes .The 20 page full colour booklet features a split image of the two front covers and an expanded design of the original artwork for each album. There are fascinating extensive personal sleeve notes written by August Darnell aka Kid Creole and a UK discography featuring some of the Coconuts unique front cover images.

This fantastic and nostalgic double album will be available on CD at all major online and retail stores.

To pre-order your copy now on Amazon click here:

AMAZON

The double album will be released on April 20th!

Two Classic Albums – one sexy package!

album cover

 

Happy Days Festival

Our festival will take you back in time to celebrate those Happy Days! With a combination of legendary artists from the 70s, 80s and 90s, that will recreate the feel good factor. Come and reminisce the party vibe at our amazing venue, a 40 acre site in the heart of Surrey, ‘Imber Court‘, East Molesey, Surrey KT8 0BT.

The Festival will blend 3 decades of amazing music with other entertainments including a themed retro bar, pyrotechnics, games area, family fun activities.

Happy Days Lineup

Artists confirmed for Party Saturday 28th – The Human League, Marc Almond, Heaven 17, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Matt Bianco…Main Stage DJ “Rusty Egan” from British New Wave Bands Visage and The Rich Kids.

Artists confirmed for Soul & Dance Sunday 29th – The Sugar Hill Gang plus Melle Mel & Scorpio (Furious Five), Incognito, Jocelyn Brown, Joyce Sims, Martha Wash (original Weather Girl), Heatwave, Vula (Basement Jaxx Vocalist), Lisa Millett…Main Stage DJ “Bert Bevans” Studio 54 & Orginal Ministry of Sound.

Festival goers will also be able to try our delicious Gastro Grub, which will include a selection of World Fusion food and Vegetarian options.

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Pre-sale limited offer!!

EXCLUSIVELY for our dedicated fans we are offering for
48 hours ONLY pre-sale tickets for the world premiere of
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Pre-Sale Tickets

EXCLUSIVELY for our dedicated fans we are offering for
48 hours ONLY limited pre-sale tickets for the world premier of
Cherchez La Femme the musical!!
Click here for your:  Pre-sale tickets  – using the code:  hachachacha
Get your tickets now as this offer ends at midnight (Eastern standard time) on Saturday!
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Cherchez La Femme previews from May 20th until May 22nd then our official GRAND OPENING is on Monday 23rd at La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theatre on East 4th Street, New York City.
So don’t delay, get your tickets today!

“Cherchez La Femme,” a new musical written by August Darnell and Vivien Goldman featuring the music of Grammy-nominated songwriters Stony Browder Jr. and August Darnell.
Synopsis: Set in Manhattan and Haiti, the play explores heavy themes and lightweight dreams.
It’s reckless, it’s rhythmic, it’s romantic.

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME

is a musical extravaganza that tells the story of one man’s loss and another man’s gain and the powerful women who make it all possible. It explores dark themes (abandonment, sibling rivalry, unrequited love) and light themes (sexual healing, the pursuit of happiness,  the smell of success) but never without inviting you to shake your head and tap your toes to the infectious neo-urban-jungle grooves. The play is set in New York City and the Caribbean in the 1980’s.
It’s reckless. It’s rhythmic. It’s romantic.

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The latest from Creoleville

savannah 

        WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME is a musical extravaganza that tells the story of one man’s loss and another man’s gain and the powerful women who make it all possible. It explores dark themes (abandonment, sibling rivalry, unrequited love) and light themes (sexual healing, the pursuit of happiness,  the smell of success) but never without inviting you to shake your head and slap tap your toes to the infectious neo-urban-jungle grooves. The play is set in New York City and the Caribbean in the 1980’s. It’s reckless. It’s rhythmic. It’s romantic.

NYC 
Carribean 

         BACK TO THE FUTURE

30 years ago Vivien Goldman interviewed me in London for a magazine called NME. My alter ego, KID CREOLE, had just released an album entitled TROPICAL GANGSTERS on the Island Records label. It was a hit. The interview lasted 3 hours and 35 minutes. A friendship was formed. 7 years ago Vivien visited me in my home in the idyllic Swedish countryside. We joked about writing a musical. The joke became a reality. The first draft of the play was written in 6 days. At first it was called I’M A WONDERFUL THING, BABY.

Against 

1 year ago Vivien met an actor named Julius Hollingsworth. She spoke to him about the musical. Julius said “Hey, I have done some work with the La Mama group in downtown Manhattan. Perhaps they would be interested in this!” Behold! Fate rears its magnificent head out of the wilderness. In the Spring of this year, a staged reading of that play (in its 7th re-write) was presented at the La Mama rehearsal space. It was now called CHERCHEZ LA FEMME. The room was packed with fans of KID CREOLE AND THE COCONUTS and DR BUZZARD’S ORIGINAL SAVANNAH BAND and with music lovers of all ages. My erstwhile manager, Tommy Mottola, even showed up. Hadn’t seen him 123 years (or so it seems)!

Buzzard 

The staged readings were very successful. They led directly to yet another re-write and an invitation to entertain the masses at the Ellen Stewart Theatre! Pow! A dream deferred becomes a dream deferred no longer.

La Mama
La Mama

             HERE AND NOW

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME will come alive for a limited run (May 19th – June 5th 2016) at the Ellen Stewart theatre in downtown Manhattan. We will have an 8 piece band and 15 cast members and some real sets and some dynamic lighting and some remarkable choreography. Yes, I am a fan of Cecil B. DeMille and Busby Berkley!

              THE A TEAM

We will begin our extensive audition process in January so please contact us if you can sing and dance and act like a New Yorker in the 1980’s!

Where there’s a will, there’s a PLAY.

concert seats 

What happens after this limited run? Well … we bring the wacky world of CHERCHEZ LA FEMME to the rest of the world, of course.

Why not?

Excelsior,

August Darnell aka KID CREOLE

“We may be through with the past but the past isn’t through with us.”

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Kid Creole and the Coconuts News

News

Kick off mini-tour in New York

nyc
(New York, NY) – Kid Creole & the Coconuts will perform in the U.S. live for the first time in 14 years as they begin a four-day mini tour at B.B. Kings in Manhattan on March 25, 2015.

The band, led by August “Kid Creole” Darnell, will play several of their classics and some of their newer music. The March 25th show will also feature a very special guest appearance by Cory Daye, who sang with Darnell while they were members of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
Also joining Darnell on stage will be Haitia Fuller and Fonda Rae, singers he produced for various side projects (Elbow Bones and the Racketeers, Don Armando’s 2nd Ave. Rumba Band).

Tour dates and ticket information:

Kid Creole & the Coconuts continues to receive international acclaim for their live performances, which combine an ensemble of top musicians, swagger, flash and the Kid’s trademark snazzin’ zoot suits.

Darnell, Adriana Kaegi and Dr. Buzzard band mate Coati Mundi founded Kid Creole & the Coconuts in 1980 with the idea of orchestrating a three-ring circus-type act playing off the “Kid” persona versus his onstage comic foils coupled with an original sound fusing Funk, Big Band Jazz, Caribbean, Pop and other genres. Throughout the 1980s, Kid Creole & the Coconuts recorded several international hits including “Stool Pigeon,” “Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy” and “I’m a Wonderful Thing, Baby.” They also performed on SNL, Johnny Carson and in movies, such as; Against All Odds, Only You, Downtown 81 and Lambada: The Forbidden Dance.

news

The current lineup led by Darnell features:

Charlie Lagond (Saxophone)
Shareef Clayton (Trumpet)
Mike Gorman (Keyboards)
Barnaby Dickinson (Trombone)
Jessica Forsman (Coconut)
Roos Van Awesome (Coconut)
Eva Tudor-Jones (Mama Coconut)
Flex Republic (M.C./Left-Hand Man)
Jamie McCredie (Guitar)
Oroh Angiama (Bass)
Malene Mortensen (Chanteuse)
Dave Imby (Drummer and M.D.)
Anthony Almonte (Percussions)

news

In other news, among their upcoming performances, Kid Creole and the Coconuts are slated to play all three of the UK’s Rewind Festivals this summer. More information on shows and tour dates can be found on KCC’s official website: https://kidcreoleandthecoconuts.com/events/
For media inquiries or more information, please contact Chris Cordani, (917)580-1415 or chrisc@bceaglemedia.com or refer to https://kidcreoleandthecoconuts.com

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Coming to America

Kid Creole and the Coconuts are coming to America

america

Are you ready to party with us at B. B. KING’S in Manhattan on March 25th

and at the Howard Theatre in Washington D.C. on March 26th?  We are coming to America.

coming

Meet the Band
(Left to Right)

Edgar Jones (Saxophone), Chris Storr (Trumpet), Tim Vine (Keyboards), Barnaby Dickinson (Trombone), Jessica Forsman (Coconut), Roos Van Awesome (Coconut), Eva Tudor-Jones (Mama Coconut), Jamie McCredie (Guitar), Oroh Angiama (Bass), Malene Mortensen (Chanteuse), Dave Imby (Drummer),THE KID

Meanwhile, check out the rare 1981 backstage footage and live showfrom the Ritz 1981

Available now as VOD

ritz

The band, led by August “Kid Creole” Darnell, will play several of their classics and some of their newer music. The March 25th show will also feature a very special guest appearance by Cory Daye, who sang with Darnell while they were members of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
Also joining Darnell on stage will be Haitia Fuller and Fonda Rae, singers he produced for various side projects (Elbow Bones and the Racketeers, Don Armando’s 2nd Ave. Rumba Band).

Tour dates and ticket information:

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Favorite Things

Savannah Band is Waiting for You, America

Savannah Band is Waiting for You, American (Spring 2005)

by http://finn-johannsen.de/

savannah

 

1976 was the first year in history there were no cases of smallpox recorded anywhere in the world; the disease was apparently eradicated, and experts announced “The end of contagious diseases.” It was the Bicentennial. It was the year Mao died and the Gang of Four fell. That March my mother and I went to New York City for my cousin’s ordination at St. Patrick’s, where, during my next visit, a decade later, ACT-UP would stage a “Stop the Church” protest.

I was a teenager gaga over art and I spent every moment I could in museums, staring at Barnett Newmans and scribbling unintelligible memoranda in a notebook.

On the radio were Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music, White Boy,” Abba’s “Dancing Queen” and Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.” It was also the year of David Bowie’s Station to Station, Patti Smith’s Radio Ethiopia, Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner,” and Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach. That year also saw the release of the first albums of Blondie, The Ramones and one other Manhattanite act, Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.

Savannah Band has not quite vanished into oblivion. That first album is available on cd, as is an anthology of selections from the first two of their three albums. If you search for them on the internet, you will find an admirable appreciation by Milo Miles at Salon.com, info on bandmember August Darnell atThe Cameleon’s B’Dilli Bay, and an informative entry at discomuseum.com.

Pungent fragments of their music frequently enliven contemporary techno and rap: Maya Arulpragasam/M.I.A. samples “Sunshower” in her 2005 “Sunshowers,” and Miss Kittin demonstrates her taste and erudition by quoting the introductory brass riff to “The Gigolo and I” in her 2001 “Harlot.”

But even at the height of their fame, in the mid-Seventies, Savannah Band was never really famous; they were an acquired taste, something reserved for connoisseurs. They were one of those bands with a small group of fans, fans who were fanatics, who forced the records on their friends, who studied their albums as significant texts, who felt compelled to write, if only to regisiter a protest against the general silence.

August Darnell and Stony Browder, Jr. in collaboration with Cory Daye, Andy Hernandez, and others wrote, performed, and arranged–alone and in various combinations, under a variety of names–a handful of pop tunes of enduring oddness and charm: “Cherchez La Femme/Se Si Bon,” “Sour & Sweet/Lemon In The Honey,” “Mister Love,” “An Organ Grinder’s Tale,” The Seven Year Itch,” There But for the Grace of God Go I,” “Drive My Car,” Cowboys & Gangsters,” and “Deputy of Love.”

Unlike the other memorable music of its era, Browder and Darnell’s is not raw, not direct, not antagonistic, not violent. It’s generally dance music, but of such a kind that repays scrutiny. It tickles, then alarms, then reassures, then renders unsure.

Browder and Darnell juxtaposed disco’s present tense of physical exhilaration, affectionately ironic allusions to retro dance styles, and lyrics whose often jolting bitterness resonates like an shouted threat. They toyed with these things to create a compelling disequilibrium.

Savannah Band was originally labeled a disco band because they obviously weren’t a conventional rock band and they produced dance music, which–according to the categories available in the mid-Seventies–meant disco.

Characteristically, Savannah Band themselves provided a more useful analysis. In their third and final album, the song “The Seven Year Itch” features a chorus of sirens chanting a geneology of the band’s sound:

You did the mambo, the cha-cha, bolero, the rumba

Don’t you think I know

You did the tango, the conga, the disco, the samba

Did you think I’d croak? Aint’ you got no shame?

Which is to say, in 1979 they viewed disco historically, as a dance fad in continuity with preceding dance fads–with the significant omission of the entire rock era, along with the blues, soul, and gospel. Savannah Band acted as if the story of popular music went from Frank Sinatra directly to Sylvester–a feat of creative imagination even more remarkable considering the band had many connections to the New York rock scene (Darnell remixed a dance version of James White & the Blacks’s “Contort Yourself.”)

Over time their resistance to rock was overcome by an avidity for appropriation; subsequent musical projects referenced reggae, rap and contemporary New Wave. In Darnell’s first album as Kid Creole, the song “Latin Music” revises the recipe to read

Uh-oh, it’s Car-ma-ren Mir-an-da

Coconuts got a brand new

Cha-cha

Oh-oh the rumba and the samba

Whatever happened to the hullabaloo?

The readymade formulas–samba, swing, calypso, disco–provide forms: forms that promise disposable, empty-headed pleasures. And yet, Browder and Darnell had no talent for simplicity. On the few occasions when they attempted to simplify–to sustain a unified tone and texture, to repeat straightforwardly a simple motif–the result was usually a clunker.

The vocabulary of dance forms provided them with a frame in which they composed multi-movement sound collages. Attended to carefully, “Cherchez la Femme” and “The Gigolo and I” sound less like the Bee Gees and more like Charles Ives. The sensibility–a moody mix of reverie, kitsch, and wrath–is as Ivesian as you can get. Listeners of “An Organ Grinder’s Tale” are usually so distracted by Cory Daye crooning

The Elf-king disappeared

With a maid of freckled face and flaxen hair.

The Fairy-Queen did not despair–

Every day of the year

She cooks his usual apple strüdel

that they miss the beautiful instrumental accompaniment–a fastidious juxtaposition of Om-pah band and Stephen Sondheim culminating in an outburst of polyrythmns and dissynchronous tempi. It ends with a bizarre lurching gait: get down boogie rather like Elliot Carter’s Penthode. It’s the acme of some unspeakable genre of compositeness: textures, colors, harmonies, phrases, moods that are clichéd and secondhand are not unified, but juxtaposed for maximum contrast–the result being fresh-sounding and not entirely ironic.

Likewise a much more modest composition like “Young Hearts” begins as a starkly stripped down funk number, to which is added the kind of reggae you would expect from a half-asleep New Orleans funeral band accompanied by a female chorus lifted from “Walk on the Wild Side.” These things jostle along only to segue into a showy introduction to a big swing number–at which point the song abruptly ends. “Poupee Qui Fait Non” features clichéd calypso steel drums versus clichéd disco cow bell plus skeletonized fragments of fake Gene Krupa, with vocal stylings by the ineffable Cristina, sounding like a lunatic talking to herself in the street.

“Table Manners” starts off like the Pretenders but quickly evolves into murmurs from the harem of Cobra Island. “Kriminal-Tango,” a 1959 ballad by Pierre Trombetta, is treated as a found object, and becomes even stranger by recontextualization. It begins with Bernard Hermann opening credits, then settles into a proto-Pink Martini torch song. If people don’t deserve immortality for such things, what in the world is immortality for? While this heterogeneous jumble of elements parade through each composition, unity–or at least one unifying element–is provided by the vocals, and in particular by the extraordinary vocals of Cory Daye.

What is it about her voice? People talk about her flat notes as if that was all there was to it. Skeptics dismiss it as a gimick. For others it springs the lock on a very still and quiet place, where revelations quietly devastate. But there is also the way she skips ahead of–or tarries a moment behind–the beat. It adds another bit of interest to the patterns in the air.

But those are just two of her effects: she’s also sad, peppy, breathless, clear, articulate, very speaking–parlando. She does not do the blues, she doesn’t whoop it up like a disco diva; hers is a voice surprised at its role, a bit shy of the implication of fronting others.

And yet she’s up to the task and very game in a way that’s fresh and winning. She can be exhilaratingly bold–sometimes she autographs a track in dashing zigzag lines. A heartless extravaganza known as “Mister Love” is perhaps her finest hour. Cool and collected, she decisively propells the syllables

The box-back gents arrive In apple-jacks and tans

Man-o-man they look just like that Gichy Dan!

like ping-pong balls against an echoey male chorus and a tricky, jittery syncopated beat. She cultivates the air of somebody who is really, after all, too busy to be in the studio recording right that minute, but is being a good sport. She always sounds like she has a lot of other things on her mind. With other singers this wouldn’t be a compliment, but with Daye, and her work with Savannah Band, it translates into a vision of sophisticated bliss we might not have access to otherwise.

Another distinctive vocalist connected with Browder and Darnell is Cristina. She is controversial. Even people who can appreciate Cory Daye think Cristina is going too far. She’s often inexcusable: “Rage And Fascination,” an excellent song that Grace Jones should have included on Living My Life, is defanged by her inert performance.

But in her cover of “Drive My Car,” the ferocious zest of her “beep! beep! beep!”s are irresistible. Likewise in another cover, of Brecht & Weill’s “Ballad Of Immoral Earnings,” her petulant sourness scans perfectly and is dramatically apt.

I imagine Darnell, her producer on these projects, liked her because she was a character. As a rule, Browder and Darnell’s music never showcases vocal virtuosity. Their compositions don’t require vocalists who soar over vast sonic landscapes, but ones who dramatize conflicts–personal conflicts, cultural conflicts–in a satirical or whimsical mode. For that, unhomogenized voices that retain the intonations of impassioned yacking are most suitable.

Hence the appropriateness of the choruses of kids that pop up frequently on their albums. And even of Andy Hernandez’s foolhardy attempt to put over a ballad in “Oh! That Love Decision.”

Of course much of the sting of these vocal performances comes from Darnell’s exceptional words. The lyrics he provided for Kevin Nance’s much-anthologized 1979 disco anthem “There But for the Grace of God Go I” are probably his most notorious performance

Carlo and Carmen Vidal just had a child

a lovely girl with a crooked smile

Now they’ve got to split

‘cause the Bronx ain’t fit

for a kid to grow up in

Let’s find a place they say somewhere far away

with no Blacks no Jews and no gays

Carmen and her family

left the dirty streets to find a quiet place overseas.

And year after year

the kid has to hear

the Dos and Don’ts and the Dears.

And then she’s ten years old

she digs that rock ‘n’ roll

but Poppy bans it from the home.

Carmen, she turns out to be

a natural freak

gaining weight

and losing sleep.

And when she’s sweet sixteen

she packs her things and leaves

with a man she met on the street.

Carmen starts to bawl

bangs her head to the wall.

Too much love is worse than none at all.

The iciness of which is underscored by music that bounces perkily along, completely indifferent to the varieties of sordidness the tale relates.

But such by-the-book Brechtianism is only one tone of Darnell’s palette. He has a gift for being affectionately silly that rivals Woodhouse, starting songs with lines like

“A cockerpoo and a canary lit the early stages of my life,”

and “Doris, you can take my Frosted Flakes,”

and “Gina, Gina! He’s just a ski instructor!

However the theme that repeatedly fires Darnell’s imagination is race. And how does he approach it?

Consider the song titled “Soraya / March of the Nignies,” which starts

Yankee romancers

The gift they gave us was the cafe au lait!

Or “In The Jungle,” that features one of Darnell’s signature jaw-droppers:

I don’t believe in In-te-gra-tion

Just to achieve Mi-sen-e-ga-tion

To which he adds later

I don’t believe in Pro-po-ga-tion

Just to achieve Ca-fe-au-lait-tion.

It’s not mere naughtiness; it’s not merely the game of the black performer doning blackface in order to make the audience squirm. It’s as if the creolism, the hybridism present in the music–in the sound collage–is being articulated explicitly at another level.

The situation of several songs hinges on the conflicted interaction of colonized and colonizer, but the tone is never outrage, but dandified resignation. The “Grace of God” formula is employed with an additional twist in “Cowboys & Gangsters.” The music is an irreproachably upbeat disco anthem to which Darnell provides a newcomer’s lament about the temptations of America, how they corrupt, and the promise of prestige and power intoxicates. In the end, somebody gets hurt, and somebody gets sold out. “The Gigolo and I” is characteristic. The music is an intricate, Ivesian free-association tone-poem. The words evoke a Tennessee Williams scene partially translated into bad French

Parce que j’etais une femme solitaire

J’ay paye pour un compagnon.

Then, Cory Daye recites a mad tour guide speech:

Et á gauche. Ahhhh. The island of Manhattan, named after an Indian who single-handedly massacred sixty-three Mormans (sic) in 1884. Crazy island, that Manhattan island …

followed immediately by a cheerful male chorus of “Oh that crazy Indian.” And, in case we don’t get it, Daye, in the sweetest voice imaginable warbles

God is such a busy guy

Some must sell, some must buy:

Deliver.

Those unfamiliar with the music that accompanies such words might get the impression of something numbingly cynical. But that would be to underestimate how deep Browder and Darnell’s impropriety goes. They never scold. They are unimpressed with the call to be earnest about anything. The tone, the mood, of individual songs is often itself is difficult to determine. Is it happy? Sad? Earnest? Ironic?

They don’t even take the rôle of satirist seriously; they are content to play the fool, and fool around. Browder and Darnell’s impropriety also extends to the conventions of pop music professionalism: the values of compositional unity, simplicity, instrumental virtuosity, unity of effect, etc. are not valued very much by them. They savor acidic wrong-note harmonies, jarring shifts in tone, the aesthetic of the slightly off, intricacy without slickness, pieces that don’t fit together seamlessly. As arty and sophisticated as they are, Savannah Band really doesn’t have anything to do with contemporary disco that was influenced by minimalist music, like Arthur Russell.

And for all their retro references, they don’t have anything to do with the Swing revival of the Nineties. Their true peers are transgressor-fusionists like The Pogues, John Zorn, The Klezmatics, Björk.

The pop music convention they most impudently disdain is the convention of honesty. Instead of the rhetoric of authenticity (the blues to bop) they deal in the tropes of inauthenticity (big band to disco). Instead of reportage, they offer stylized personas, narrators and settings: Manhattan, Caribbean paradise. Larger than life rôles: abandoned lover, soldier boy, Cab Calloway, creole, mulatto, heartbreaker, Nazi, gangster, crooner, chorus girl, tootsie, gold-digger, ….

The scenarios–never explicit, but ever-present–suggest some synthesis of Busby Berkely, Graham Greene and Ronald Firbank. One other layer of this stylization is the deliberate manner in which they cultivated, commented on, and mocked themselves. Savannah Band’s music, lyrics, album covers and sleeves are peppered with arcane in-jokes and conceptual art touches whose point is not accessible to outsiders.

What, for example, could be the meaning of the ‘Forties-looking photographic portraits identified as the Krauns family (who?) inside the cover of their third album? Or the references to ”Roovag, Inc” and the “Champions of the Romantic”? Or what does Tommy Motolla think now, when he hears the band he managed in 1976 sing about him “blowing his mind on cheap grass and wine” as he “sleeps in the back / of his gray Cadillac.”

It has the whimsically self-regarding air of a improvised vacant-lot revival ofFour Saints in Three Acts. This being the case, it’s no surprise that some categorize Browder and Darnell’s work as camp. Indeed, it’s hard to avoid that word when confronted with things like the Roy Rogers hoof-clomps in “I’ll Play the Fool,” and the canned seagulls cawing above crashing waves who pop up in an alarming number of songs. Or when they perpetrate a song titled “Once There Was a Colored Girl,” with a chorus–for once exquisitely smooth and sweetly harmonized–cooing

The yankee humbug! Neo-nazi! The yankee stumblebum!

But considering the work as a whole, a more accurate characterization would be to call it bemused irony. For all the links with Brecht and Weill, Browder and Darnell are closer in spirit to Noël Coward and Cole Porter. It’s not impossible to imagine a flickering, silvery Ginger Rogers singing

You con-fess that you’re no good for me,

And you in-sist you’re hanging clouds over me.

Let me be the judge of that:

I’ll tell you where it’s really at–

My skies are baby blue.

Stay for me

Sour and sweet.

Your per-sis-tant-ly ad-vis-ing me

Don’t invest in someone who must be free

‘Cos every time you come around

My heart leaps up I’m heaven bound

A nickel brings a dime.

Stay for me

Sour and sweet.

The bemusement does not come cheap. It expresses dogged, despite-all, faithfulness. In Browder and Darnell’s songs the narrator is often affirming fidelity to a faithless lover. Or affirming the value of a love that inflicts pain. Or affirming individuality in a world that thinks in stereotypes. Or affirming personal honesty when all one can utter are clichés. Or acknowledging the absurdity of trying to be true in a dishonest world. It’s a great accomplishment when pop music finds a cheerful and sophisticated-sounding way to express despair, and Savannah Band does it again and again. An air of resilient despair colors Browder and Darnell’s most upbeat songs. Their most frivilous ones are haunted by the pathos of sundered couples, the most hurt one being the one who sings.

Albums mentioned in this essay:

1976. Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band. Music by Stony Browder, Jr. Lyrics by August Darnell. Arrangements by Stony Browder, Jr. and Charlie Calello. Andy Hernandez, vibes. Mickey Sevilla, drums. Don Armando Bonilla, percussion. Cory Daye, vocals. Featuring “Cherchez La Femme/Se Si Bon,” “I’ll Play the Fool,” “Sour & Sweet/Lemon In The Honey,” “Sunshower.”

1978. Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band Meets King Penett. Arrangements by Stony Browder, Jr. Featuring “The Gigolo and I,” “Mister Love,” “An Organ Grinder’s Tale,” “Soraya / March of the Nignies.” “Auf Wiedersehen, Darrio” concludes with the line that provides the title to this essay.

1979. James Monroe H.S. Presents Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band Goes to Washington. Featuring “Seven Year Itch” 1979. There But for the Grace of God Go I, Machine, Kevin Nance & August Darnell. Vocals by Clare Bathe and Jay Stovall. EP. 1979. Gichy Dan’s Beachwood #9. Music and lyrics by August Darnell. Produced by AD with Ronnie Rogers. Featuring “Young Hearts.”

1980. Cristina, Cristina (Monet). Written and produced by August Darnell. Arranged by Andy Hernandez. Featuring “Poupee Qui Fait Non.”

1981. Kid Creole, Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places. Written and produced by August Darnell. Featuring “Gina, Gina,” “In the Jungle,” “Latin Music,” “Table Manners.”

1981. Seize The Beat (Dance Ze Dance) (ZE/Island) Featuring “Cowboys & Gangsters,” Gichy Dan, Written and produced by Ron Rogers.

1979. “Deputy of Love” Don Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band. Written by Ron Rogers. Produced by Andy Hernandez. First released 1979. “Drive My Car,” Cristina (Monet) Lennon & McCartney, arranged by Stony Browder, Jr. First released 1980

1983. Little Coati Mundi The former 12 year old genius. Written, arranged and produced by Andy Hernandez. Featuring “Oh! That Love Decision”

1983. Sleep It Off. Cristina. Produced by Don Was. Featuring “Rage and Fascination,” and “Ballad of Immoral Earnings.”

1983. Don’t Take My Coconuts, The Coconuts. Produced by August Darnell. Featuring “Kriminal-Tango”

1996. The Very Best of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.

buzzard

Categories
Favorite Things

Behind the Scenes – Muchachacha Video


Behind the scenes of Muchachacha with Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Los Locos and more!

Categories
Favorite Things

In a Place Like This

In a Place Like This Video

 LISTEN 

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IN A PLACE LIKE THIS

IN A CORNER THERE’S A BUSY BAR
BARMAN HAS A BLOODY SCAR
VERY SLEAZY, WEEZY-QUEASY

IN THE TOILET THERE’S A RAGGED FOOL
SELLING COKE AND ACTING COOL
PRETTY ICKY, AWFUL SICKLY, OOOOO

TELL ME

WHAT YOU DOIN’ IN A PLACE LIKE THIS?
WHAT YOU DOIN’ IN A STATE LIKE THIS?
AND ON YOUR OWN …
LORD HAVE MERCY!

IN A CORNER THERE’S A POOL OF SICK
NO SURPRISE – THE AIR IS THICK
PRETTY SHITTY, WHAT A PITY

AND ON A TABLE THERE’S A TOPLESS GIRL
OFF HER TITS SHE DOES A WHIRL
VERY DIRTY, VERY FLIRTY, OOOOOO

TELL ME

WHAT YOU DOIN’ IN A PLACE LIKE THIS?
WHAT YOU DOIN’ IN A STATE LIKE THIS?
AND ON YOUR OWN …
LORD HAVE MERCY!

YOU’RE BREAKING MY HEART
YOU’RE FALLING APART
AIN’T YOU GOT NO SHAME?
YOU’RE SLIPPING SO LOW
YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW
YOU’RE IN PAIN
SHAME SHAME SHAME

THEY SAY THAT PRIDE WILL COME BEFORE A FALL
YOU PUT YOUR FAITH IN ALCOHOL
PRETTY STUPID, WHY YOU DO IT

THE D.J.’S PLAYING SOME CACOPHONY
THERE’S NOTHING HERE FOR YOU OR ME
WHERE’S THE MAGIC IN THE TRAGIC? OOOOOO

TELL ME

WHAT YOU DOIN’ IN A PLACE LIKE THIS?
WHAT YOU DOIN’ IN A STATE LIKE THIS?
AND ON YOUR OWN …
LORD HAVE MERCY!
WHAT YOU DOIN’ IN A PLACE LIKE THIS?
WHAT YOU DOIN’ IN A STATE LIKE THIS?
AND ALL ALONE …
LORD HAVE MERCY!

YOU’RE BREAKING MY HEART
YOU’RE FALLING APART
AIN’T YOU GOT NO SHAME?
YOU’RE SLIPPING SO LOW
YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW
YOU’RE IN PAIN
SHAME SHAME SHAME