Kid Creole - Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1974-1982

He’s a wonderful thing, baby: superlative selection of New York City gold

Let’s get one thing straight: this is not Kid Creole’s greatest hits. Apparently that’s coming later this year on Universal. Timeless fun though they are, the 80s hits were only half the story. Kid Creole, or rather alter-ego August Darnell, was a studio wizard capable of working with artists as diverse as disco queen Cristina or fearsome jazz warrior James Chance. Refreshingly, this “pungent pot-pourri”, as the man calls it, has been compiled by a fan called DJ Guido, even surprising the music’s creator. It is nothing short of fabulous; spectacularly cross-cultural, musically trail-blazing and supremely funky.

Thomas Browder started playing bass and writing lyrics with older brother Stony’s Dr Buzzard’s Savannah Band in 1974, becoming August Darnell as first of several pseudonyms. He soon broke into production, scoring a massive New York club hit with Machine’s taboo-busting There But For The Grace Of God Go I, spending the rest of the decade in the eye of a creative hurricane producing a vibrant enclave of artists for Michael Zilkha’s groundbreaking Ze label. In 1980, Darnell left the Savannah Band and formed Kid Creole & The Coconuts, achieving stardom as the Tropical Gangster, but leaving less time for this amazing array of side projects which remain among the greatest and sometimes unlikely examples of New York’s rampant musical cross-pollination at this time.

The wonderful iceberg’s-tip selection includes Coati Mundi, Gichy Dan, Dr Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band, Ron Rogers and Bob Blank’s wildly-exotic Aural Exciters supergroup which included Mundi, Chance, legendary divas Taana Gardner and Fonda Rae and Lizzy Mercier Descloux. There’s also Cristina’s version of Lieber & Stoller’s Is That All There Is?, withdrawn after the composers violently objected. Of course, early outings by Darnell’s newly-created Kid Creole persona, the title track from his debut Off The Coast Of Me album, closes not only an essential document of a magical period in New York’s musical history, but an overdue tribute to one man’s rapturous vision.

Strut | 034 CD

Reviewed by Kris Needs
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