Kid Creole & the Coconuts
Kid Creole & The Coconuts are an American band that plays a variety of musical styles. The most important elements are swing , Latin American or Caribbean music, soul and disco . The band had their most successful phase in the 1980s, when they had some hits in European and US charts.
Darnell's early years
The founder of the band is August Darnell (actually Thomas August Darnell Browder, born August 12, 1950 in New York ). Darnell's musical career began in the 1960s, and he celebrated his first successes with Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, which he founded with his brother Stony Browder: The Savannah Band played regularly in the New York nightclub Studio 54 and had a No. 1 hit on the US dance charts in 1976 with the Single "Cherchez La Femme". The debut album reached number 22 in the album charts and was gold plated , but there were no further successes and the band broke up.
Darnell first switched to the short-lived disco formation Machine , which released two LPs and had a smaller hit with "There But For The Grace Of God Go I" (# 77 in the US charts ). Together with Andy Hernandez, the keyboardist of the Savannah Band, he then founded Kid Creole & The Coconuts. His idea was to build a band that, following the example of the big bands, especially that of Cab Calloway , would also include revue and show elements. Together with Hernandez, his wife Adriana Kaegi and the arranger Peter Schott, he developed a series of fictional characters who were to take on fixed roles in the stage shows. The main character was played by Darnell Kid Creole (the name he borrowed from Elvis Presley's film King Creole ), according to Darnell "a larger-than-life main character in a multiracial, multicultural musical carnival". Hernandez took on the role of the comic sidekick Coati Mundi. Kaegi took over the direction, choreography and costume design of Coconuts, an ensemble of three background singers and dancers. One of the permanent members of the band was the Jamaican drummer Winston Grennan, who was part of the core cast of the famous Studio One and who had played with Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff .
The scene label Ze Records released the LP Off The Coast Of Me in 1980 . It received good reviews but was not a commercial success. The second album Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places , which was critically acclaimed and reached the bottom of the US and UK charts, sold better . The album was accompanied by a successful off-Broadway theater production. In 1981 "Me No Pop I" (officially released under the name Coati Mundi) climbed into the top 40 of the British singles charts .
The band on the road to success
The ensemble's greatest success was their third album, Tropical Gangsters , in 1981 , which reached number 3 in the British LP charts and contained three top 10 singles: "I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby" (# 4), "Annie, I 'm Not Your Daddy ”(# 2) and“ Stool Pigeon ”(# 7). In the USA the LP was released under the title Wise Guy and climbed to number 145. In the same year, Kid Creole & The Coconuts performed at the Rockpalast , which made the band known to a German audience. Kid Creole & The Coconuts were also successful in the Benelux countries and France. Darnell then produced a spin-off album for the Coconuts ( Don't Take My Coconuts ), which was a flop as an LP, but received two smaller hits with "Did You Have To Love Me Like You Did" and the title track. Coati Mundi released an LP under his own name, but it was also not a commercial success. Another side project under the name Elbow Bones & The Racketeers had a top 40 hit in Great Britain with the song "A Night In New York". 1983 appeared with Doppelganger the fourth album of the band, which reached number 21 in Great Britain, but could not follow on from the success of the predecessor. Of the following LPs, only the best-of sampler Cre-Olè was able to place in the charts (number 21 in Great Britain).
The Kid Creole Project after 1985
The band had a few smaller hits in the following years, for example with “My Male Curiosity” from the soundtrack for the film Gegen Any Chance (in which the band also appeared), “Hey Mambo” (with Barry Manilow ), or Prince's composed "The Sex Of It". In 1985 Darnell and Kaegi divorced, but performed together occasionally in the years that followed. Kid Creole & The Coconuts haven't released a new studio LP since 1997, but the band can still be seen live, especially in the UK. Hernandez left the band in 1989 and now works - often under his stage name Coati Mundi - as an actor, film and game composer and sound designer. He produced a. a. the second album by the German band Palais Schaumburg , Lupa .
On September 9, 2011, Kid Creole released his new studio album "I Wake Up Screaming" after more than ten years. Recorded in his studio in Stockholm, the album also includes productions from the collaboration with Andy Butler from Hercules & Love Affair.
Discography
Albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 CH
|
 UK
|
 US
|
|||
| 1981 | Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places | - | - |
UK99 (1 week) UK |
US180 (2 weeks) US |
|
| 1982 | Tropical gangsters |
DE18 (31 weeks) DE |
- |
UK3  (40 weeks)UK |
US145 (12 weeks) US |
Released
in the US as Wise Guy
|
| 1983 | Doppelganger |
DE54 (6 weeks) DE |
- |
UK21 (6 weeks) UK |
- | |
| 1984 | Cre-Olè - The Best Of Kid Creole & The Coconuts | - | - |
UK21 (7 weeks) UK |
- | |
| 1990 | Private Waters In The Great Divide | - |
CH39 (1 week) CH |
- | - | |
gray hatching : no chart data available for this year
More albums
- 1980: Off The Coast Of Me
- 1983: Don't Take My Coconuts (The Coconuts)
- 1983: Little Coati Mundi The Former 12 Year Old Genius (Coati Mundi)
- 1985: In Praise Of Older Women And Other Crimes
- 1987: I, Too, Have Seen The Woods
- 1991: You Shoulda Told Me You Were
- 1992: Kid Creole Redux
- 1993: KC2 Plays KC2
- 1993: The Best Of Kid Creole & The Coconuts
- 1995: To Travel Sideways
- 1995: Kiss Me Before The Light Changes
- 1996: Haiti
- 1997: The Conquest Of You
- 2000: Oh! What a night
- 2000: Wonderful Thing
- 2001: Too Cool To Conga!
- 2008: Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1976-1983
- 2009: Anthology Vols 1 & 2
- 2011: I Wake Up Screaming
Singles
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
|
UK
|
|||
| 1981 | Me No Pop I Mutant Disco: A Subtle Discolation of the Norm |
UK32 (7 weeks) UK |
|
| 1982 | I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby Tropical Gangsters / Wise Guy |
UK4 (11 weeks) UK |
|
| Stool Pigeon Tropical Gangsters / Wise Guy |
UK7 (9 weeks) UK |
||
| Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy Tropical Gangsters / Wise Guy |
UK2 (9 weeks) UK |
||
| Dear Addy Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places |
UK29 (7 weeks) UK |
||
| 1983 | There's Something Wrong in Paradise Doppelganger |
UK35 (6 weeks) UK |
|
| The Lifeboat Party Doppelganger |
UK49 (5 weeks) UK |
||
| 1984 | My Male Curiosity Against All Odds OST |
UK83 (5 weeks) UK |
|
| Don't Take My Coconuts Cre ~ Olé - The Best of Kid Creole and the Coconuts |
UK86 (4 weeks) UK |
||
| 1985 | Endicott In Praise of Older Women and Other Crimes |
UK80 (3 weeks) UK |
|
| 1990 | The Sex of It Private Waters in the Great Divide |
UK29 (5 weeks) UK |
|
| 1993 | I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby Cre ~ Olé - The Best of Kid Creole and the Coconuts |
UK60 (2 weeks) UK |
literature
- David Frankel: Kid Kreole and the Coconuts . In New York Magazine , September 20, 1982, p. 64 ( excerpt from Google book search)
- Michael A. Gonzales: Kid Kreole and the Coconuts . In Vibe , 2000, Volume 8, No. 4, ISSN 1070-4701
swell
Web links
- Official website
- Kid Creole & the Coconuts in the Internet Movie Database (English)