Hello, it's friday again and today we're into latin-disco grooves. Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band was a big band / swing / disco band, from Brooklyn New York. Their laidback attitude, an ideal contrast to the hi-energy sounds, after all one needs to be able to have a chat and a drink aswell, and meanwhile the Savannah band kept those hips moving. Alas, it didnt move the registers enough, and so the band broke up in 79, spinning off my other entries today. Singer Cory Daye pursued a diva career and initially it looked to come about, her over engineered album reach gold status without big hits, but by 1980 the whole discoboom had been overformulised and drained of energy. August Darnell had taken another route writing and producing, ending up at New Yorks trendy ZE label. He used it as a stepping stone for a new musical career as Kid Creole backed by his wife and supported by Savannah percussionist Hernandez, their first excellent adventure can be joined here.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band (76 ^ 230mb)
The band's name was chosen as a tribute to the group's first manager, Dr. Buzzard, who was from Savannah. "This is the craziest group I've ever seen," said Andy Hernandez. "When I auditioned to join the group, they didn't even ask me to play any music. They gave me a questionaire to fill out instead. The group consisted of lead singer, and the only female, Cory Daye, guitarist/pianist Stony Browder Jr.,his half brother bass player August Darnell and drummer Mickey Sevilla.
In the early days the quintet played gigs wherever they could be found, mainly in upstate New York. Their big break came when they were offered a contract with RCA Records. But it wasn't without it's problems. "RCA gave us 30 days to make our first album" recalled Stony. "We spent 620 hours in the studio on that album!." Once the album was released, no one bothered to tell the group about it. They heard the news from friends who had seen it in the record stores.
RCA initially gave the album very little promotion, it seemed destined for a rapid trip into oblivion. But the album really got it's start in the disco (read GAY) community, if the record hadn't caught on there, it might never have gotten anywhere. Ironically despite the lack of a 12" single release and poor promotion the album went on to gold status.
However their follow-up releases didn't fair as well. 1978's "Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band Meets King Penett" had the full support of RCA but lacked the luster of it's predecessor. A label change brought their third and final album, 1979's "Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band Goes To Washington," a somewhat higher quality product with disappointing sales.
After the groups break up Cory went on to record her only solo album 1979's "Cory & Me. Stony Browder reformulated the band and dropped the "Original" from it's moniker. This incarnation, released an album in 1984. "Calling All Beatniks" with Cory at the vocal helm and original band member Mickey Sevilla on drums. August Darnell and Andy Hernandez found the most success after the "Savannah Band" with their creation of Kid Creole & The Coconuts. Releasing 17 albums since 1980 with 2001's "Too Cool To Conga" being their latest.
01 - I'll Play The Fool (4:45)
02 - Hard Times (4:04)
03 - Cherchez La Femme / Se Si Bon (5:41)
04 - Sunshower (3:58)
05 - We Got It Made (3:34)
06 - You Got Somethin' / Betcha' The Love Bug Bitcha' (5:36)
07 - Sour And Sweet / Lemon In The Honey (5:57)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Cory Daye - Cory And Me ( 79 ^ 262mb)
With her light, airy vocals, Bronx-born Cory Daye helped to transform Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band into one of the most exciting bands of the late-'70s disco era. Creating some of the earliest disco recordings, Daye and Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band skillfully mixed big band, swing, jump blues, Broadway tunes, and Caribbean influences into their infectious dance music.
Leaving the Savannah band to pursue a solo career, Daye found immediate success, she enlisted the songwriting and production of Sandy Linzer to replicate her former band's sound on her solo debut, Cory and Me. Linzer was a particularly appropriate match for Daye, since he had already worked with Odyssey on their r. Buzzard-inspired disco classic "Native New Yorker." Perhaps hoping for similar Top 40 success, Daye seems more commercially motivated on Cory and Me, but that accessibility works wonders on the two opening cuts, "Green Light" and "Pow Wow." On both songs, Daye uses her playfully expressive voice to transform the potentially hokey lyrics into irresistible verses. . Daye's charm and enthusiasm are contagious throughout, but the rest of the songs fail to match her energy level, and the scattered Dr. Buzzard touches often seem diluted by the album's mainstream ambitions. Nevertheless, most Dr. Buzzard followers will probably enjoy the familiarity of Cory and Me, and the album may also appeal to fans of late-'70s disco divas who are unfamiliar with Daye's considerable talents.
Set back by the collapse of disco, Daye joined Kid Creole & the Coconuts in the early '80s, singing on their 1982 album, Tropical Gangsters, and appearing as a guest vocalist on their 1995 album, To Travel Sideways. Resuming her solo career, Daye recorded a pair of 12" singles, "City Nights" b/w "Manhattan Cafes" in 1986 and "Middle of the Night in 1987.
01 - Green Light (6:11)
02 - Pow Wow (7:10)
03 - Wiggle & A Giggle All Night (3:08)
04 - Rhythm Death (1:17)
05 - Single Again/ What Time Does The Ballon Go Up (5:37)
06 - Be Bop Betty A/K/A/Co Co Ree (3:31)
07 - Rainy Day Boy (4:04)
08 - Keep The Ball Rollin' (5:17)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Kid Creole And The Coconuts - Off The Coast Of Me (80 ^ 402mb)
Thomas August Darnell Browder (aka August Darnell) was born in Montreal, the son of a French Canadian mother and a Dominican father, but was raised in the New York City borough of the Bronx. In 1965, he formed the In-Laws with his half-brother, Stony Browder, Jr. He earned a master's degree in English and became an English teacher, but in 1974 again joined his half-brother as bass guitarist, singer, and lyricist in Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, a group that mixed disco with big band and Latin styles. When they broke up, Darnell began to write and produce for other acts working with James Chance among others. In 1980, he became a staff producer at ZE Records and created the persona of Kid Creole (adapted from Presley's King Creole) with a backup group, the Coconuts, consisting of three female singers led by his wife Adriana "Addy" Kaegi, and a band containing vibraphone player Andy Hernandez (aka Coati Mundi), also from Dr. Buzzard. Kid Creole was a deliberately comic figure, a Latinized Cab Calloway type in a zoot suit. Off the Coast of Me, the first Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, was released in August 1980 by Antilles through a distribution deal with ZE. It earned good reviews for its clever lyrics and mixture of musical styles, but sales disappointed.
ZE made a deal with Sire Records, which released the second Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, (1981). Fresh Fruit was a concept album that found the Kid Creole character embarking on an Odyssey-like search for a character named Mimi, and it was given a stage production at the New York Public Theater. Darnell continued the story with his third album, Tropical Gangsters in May 1982. The band toured Britain for the first time to promote the album, and they broke big. Three singles -- "I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby," "Stool Pigeon," and "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" -- made the Top Ten. In the U.S., where the album was retitled Wise Guy, the band remained cult favorites. In 1983, Darnell produced side projects for the Coconuts (Don't Take My Coconuts) and Coati Mundi before releasing the fourth Kid Creole album, Doppelganger, which completed the Mimi cycle. The album charted in the U.K., but was a commercial disappointment after the breakthrough represented by Tropical Gangsters/Wise Guy.
Meanwhile, Kid Creole & the Coconuts remained a compelling live act with an imaginative visual style, which led to film and television opportunities. They appeared in the film Against All Odds in 1984 and continued to be tapped for movie projects in subsequent years, either for appearances or music: New York Stories (1989), The Forbidden Dance (1990), Identity Crisis (1990), Only You (1992), Car 54, Where Are You? (1994). They also made a TV film, Something Wrong in Paradise, based on the Mimi cycle and broadcast on Granada TV in the U.K. in December 1984.
Darnell broke up with his wife in 1985, and the original band split. Darnell pressed on, appearing at the Montreux Jazz Festival and releasing the fifth Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, In Praise of Older Women and Other Crimes, which did not chart. Neither did the sixth album, I, Too, Have Seen the Woods (1987). Darnell then took time off to write In a Pig's Valise, an off-Broadway show that ran for 12 weeks. Kid Creole & the Coconuts, now featuring former Dr. Buzzard singer Cory Daye, resurfaced in 1990, issuing a seventh album, Private Waters in the Great Divide, which featured "The Sex of It," a song written by Prince that made the British Top 40 and the American R&B charts. It was followed a year later by You Shoulda Told Me You Were....
Kid Creole & the Coconuts spent the 1990s touring internationally and releasing albums primarily outside the U.S. To Travel Sideways and Kiss Me Before the Light Changes both appeared initially in Japan, though they found stateside release on a small label in 1995. The Conquest of You was released in Germany in 1997. Kid Creole starred in the British musical Oh! What a Night, which ran in the West End from August to October 1999. A live album of the same name, which combined Kid Creole hits with renditions of some of the songs that appeared in the musical, was released in 2000. Too Cool to Conga!, a studio album, came out the following year. Darnell now lives in London (and occasionally Sweden), and still tours with the Coconuts occasionally. He is currently collaborating with writer/producer Peter Schott on a Contemporary Opera, to be produced by Son Of Kong Productions.
01 Mister Softee (4:11)
02 Maladie D'Amour (4:57)
03 Yolanda (4:21)
04 Off The Coast Of Me (4:49)
05 Darrio... (4:01)
06 Lilli Marlene (3:44)
07 Bogota Affair (4:27)
08 Calypso Pan American (5:09)
--XS--
09 There But For The Grace Of God Go I (12" Mix) 5:29
10 He's Not A Such A Bad Guy After All (12" B-side)5:16
11 Darrio (12" Disco Mix) 5:14
12 Yolanda (12" Mix)6:44
13 Maladie D'Amour (Mutant Disco Version) 6:16
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band (76 ^ 230mb)
The band's name was chosen as a tribute to the group's first manager, Dr. Buzzard, who was from Savannah. "This is the craziest group I've ever seen," said Andy Hernandez. "When I auditioned to join the group, they didn't even ask me to play any music. They gave me a questionaire to fill out instead. The group consisted of lead singer, and the only female, Cory Daye, guitarist/pianist Stony Browder Jr.,his half brother bass player August Darnell and drummer Mickey Sevilla.
In the early days the quintet played gigs wherever they could be found, mainly in upstate New York. Their big break came when they were offered a contract with RCA Records. But it wasn't without it's problems. "RCA gave us 30 days to make our first album" recalled Stony. "We spent 620 hours in the studio on that album!." Once the album was released, no one bothered to tell the group about it. They heard the news from friends who had seen it in the record stores.
RCA initially gave the album very little promotion, it seemed destined for a rapid trip into oblivion. But the album really got it's start in the disco (read GAY) community, if the record hadn't caught on there, it might never have gotten anywhere. Ironically despite the lack of a 12" single release and poor promotion the album went on to gold status.
However their follow-up releases didn't fair as well. 1978's "Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band Meets King Penett" had the full support of RCA but lacked the luster of it's predecessor. A label change brought their third and final album, 1979's "Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band Goes To Washington," a somewhat higher quality product with disappointing sales.
After the groups break up Cory went on to record her only solo album 1979's "Cory & Me. Stony Browder reformulated the band and dropped the "Original" from it's moniker. This incarnation, released an album in 1984. "Calling All Beatniks" with Cory at the vocal helm and original band member Mickey Sevilla on drums. August Darnell and Andy Hernandez found the most success after the "Savannah Band" with their creation of Kid Creole & The Coconuts. Releasing 17 albums since 1980 with 2001's "Too Cool To Conga" being their latest.
01 - I'll Play The Fool (4:45)
02 - Hard Times (4:04)
03 - Cherchez La Femme / Se Si Bon (5:41)
04 - Sunshower (3:58)
05 - We Got It Made (3:34)
06 - You Got Somethin' / Betcha' The Love Bug Bitcha' (5:36)
07 - Sour And Sweet / Lemon In The Honey (5:57)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Cory Daye - Cory And Me ( 79 ^ 262mb)
With her light, airy vocals, Bronx-born Cory Daye helped to transform Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band into one of the most exciting bands of the late-'70s disco era. Creating some of the earliest disco recordings, Daye and Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band skillfully mixed big band, swing, jump blues, Broadway tunes, and Caribbean influences into their infectious dance music.
Leaving the Savannah band to pursue a solo career, Daye found immediate success, she enlisted the songwriting and production of Sandy Linzer to replicate her former band's sound on her solo debut, Cory and Me. Linzer was a particularly appropriate match for Daye, since he had already worked with Odyssey on their r. Buzzard-inspired disco classic "Native New Yorker." Perhaps hoping for similar Top 40 success, Daye seems more commercially motivated on Cory and Me, but that accessibility works wonders on the two opening cuts, "Green Light" and "Pow Wow." On both songs, Daye uses her playfully expressive voice to transform the potentially hokey lyrics into irresistible verses. . Daye's charm and enthusiasm are contagious throughout, but the rest of the songs fail to match her energy level, and the scattered Dr. Buzzard touches often seem diluted by the album's mainstream ambitions. Nevertheless, most Dr. Buzzard followers will probably enjoy the familiarity of Cory and Me, and the album may also appeal to fans of late-'70s disco divas who are unfamiliar with Daye's considerable talents.
Set back by the collapse of disco, Daye joined Kid Creole & the Coconuts in the early '80s, singing on their 1982 album, Tropical Gangsters, and appearing as a guest vocalist on their 1995 album, To Travel Sideways. Resuming her solo career, Daye recorded a pair of 12" singles, "City Nights" b/w "Manhattan Cafes" in 1986 and "Middle of the Night in 1987.
01 - Green Light (6:11)
02 - Pow Wow (7:10)
03 - Wiggle & A Giggle All Night (3:08)
04 - Rhythm Death (1:17)
05 - Single Again/ What Time Does The Ballon Go Up (5:37)
06 - Be Bop Betty A/K/A/Co Co Ree (3:31)
07 - Rainy Day Boy (4:04)
08 - Keep The Ball Rollin' (5:17)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Kid Creole And The Coconuts - Off The Coast Of Me (80 ^ 402mb)
Thomas August Darnell Browder (aka August Darnell) was born in Montreal, the son of a French Canadian mother and a Dominican father, but was raised in the New York City borough of the Bronx. In 1965, he formed the In-Laws with his half-brother, Stony Browder, Jr. He earned a master's degree in English and became an English teacher, but in 1974 again joined his half-brother as bass guitarist, singer, and lyricist in Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, a group that mixed disco with big band and Latin styles. When they broke up, Darnell began to write and produce for other acts working with James Chance among others. In 1980, he became a staff producer at ZE Records and created the persona of Kid Creole (adapted from Presley's King Creole) with a backup group, the Coconuts, consisting of three female singers led by his wife Adriana "Addy" Kaegi, and a band containing vibraphone player Andy Hernandez (aka Coati Mundi), also from Dr. Buzzard. Kid Creole was a deliberately comic figure, a Latinized Cab Calloway type in a zoot suit. Off the Coast of Me, the first Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, was released in August 1980 by Antilles through a distribution deal with ZE. It earned good reviews for its clever lyrics and mixture of musical styles, but sales disappointed.
ZE made a deal with Sire Records, which released the second Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, (1981). Fresh Fruit was a concept album that found the Kid Creole character embarking on an Odyssey-like search for a character named Mimi, and it was given a stage production at the New York Public Theater. Darnell continued the story with his third album, Tropical Gangsters in May 1982. The band toured Britain for the first time to promote the album, and they broke big. Three singles -- "I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby," "Stool Pigeon," and "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" -- made the Top Ten. In the U.S., where the album was retitled Wise Guy, the band remained cult favorites. In 1983, Darnell produced side projects for the Coconuts (Don't Take My Coconuts) and Coati Mundi before releasing the fourth Kid Creole album, Doppelganger, which completed the Mimi cycle. The album charted in the U.K., but was a commercial disappointment after the breakthrough represented by Tropical Gangsters/Wise Guy.
Meanwhile, Kid Creole & the Coconuts remained a compelling live act with an imaginative visual style, which led to film and television opportunities. They appeared in the film Against All Odds in 1984 and continued to be tapped for movie projects in subsequent years, either for appearances or music: New York Stories (1989), The Forbidden Dance (1990), Identity Crisis (1990), Only You (1992), Car 54, Where Are You? (1994). They also made a TV film, Something Wrong in Paradise, based on the Mimi cycle and broadcast on Granada TV in the U.K. in December 1984.
Darnell broke up with his wife in 1985, and the original band split. Darnell pressed on, appearing at the Montreux Jazz Festival and releasing the fifth Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, In Praise of Older Women and Other Crimes, which did not chart. Neither did the sixth album, I, Too, Have Seen the Woods (1987). Darnell then took time off to write In a Pig's Valise, an off-Broadway show that ran for 12 weeks. Kid Creole & the Coconuts, now featuring former Dr. Buzzard singer Cory Daye, resurfaced in 1990, issuing a seventh album, Private Waters in the Great Divide, which featured "The Sex of It," a song written by Prince that made the British Top 40 and the American R&B charts. It was followed a year later by You Shoulda Told Me You Were....
Kid Creole & the Coconuts spent the 1990s touring internationally and releasing albums primarily outside the U.S. To Travel Sideways and Kiss Me Before the Light Changes both appeared initially in Japan, though they found stateside release on a small label in 1995. The Conquest of You was released in Germany in 1997. Kid Creole starred in the British musical Oh! What a Night, which ran in the West End from August to October 1999. A live album of the same name, which combined Kid Creole hits with renditions of some of the songs that appeared in the musical, was released in 2000. Too Cool to Conga!, a studio album, came out the following year. Darnell now lives in London (and occasionally Sweden), and still tours with the Coconuts occasionally. He is currently collaborating with writer/producer Peter Schott on a Contemporary Opera, to be produced by Son Of Kong Productions.
01 Mister Softee (4:11)
02 Maladie D'Amour (4:57)
03 Yolanda (4:21)
04 Off The Coast Of Me (4:49)
05 Darrio... (4:01)
06 Lilli Marlene (3:44)
07 Bogota Affair (4:27)
08 Calypso Pan American (5:09)
--XS--
09 There But For The Grace Of God Go I (12" Mix) 5:29
10 He's Not A Such A Bad Guy After All (12" B-side)5:16
11 Darrio (12" Disco Mix) 5:14
12 Yolanda (12" Mix)6:44
13 Maladie D'Amour (Mutant Disco Version) 6:16
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !
8 comments:
I just wanted to say that I love your site and if you ever go private, like so many others have, please extend an invitation.
So Good !!! if you have others from Kid Creole especially Tropical Gangsters, please dont hesitate to post it !!!
Your blog is so interesting ... cheers from France !!!
Hello Petulant, good to know you like what you see and hear here. As it stands i have no plans of going private. Those that go private miss the point of the internet, though i understand link deletions and even legal fears drive them to it.
Bonjours BaronBleu, well thank you, as it happensi do have tropical gangsters and may post it, later, likely under the Eight-X flag..so if you'll drop by regularly you might see it.
Best of luck,
Rho
on the ZE-cd version there's also the long version of "Maladie D'Amour/Me No Pop I" starring Coati Mundi.
I also got his solo debut, but that isn't much exciting. I think "everybody's on an ego trip" is the best song on it
Helios C
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Howdy,
Could You Please Re Post Dr.Buzzards.
Thanx
Thanks for this and so many other re-ups! Saludos.
Any chance of re-upping Kid Creole And The Coconuts - Off The Coast Of Me, or is it lost?
Thanks in advance.
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