Recording history
The label's first group were The New York City Players, who later changed their name to Cameo , with singles "Find My Way" and "Rigor Mortis".
The next groups to sign for Chocolate City were Brenda & the Tabulations, with their slow jam entitled "Home To Myself", and Blacksmoke, whose self-titled debut Blacksmoke featured the two singles "Your Love Has Got Me Screaming" and "There It Is".
In 1977, both Cameo and Brenda & The Tabulations recorded their first albums for Chocolate City Records. Cameo titled their first album Cardiac Arrest. The two singles were "Funk Funk" and "Post Mortem". The first Brenda & The Tabulations album was I Keep Coming Back For More, from which the singles "Let's Go All The Way (Down)" and "Superstar" were taken. In the fall of 1977, Cameo titled their 2nd album We All Know Who We Are. The 4 singles were "C On The Funk", "Why Have I Lost You?", "We All Know Who We Are" and "It's Serious".
In 1978, two new artists signed with Chocolate City Records: the solo singer Vernon Burch, and Townsend, Townsend, Townsend & Rogers. Burch's album was titled Love-A-Thon, with singles "Brighter Days" and "Love Is"; Townsend, Townsend, Townsend & Rogers' album was self-titled and included the single "Bring It Down To The Real" written by Dave Rogers and Ed Townsend.
Four new groups signed with the label in 1980. Randy Brown, who was originally signed to Parachute Records, released his first album under Chocolate City Records: Midnight Desire. Two singles included on this album were "We Outta Be Doin' It" and "It's The Next Best Thing (To Being There)". 7th Wonder, also originally signed to Parachute, released their first album under Chocolate City Records: Thunder. The album included the singles "The Tilt" and "I Enjoy Ya". Starpoint released their self-titled first album. Three hit singles from the album were "I Just Wanna Dance With You", "Get Ready, Get Down" and "Gonna Lift You Up". Kevin Moore released an album entitled Rainmaker, with the hit single "The Way You Hold Me".
In January 1976, another group called the Funkateers signed with Chocolate City. They recorded their hit single titled, "Give What You Got."
Jimmy Eat World is an American rock band formed in 1993 in Mesa, Arizona. The band is composed of lead vocalist and lead guitarist Jim Adkins, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch, and drummer Zach Lind. They have released ten studio albums, the last nine featuring the current lineup.
Gladys Knight & the Pips were an American R&B, soul and funk family music group from Atlanta, Georgia, that remained active on the music charts and performing circuit for over three decades starting from the early 1950s.
Blaque is an American girl group that charted from 1999 to 2004. Outside of the United States they are known as Blaque Ivory. Their self-titled debut album Blaque sold more than 1 million copies and was certified Platinum. The group's debut included the platinum-selling lead single "808", a second single, "I Do", and the international pop hit "Bring It All to Me". In 1999, Billboard named Blaque the 4th Best New Artist of the year, with "Bring It All to Me" landing at number 30 on the 2000 Year End Chart. In 2002 and 2003, the group released three less successful singles, "Can't Get It Back", "Ugly", and "I'm Good", the latter appearing in the film Honey.
Fred Wesley is an American trombonist who worked with James Brown in the 1960s and 1970s and Parliament-Funkadelic in the second half of the 1970s.
Cameo-Parkway Records was the parent company of Cameo Records and Parkway Records, which were major American Philadelphia-based record labels from 1956 and 1958 to 1967. Among the types of music released were doo-wop, dance hits, popular/rock, rockabilly, big band, garage rock, soul and novelty records.
Casablanca Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Republic Records. Under its founder Neil Bogart, Casablanca was most successful during the disco era of the mid to late 1970s. The label currently focuses on dance and electronic music under the direction of Brett Alperowitz.
Buddah Records was an American record label founded in September 1967 in New York City. The label was born out of Kama Sutra Records, an MGM Records-distributed label, which remained a key imprint following Buddah's founding. Buddah handled a variety of music genres, including bubblegum pop, folk rock (Melanie), experimental music, and soul.
Cameo is an American funk band that formed in 1974. Cameo was initially a 14-member group known as the New York City Players; this name was later changed to Cameo.
Neil E. Bogart was an American record executive. He was the founder of Casablanca Records, which later became Casablanca Record and Filmworks.
"Who's Lovin' You" is a Motown soul song, written in 1960 by William "Smokey" Robinson. The song has been recorded by many different artists including The Miracles, who recorded the 1960 original version, The Temptations, The Supremes, Terence Trent D'arby, Brenda and The Tabulations, John Farnham, Human Nature, En Vogue, Michael Bublé and Giorgia Todrani and Jessica Mauboy. The most famous version is attributed to The Jackson 5. Shaheen Jafargholi, then twelve years old, performed the song at Michael Jackson's public memorial service in July 2009.
Roger Troutman, also known as Roger, was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, multi-instrumentalist and the founder of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the funk movement and heavily influenced West Coast hip hop due to the scene's heavy sampling of his music over the years. Troutman was well known for his use of the talk box, a device that is connected to an instrument to create different vocal effects. Roger used a custom-made talkbox—the Electro Harmonix "Golden Throat"—through a Moog Minimoog and later in his career a Yamaha DX100 FM synthesizer. As both band leader of Zapp and in his subsequent solo releases, he scored a bevy of funk and R&B hits throughout the 1980s and regularly collaborated with hip hop artists in the 1990s.
Van Allen Clinton McCoy was an American musician, record producer, arranger, songwriter, singer and orchestra conductor. He is known for his 1975 internationally successful song "The Hustle". He has approximately 700 song copyrights to his credit, and for producing songs by such recording artists as Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Stylistics, Aretha Franklin, Brenda & the Tabulations, David Ruffin, Peaches & Herb, Lesley Gore and Stacy Lattisaw.
The Five Stairsteps, known as "The First Family of Soul" and later "The Invisible Man's Band", was an American Chicago soul group made up of five of Betty and Clarence Burke Sr.'s six children: Alohe Jean, Clarence Jr., James, Dennis, and Kenneth "Keni", and briefly, Cubie. They are best known for the 1970 song "O-o-h Child", listed at number 402 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Chocolate City is the third album by the funk band Parliament, released in 1975. It was a "tribute to Washington D.C.", where the group had been particularly popular. The album's cover includes images of the United States Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial in the form of a chocolate medallion, as well as sticker labeled "Washington DC". The album was very popular in the capitol city, selling 150,000 copies alone there.
Brenda & the Tabulations were an American R&B group, formed in 1966 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, originally composed of Brenda Payton, Eddie L. Jackson, Maurice Coates and Jerry Jones.
The discography of American singer Donna Summer includes 17 studio albums and 89 singles, plus many other releases. Her first single, "Wassermann", a German version of the song "Aquarius" from the musical Hair, was released in Europe in 1968 under her maiden name, Donna Gaines. She would become known as Donna Summer from 1974 onwards. Her first full-length album under that name was Lady of the Night.
Hi... We're the Miracles is the first album by Motown's first group, The Miracles, released on Motown's Tamla subsidiary label in the summer of 1961. It also has the distinction of being the first album ever released by the Motown Record Corporation The album features several songs that played an important role in defining The Motown Sound and establishing songwriters Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy.
Vernon Darrell Burch is an American R&B/soul singer and guitarist.
Randy Brown is an American R&B singer.
Thomas Michael “Tomi” Jenkins is an American vocalist, musician, composer, record producer and author, known commonly as one of the founding members and lead singers of the funk and R&B band, Cameo, who has over 17 million records sold.
