August Darnell Eva Tudor-Jones Mark Anthony Jones Mike Gorman Dave Imby Jamie McCredie Barnaby Dickinson Edgar Jones Otto Williams Chris Storr George Hogg Roos van Rossum Charlotte de Graaf Kristina Hanford
Past members
Andy Hernandez Adriana Kaegi Fonda Rae Cory Daye Mark Mazur Cheryl Poirier Taryn Hagey Janique Svedberg Jimmy Ripp (Rippetoe) Peter Schott Carol Colman Charlie Lagond Lee Robertson Kenny Fradley Winston Grennan Andrew Lloyd 'Bongo' Eddie Folk Simon 'Franco' Frost
Kid Creole and the Coconuts is an American musical group created by August Darnell with Andy Hernandez and Adriana Kaegi. Its music incorporates a variety of styles and influences, in particular a mix of disco[1] and Latin American, Caribbean, and Calloway styles[2] conceptually inspired by the big band era. The Coconuts are a trio of female backing vocalists/dancers, founded and originally choreographed and costumed by Kaegi.
Thomas August Darnell Browder[3][4] was born in The Bronx, New York City on August 12, 1950. His mother was from South Carolina with Caribbean and Italian parents and his father from Savannah, Georgia. As an adult, Browder began going by his two middle names as August Darnell.
Growing up in the Bronx, Darnell was exposed early on to all kinds of music.[5] Darnell began his musical career in a band named The In-Laws with his brother, Stony Browder, in 1965. The band disbanded so Darnell could pursue a career as an English teacher. Darnell obtained a master's degree in English, but in 1974 again formed a band with his brother under the name Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band.[3] Their self-titled debut release was a Top 40-charting album which was certified gold and was nominated for a Grammy.
Darnell began producing for other artists, such as Don Armando's Second Avenue Rhumba Band and Gichy Dan's Beachwood No. 9,[5] before adopting the name Kid Creole (adapted from the Elvis Presley film King Creole) in 1980 and co-founder Adriana Kaegi came up with the name The Coconuts. The Kid wore zoot suits and danced onstage in a style reminiscent of films of the 1930s and 1940s, and fronted a multi-racial, multi-cultural band.[5] The co-founders of the band were Darnell and his Savannah Band associate vibraphone player Andy Hernandez, also known as his "trusty sidekick" Coati Mundi. Hernandez served as Darnell's on-stage comic foil, as well as his musical director and arranger.
The original Coconuts, a collection of glamorous and often skimpily attired female backing vocalists, were led by Darnell's then-wife Adriana "Addy" Kaegi, who also served as the choreographer and costume designer of the Coconuts. Early recordings featured a Coconuts lineup of Kaegi, Cheryl Lee Poirier, Fonda Rae, and Lourdes Cotton; Lori Eastside was also a Coconut on a handful of early singles. By 1982, the Coconuts were a trio of Kaegi, Cheryl Poirier, and Taryn Hagey. This lineup of the Coconuts recorded a spin-off album project in 1983, with Poirier taking the lead vocalist role on EMI.
Throughout the 1980s, the band also included Peter Schott on keyboards (Schott also occasionally co-composed material with Darnell), drummer David Span, bass player Carol Colman, and legendary Jamaican drummer Winston Grennan. With horn players, percussionists, and other adjunct members, the full band lineup often swelled to over a dozen players.[6]
Kid Creole and the Coconuts' debut album Off the Coast of Me was critically well-received but not successful commercially. They made their national TV debut performing "Mister Softee" and "There But For The Grace of God Go I" on Saturday Night Live in November 1980. The second release, Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, was a concept album matched with a New York Public Theater stage production; it received positive reviews, with Darnell recognized as a clever lyricist and astute composer, arranger and producer.[by whom?] By the second album they were accompanied by the Pond Life horn section Charlie Lagond, Ken Fradley, and Lee Robertson, as well as lead guitarist Mark Mazur. The album charted briefly, and subsequently Coati Mundi's early Latin rap "Me No Pop I", though not originally on the album, became a Top 40 UK hit single. It was the band's first hit.
Their breakthrough came with 1982's Tropical Gangsters, which hit #3 in the UK and spun off three Top 10 hits with "Stool Pigeon", "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" and "I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby". "Dear Addy" also made the Top 40. In the US the album was retitled Wise Guy and reached #145, and "I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby" flirted with the R&B charts.
Their live shows at this time were among the most propulsive and enchanting of the period, with outlandish dancing and cod theatricals garnishing the Latin beats."[7]
Darnell subsequently produced a 1983 spin-off album for the Coconuts with Cheryl Poirier on lead vocals. Coati Mundi also released his solo LP The Former 12 Year Old Genius before the fourth Kid Creole and the Coconuts album in 1983; Doppelganger was a relative commercial disappointment, despite the single "There's Something Wrong in Paradise" reaching the UK Top 40. In 1983, Kid Creole formed a new swing big band, Elbow Bones and the Racketeers, and he gained the hit "Night in New York".[8]
The group performed the song "My Male Curiosity" (with choreography by Kaegi) for the 1984 movie Against All Odds;[9] the song also appeared on the best-selling soundtrack album.
The Coconuts also sang background vocals in the songs "Red Light" and "Surrender" on U2's album War, which was released on 28 February 1983 on Island Records.
Darnell and Kaegi divorced in 1985, though she remained with the band. Taryn Hagey dropped out of The Coconuts around the same time, and the two remaining Coconuts (Adriana Kaegi and Cheryl Poirier) formed their own spin-off group Boomerang with Perri Lister. This group released a dance-oriented album, somewhat different in sound to their Coconuts recordings, on the Atlantic label in 1986. The producer was David Kershenbaum.
Kid Creole and the Coconuts continued, now with third Coconut Janique Svedberg replacing the departed Hagey. On record, though billed as guests and not as Coconuts, during this era some female co-lead vocals were performed by Haitia Fuller and Cory Daye. In the mid to late 1980s, the group contributed to various film soundtracks and other such projects. They also appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1986 and in this period released the albums In Praise of Older Women... and Other Crimes (which included the single "Endicott") and I, Too, Have Seen the Woods, neither of which charted in the US. Still, the group continued world tours, performed sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and was invited by Princess Diana to perform at a private function in the UK.
In 1987, Kid Creole and the Coconuts made their only appearance on the US Hot 100 charts with "Hey Mambo", a track from Barry Manilow's Swing Street album. The single, credited to "Barry Manilow with Kid Creole & The Coconuts", peaked at #90. The band also performed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Longtime associate Hernandez left the ensemble before 1990's Private Waters in the Great Divide, an album described by the NME as "a return to form with inspired lyrics and buckets of the type of sexual innuendo that Creole has made his own."[7] The band had a UK hit with the single "The Sex of It", a song written by Prince and recorded at Paisley Park Studios with Sheila E and Levi Seacer, Jr. Except for Darnell's vocal, the track is entirely performed by Prince and his associates; it is the group's last major hit to date.
After the 1992 Kid Creole and the Coconuts album You Shoulda Told Me You Were... failed to achieve significant commercial success, the group splintered. The female backing trio all left and have been replaced with a rotating group of new Coconuts. With a revised and slimmed-down lineup, the band kept releasing albums throughout the '90s on independent labels, though none of the recordings received much attention or wide distribution. Despite still touring, the band went into a 10-year recording hiatus after their 2001 album Too Cool to Conga!, re-emerging in 2011 with I Wake Up Screaming.
Kid Creole and The Coconuts have appeared in a number of films, such as Downtown 81 (1981), an art film starring Jean-Michel Basquiat, Against All Odds (1984), and the Lambada-themed The Forbidden Dance (1990); they also starred in a UK-produced TV movie in 1984 titled There's Something Wrong in Paradise, based around the group's songs from the Doppelganger album and produced for Granada Television.[10] Andy Hernandez has also made appearances in a number of films separately, and Adriana Kaegi produced and directed a documentary film about the band called Kid Creole and My Coconuts.[11] She now runs her media production company in New York and has her own Styleculture.tv channel. They also composed music for the 1999 French animated series Pirate Family.
Present
Kid Creole and the Coconuts performing at Ascot Racecourse in 2008
Darnell still tours with the current Coconuts: Roos van Rossum and Charlotte de Graaf (both from the Netherlands) and Kristina Hanford from Memphis Tennessee.[12] Darnell's now wife, Eva Tudor-Jones, who was Mama Coconut for more than 20 years, now manages all the operations.
Darnell now has his own indie record label called 2C2C Music. He runs it with his business partners Peter Schott and Eva Tudor-Jones. The partners founded the label in 2018 and have since released some new Kid Creole and the Coconuts music.[13] The label also recently released Off the Coast of Me (40th Anniversary Edition) to celebrate the album's 40 years since its first release.[14] And in 2021, the label released the album Nothin' Left but the Rest.[15]
In 2008, for the last time, Kid Creole toured the UK starring in the stage show Oh! What a Night, a disco musical produced by Random Concerts.[16]
Kid Creole and the Coconuts' most recent studio album, entitled I Wake Up Screaming, was released on September 12, 2011 on !K7/Strut Records.[17]
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band was a big band- and swing-influenced disco band that was formed in the Bronx, New York. The band is best known for its number-one US dance hit "Cherchez La Femme/C'est si bon", from its self-titled debut album.
Tropical Gangsters is the third album by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, released on May 10, 1982. Originally conceived as a solo album by band leader August Darnell and titled Wise Guy, his label ZE Records pressured him to change it to a Kid Creole and the Coconuts record and to make it more commercial sounding in order to relieve the label's financial problems. Despite the tensions this caused within the band and Darnell's complaint that the subsequent record was a "cop-out", the more dance-pop oriented sound helped it reached number 145 on the Billboard 200 album chart, representing the group's commercial breakthrough in their home country. However, to the surprise of Darnell and his record company Tropical Gangsters was a huge success in Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and in particular the UK, where the album peaked at number three in the UK Albums Chart and yielded three top ten singles. Tropical Gangsters made Darnell a worldwide star, and the album remains both his and the ZE label's most successful record by far.
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band is the debut studio album by Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. It was released in 1976 by RCA. It peaked at number 22 on the Billboard 200 chart and number 31 on the Top R&B Albums chart.
Thomas August Darnell Browder, known professionally as August Darnell and under the stage name Kid Creole, is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He co-founded Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band and subsequently formed and led Kid Creole and the Coconuts.
Andy Hernandez, better known by his stage name Coati Mundi, is an American musician, percussionist, notably playing the vibraphone, and a member of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, then of Kid Creole and the Coconuts. He scored the Top 40 UK hit "Me No Pop I" in 1981, just before the release of Tropical Gangsters. He produced and arranged an album by "Don Armando Second Avenue Rhumba Band", which spurred the disco hit song "Deputy of Love".
Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places is the second album by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, released in 1981.
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band Meets King Penett is the second studio album by Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. It was released in 1978 by RCA. It peaked at number 36 on the Billboard 200 chart and number 23 on the Top R&B Albums chart.
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band Goes to Washington is the third studio album by Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. It was the last album recorded by the original line-up. The album was a commercial failure, not making the top 100 on either the Pop or the R&B chart.
Perri Lister is an English dancer, singer and actress. She was a dancer with the British dance troupe Hot Gossip which appeared regularly on The Kenny Everett Video Show in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United Kingdom. In the 1980s Lister was a backing vocalist for a number of pop music acts, including Billy Idol, with whom she had a nine-year relationship.
Doppelganger is the fourth studio album by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, released in 1983. The album was a relative commercial and critical disappointment following the group's most popular album Tropical Gangsters/Wise Guy. The album was released on LP and cassette in September 1983 and peaked at #21 in the UK, and to moderate success throughout Europe but did not chart in the US. The album includes the singles "There's Something Wrong in Paradise", "The Lifeboat Party", and in the US "If You Wanna Be Happy". It was reissued by Universal Island Records with bonus tracks added to album in 2002.
Off the Coast of Me is the debut album by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, released in 1980. The album was reissued in 2003 with additional bonus tracks by Universal Island Records.
Elbow Bones and the Racketeers was an American big band-era styled male/female vocal group, created by August Darnell, and best known for their hit single "A Night in New York", written by Ron Rogers and Deborah Clarkin, and released on the EMI label. It was sung by Stephanie Fuller. It entered the UK Singles Chart on 14 January 1984. It remained in there for nine weeks, reaching #33.
Adriana Kaegi is a Swiss-born American actress, producer and former singer.
The discography of American musical group Kid Creole and the Coconuts created and led by August Darnell includes fourteen studio albums, one live album, seven compilations, one extended play and twenty-seven singles. The small discography of The Coconuts – Kid Creole's backing singers – consisting of two studio albums and three singles is included on this page.
In Praise of Older Women... and Other Crimes is the fifth studio album released by the American musical group Kid Creole and the Coconuts. It was released in 1985 and includes the singles "Endicott" and "Caroline Was a Drop-Out". The album and its lead single "Caroline Was a Drop-Out" did not chart in any territory, but the second single "Endicott" became one of the group's better known songs in the US, where it peaked at #21 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart. The single also reached the top 30 in France and the Netherlands.
I, Too, Have Seen the Woods is the sixth studio album released by the American musical group Kid Creole and the Coconuts. It was released in 1987 and includes the single "Dancing at the Bain Douches".
Private Waters in the Great Divide is the seventh studio album by the American musical group Kid Creole and the Coconuts, released in 1990. It includes the singles "The Sex of It" and "I Love Girls".
You Shoulda Told Me You Were... is a studio album by the American musical group Kid Creole and the Coconuts, released in 1991. It includes the single "(She's A) Party Girl".
Cre~Olé: The Best of Kid Creole & the Coconuts is the first compilation album released by the American musical group Kid Creole and the Coconuts. It was released on LP and Cassette in 1984 and reached number twenty-one on the UK Albums Chart. A CD edition was released in 1990. The compilation was the group's last record released by Island Records in the UK. The group's following two album's were released by Sire Records in the UK and the US. It includes the single "Don't Take My Coconuts".
"Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" is a song written by August Darnell and first recorded by his band Kid Creole and the Coconuts. It was released in 1982 as the third and final single from their album Tropical Gangsters. It is Kid Creole and the Coconuts' highest charting single on the UK Singles Chart, reaching a peak of no. 2. It also reached no. 18 on the U.S. Club Play Chart.
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