I'm sooooo on topic. Here's an August Darnell interview my mate did. sure he wont mind us posting it here. first appeared in citylife.
When Kid Creole pulls up to the kerb, where I'm standing alongside Bongo Eddie - the Kid's percussionist for the last 20 odd years - and Mark, an affable Scouse musician, I am left startled and speechless. Not merely because I'm a huge fan of the singer who stormed the UK top 10 in the '80s with hits like 'Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy', 'Stool Pigeon' and 'I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby'. No, I'm more surprised that Kid Creole has arrived in a small, grey family hatchback. I'd envisaged a multi-coloured procession of carnival floats, complete with steel band and dancing girls. But despite the fact that the Kid is just as familiar with these monochrome Mancunian back alleys, the exotic, rainbow flecked world I imagined he inhabited does exist. It surrounds Kid Creole like a bubble and, for one day only, I was to join him there. "Have you ever interviewed a mega star before?" the Kid asks without irony, as we find a sofa in the basement of Deansgate Locks bar, Fat Cat's. Doubting that the names Fred Dibnah or Peter Kay would mean anything to the well-travelled Kid, I offer club scene perennials Timmy Regisford and Louie Vega in the hope that the names of these fellow New Yorkers will strike a chord with him. "Lou Bega?" he spits. "He stole my act!", pretending to mistake the Masters At Work producer for the one hit wonder responsible for the Latin infused 'Mambo No. 5' a few summers ago. Ever since the release of the eponymous debut album by Kid and brother Stony Browder's group, Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, Kid Creole has found himself spotlighted and centre stage, adored by thousands of fans across the globe. "It was the gay clubs that made the Savannah Band," he explains by way of an introduction. "It was the height of the disco era, and back then the fate of a record was determined in the clubs. For some reason the gays latched on to us; the way we looked, the whole concept. Every gay club in America was playing 'Cherchez La Femme'." This single typified the sound of the Savannah Band's debut album, combining '40s style big band swing with jungle, passion drums and dense string and horn arrangements. It stormed the US charts and became a hit here in the North West at clubs like Blackpool's Mecca. Its bold cross-fertilisation of musical styles and almost show-tune styling marked it as a true original and set the template for the Kid's solo career. "I grew to love that lifestyle," admits the Kid, "playing the gigs, the applause, the gratification. I think in the beginning all heterosexual guys are attracted to the music business as a way of getting girls." After what the Kid describes as a "sibling rivalry" split within Savannah, Kid took a break to pen landmark disco hits 'There But For the Grace of God' for Machine, 'Native New Yorker' for Odyssey and became in-house producer at legendary leftfield New York disco label Ze. It was here that the artist we know as Kid Creole was truly born. "Early Kid Creole was a love affair with the Caribbean; the music that came out of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. I guess my wizardry was combining the Caribbean flavour with a western type structure. It was a weird marriage, but it worked for us." When since have you ever known a 'straight' pop act infuse their music with such exotic styling and be embraced by the public at large? However, this wasn't the Kid's only selling point. "I'm a satirist, if nothing else," he tells me. 'And I'm telling it to your face, so you don't have to hear it another place,' goes the song. 'Break it to me gently now, just remember I'm a child,' respond the Coconuts. 'Oh, Annie, I'm not your Daddy / Because if I was in your blood, then you wouldn't be so ugly.' Harsh but hilarious words. And considering that the Kid has managed to father some seven children in his 50-plus years on the planet, an altogether reasonable dialogue for him to be involved in. Then there was the image. "In the beginning it was just an alter ego," he says of his flamboyantly dressed stage persona, who was regularly ridiculed and lampooned on stage by the Coconuts and sidekick Andy 'Coati Mundi' Hernandez. "But now it really isn't marketing anymore. It's so much a part of what I am that I couldn't really think of myself as anything else." Later that afternoon as we emerge from Fat Cat to pick up Bongo Eddie and Mark's van, it seems every face on Deansgate Locks stops and stares at the Zoot-suited Creole and his accomplices. "Did you record 'Stool Pigeon'?" shouts a woman taking a fag break across the road. "A long, long time ago!" shouts back the Kid, smiling. The woman turns back to her friends and says, "I told you it was Kid Creole". Everybody recognises the Kid. He knows it. And he loves it. The Kid has arranged for Mark and Bongo Eddie to be the entertainment at the opening of a bar near Sheffield belonging to one of his former wives. However, in the revelry that was lunch, Mark has lost the keys to the van and we are fast running out of time to find them. When the keys are eventually found, there's no time left to finish the interview. "You'll just have to come with us," says Mark, and so I find myself on the motorway to a village called Eckington, a VIP journey to the grand opening of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Bar with Kid Creole himself. He turns out to be a good driver, although the journey is made slightly hairy by several other drivers losing concentration on the road as we pass them. "A lot of reviews said it was because we brought that tropical flavour to drab environments," says the Kid, when I ask him why he thought the band exploded in Europe. "They said it was like a dose of sunshine." By the time his second album hit the charts, Kid Creole and the Coconuts were touring 300 days out of the year. Prince wrote songs for him. Barry Manilow instigated a duet with him and the band appeared in countless films including Granada TV special There's Something Wrong in Paradise. But after unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the success of his early albums - which the Kid puts down to insufficient marketing and the worldwide music industry slump - he now finds himself releasing his material on his own Rainyville Records. Not that the Kid is anything but optimistic. He, and presumably his seven children, earn a good living from royalties. Kid Creole and the Coconuts have spent the last decade touring corporate parties and conferences, and whilst it may not be the Kid's ideal audience, he remains thankful that he remains in showbusiness. "I know a lot of artists in my shoes who do feel despondent, but there are so many youngsters coming up now, including my children, who want their share of the party. There's no way you can dominate the music for more than ten years. Everyone has, as Andy Warhol says, their 15 minutes of fame." But the Kid's not kidding anyone. He lives to entertain. This Saturday he returns to the stage alongside the likes of Chic, Rose Royce, Tavares, Shalamar, Hot Chocolate and Alexander O'Neal as part of The Best Disco in Town party at the MEN Arena. Sure to be in the crowd on the night are Lorne Ashley and Dario, the Kid's Manchester dwelling, heavy rock loving sons, whom he lived with for several years in Urmston. In December, he revisits The Opera House in the '70s themed stage-show Oh, What a Night. "It was supposed to be a summer run in Blackpool in 1997, but it was so well received that we've ended up doing over 1000 performances!" And the future's sure to be equally bright: "You know, I've discussed with Bongo Eddie what we'd like to do with the last decade of this musical thing, and we laugh about it. We both want that one last swan song; one big album and one final headline tour before we can actually smile and say, we did it all." Here's hoping? Kid Creole performs as part of the The Best Disco In Town Party this Saturday 11 October, MEN Arena. _________________________________________________________________ --------------------- End of message text -------------------- This e-mail is sent by the above named in their individual, non-business capacity and is not on behalf of PricewaterhouseCoopers. PricewaterhouseCoopers may monitor outgoing and incoming e-mails and other telecommunications on its e-mail and telecommunications systems. By replying to this e-mail you give your consent to such monitoring
