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Kid Creole and the Coconuts is an American musical group created and led by August Darnell. Its music incorporates a variety of styles and influences, in particular a mix of Disco〔(BILLBOARD Kid Creole and the Colocuts biography )〕 and Latin American, South American, Caribbean, Trinidadian, Calloway styles and conceptually inspired by the big band era. The Coconuts are a glamorous trio of female backing vocalists whose lineup has changed throughout the years. ==Career== Thomas August Darnell Browder was born in The Bronx, New York City, USA on August 12, 1950, his mother was from South Carolina and his father from Savannah, Georgia. As an adult, Thom Browder began going by his two middle names as August Darnell. Growing up in the melting pot of the Bronx, Darnell was exposed early on to all kinds of music". Darnell began his musical career in a band named The In-Laws with his brother, Stony Browder Jr, in 1965, which 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 Stony Browder Jr under the name Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band.〔 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,〔 before adopting the name Kid Creole (adapted from the Elvis Presley film ''King Creole'') in 1980. The persona of Kid Creole is described as: Kid Creole was to be "the larger-than-life central figure in a multi-racial, multi-cultural musical carnival."〔 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 trio of glamorous (and often skimpily-attired) backing vocalists were led by Darnell's then-wife Adriana "Addy" Kaegi, who also served as the choreographer and costume designer of the Coconuts. On their earliest releases, the Coconuts were Kaegi, Cheryl Poirier and Lori Eastside; Eastside dropped out early, and was replaced by Taryn Hagey, who in turn was replaced by Janique Svedberg. 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 line-up often swelled to over a dozen players. Their debut album ''Off the Coast of Me'' was critically well-received but not successful commercially. The second release ''Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places'' was a concept album matched with a New York Public Theater stage production; it received rave reviews, and Darnell was recognized as a clever lyricist and astute composer, arranger and producer. 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. They performed "Mister Softee" on ''Saturday Night Live'' during their promotional tour for the album. 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. 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. Darnell subsequently produced spin-off albums for the Coconuts. 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. Darnell and Kaegi divorced in 1985, though she remained with the band. She and Cheryl Poirier also formed their own group, Boomerang, with Perri Lister, which released an album on the Atlantic label in 1986. Darnell continued Kid Creole and the Coconuts and in the mid to late 1980s contributed to various film soundtracks and other such projects. He appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1986 and in this period released the albums ''In Praise of Older Women and Other Crimes'' and ''I, Too, Have Seen the Woods'', neither of which charted. In 1987, Kid Creole & 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. 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''"〔 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 their 1992 album ''You Should 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 line-up, the band kept releasing albums throughout the 90's, though none of these gained any kind of popular success. Despite still touring, the band went into a 10-year recording hiatus after their 2001 album ''Too Cool To Conga!'', reemerging 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,〔http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208993/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast〕 ''Against All Odds'' (1984) and the Lambada themed ''The Forbidden Dance'' (1990); They also starred in a TV movie, "There's Something Wrong in Paradise" in 1984, based around their songs and produced for Granada Television in the UK. 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kid Creole and the Coconuts」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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