ZE SHOP

01 • Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy • 6:12
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

02 • I’m A Wonderfull Thing Baby • 5:14
Written by August Darnell & Peter S. Schott
Published by Cri Cri Music / Schott in the Dark Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

03 • Imitation • 4:54
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

04 • I’m Corrupt • 4:11
Written by Coati Mundi
Published by Coati Mundi Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

05 • Loving You Made A Fool Out Of Me • 4:48
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

06 • Stool Pigeon • 4:49
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

07 • The Love We Had • 5:12
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

08 • No Fish Today • 4:48
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

BONUS TRACKS

09 • Chrismas On Riverside Drive • 4:20
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

10 • You Had No Intention • 4:37
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music / Raineyville Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

11 • Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy (Remix) • 6:26
Written by August Darnell
World arranged by Dan Aldea
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

12 • I’m A Wonderfull Thing Baby (Original 12’’ Mix) • 6:10
Written by August Darnell & Peter S. Schott
Published by Cri Cri Music / Schott in the Dark Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

13 • Stool Pigeon (12’’ Mix) • 6:20
Written by August Darnell
Published by Cri Cri Music
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

14 • Double on Back • 4:22
Written by August Darnell
Published by Island Music Ltd.
Produced by August Darnell 
© 1982 ZE Records

SOUND
Produced by August Darnell
Recorded on location at Blank Tapes and Electric Lady 1981-1982
Chief Engineer Bob Blank, Michael Frondelli
Assistant  Engineer Bruce Buchalter, Michael Sauvage
Horns And Strings Arranged by Carlos Franzetti (tracks: 1, 3 to 11, 13 to 14)
Pond Life Orchestra Conductor Carlos Franzetti
Executive Producer Michael Zilkha
Original Sound Recorded by ZE Records © 1980

DESIGN
Sleeve Design Artwork By Bruno Tilley
Photography by George DuBose
Shell Drawings by Gill Thompson

Tropical Gangsters

Kid Creole & The Coconuts burst into the 1980s with an incredible fusion of slick sophistication, bright colours, a wicked sense of humour and an infectious bringing together of many disparate strands of music from around the world; Latin rhythms, reggae, salsa, pop and even psychedelic soul.

Born in the Bronx on the 12th August 1951, Thomas August Darnell Browder created a larger-than-life character, Kid Creole, whose persona was a carefully cultivated mix of Darnell's influences and heroes; Cab Calloway, Slim Gaillard and Duke Ellington, white adding enough individuality to always be the Kid.

Working with his long-term foil, percussionist « Sugar-Coated » Andy Hernandez aka Coati Mundi, and with his then-wife Adriana Kaegi leading the Coconuts, Darnell added his theatrical training and love of 40s films to his exotic musical soup. It was an interesting counterpoint to the new romantic era that musically, so defined the grime - encrusted early Thatcher years. Brims were big, suits were Zoot, The Coconuts were glamorous and the Kid was always amorous.

Part of Michael Zilkha's perma-hip ZE set up, Kid Creole & The Coconuts released four groundbreaking albums; Off The Coast Of Me, Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places, Tropical Gangsters and Doppelganger. This remaster series provides an excellent opportunity to reappraise Creole's new take on 'race music'. « I'm glad these CDs are coming out », says Darnell. « cos these are my life. 

Kid Creole & The Coconuts burst into the 1980s with an incredible fusion of slick sophistication, bright colours, a wicked sense of humour and an infectious bringing together of many disparate strands of music from around the world; L,atin reggae, salsa, pop and even psychedelic soul.Born in the Bronx on the 12th August 1951, Thomas August DarnelI-Browder , created a larger-than-life character, Kid Creole, whose persona was cultivated mix of Darnell's influences and heroes; Cab Calloway, Slim Gaillard and Duke Ellington, while adding enough individuality to always be the Kid.Working with his long-term foil, percussionist 'Sugar-Coated' Andy Hernandez aka Coati Mundi, and with his then-wife Adriana Kaegi leading the Coconuts, Darneli added his theatrical training and love of 40s films to his exotic mUsical soup. It was an interesting counterpoint to the new romantic era that musically, so defined the grime-encrusted early Thatcher years. Brims were big, suits were Zoot, The Coconuts were glamorous and the Kid was always amorous Part of Michael Zilkha's perma-hip Ze set up, Kid Creole & The Coconuts released four groundbreaking albums; Off The Coast Of Me, Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places, Tropical Gangsters and Doppelganger. This remaster series provides an excellent opportunity to reappraise Creole's new take on 'race music'. "I'm glad these CDs are coming out", says Darnell. "'cos these are my life."

Recorded at New York's Electric Lady and Blank Tapes studios in 1981-1982, Tropical Gangsters will forever be seen as the album that took one of music's best-kept secrets truly overground. Released in June 1982, it became a chart-hogging, single - laden pop test. It reached No. 3 and remained in the UK album chart for 40 weeks.

With ABC's The Lexicon Of Love; Kevin Rowland and Dexys Midnight Runners' Too Rye Ay and, er, the Kids From Fame, it came to define 1982 musically. Its release also coincided with Sony lowering the price of its Walkman, which meant the album became the cool beach accessory for that year's warm summer.

Tropical Gangsters pursued the concept theme established with Creole's previous album, Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places. This time, while still searching for the elusive Mimi, their 'banana boat' is washed up on B'Dilli Bay, the island of sinners where crime is the passport and 'race music' the only way out... Darnell, with his eye for history and detail had his tongue wedged firmly in his cheek. This was the big one. He calculatedly knew the time had come to 'go commercial'.

Darnell recalls that « we all put our heads together and thought there are riches out there for us. That's when I started goofing the 'race music' thing. I knew what the record company was asking for. I heard it so much; I kept hearing the term 'accessible'. When you listen to songs like In The Jungle and quirky shit like Schweinerei on Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places, of course they're not radio-friendly. That's why I said tongue-in-cheek when I wrote the liner notes about 'race music', because in fact that's what the they were asking me to do - they looked on me as an ethnic person and were asking me to make dance music. »

So Tropical Gangsters, which became the turning point for Kid Creole was, in fact, a veiled attack on the record industry. "It     was very much I know what you guys want, so I'm going to give it to you now, » Darnell laughs. « That's how that record was made. The one with the least creative artistic input and energy of all the records I've ever made in my life. Ever. Stool Pigeon was written in five-and-a- half minutes where songs like In the Jungle I laboured over. I had to have the right lyrics and the right marriage of the horns and harmonies, while Stool Pigeon was 'hey fellas, listen to this rift ! I didn't even have the notion of the song. We'd done overdubs on something else and had some studio time left. Carol (Colman, Coconuts bassist and archivist) borrowed a bass - I went over to the drums and started playing them. It was created as a try out. »

He recalls, « We went in with such force to do Tropical Gangsters. I'd already had success with Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, I knew what it was like to hear your song on the radio. I was this arrogant youngster who felt if it was going to come, it was going to come. Michael Zilkha had put so much money into the band, he was saying, as a businessman, 'oh dear god, let me get a kick back here'. His prayers were answered because I’m A Wonderful Thing, Baby,. Stool Pigeon and Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy did the business for us and we were on our way. All of a sudden, the price of the band playing was 20 times the price it was the year before and we started to make a good living out of it, »

The album was trailed by the marvellous I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby co-written with keyboard player Peter Schott. With its opening nod to Gerskwin's An American In Paris, the slow, funky groove coincided with an exceptionally warm spring and the jingoistic British 'victory' in the Falkands. A new era of confidence seemed to be dawning. The Kid's ironic arrogance was gleefully misinterpreted and the tune seemed perfectly to encapsulate the beginnings of the Thatcher Yuppie generation. Darnell recalls « I was told not to put the 'baby' in the title because the Brits won't like that, I thought 'what the fuck are you talking about? Is it too egotistical, one step too far, . . just with a 'baby'? »

The music, while undoubtedly more straightforward than Its two predecessors - Trouser Press said it 'toned down wonderful diversity in favour of a straighter dance music approach" - was an incredible mixture of funk and big band. Imitation appropriated the Peter Gunn theme perfectly, the Darnell / Kaegi duet Loving You Made A Fool Out Of Me featuring the finest scratch guitar and opening harp flourish is bright, upbeat and - had the album been released later in the 80s - would have made an apposite fourth single choice. Hernandez extended the Que Pose theme on the largely instrumental interlude I'm Corrupt and the closing, No Fish Today, a critique on class and poverty has been likened to Steely Dan. There is certainly a pared-down Talking Heads influence in place - Double On Back, the original B-Side of Stool Pigeon takes this further, David Byrne meeting the Dirty Dozen band.

The success of the album - known as Wise Guy outside the UK - led to a mini Creolemania... to the point where in its wake, Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places scraped in the Top 100 album chart (at No. 99 for one whole week!). It is with little surprise that Darnell recalls the period with considerable affection: Britain was a glorious paradise with people knowing who Kid Creole was and all the live shows and TV; it was a fantastic period. My fondest memory was walking down Covent Garden, shopping and blaring out of the windows on one block was Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy, right around the corner on another was I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby and a little further down was one of Coati Mundi's tracks, I'll never forget it. I thought 'wow, this is it, this is the shit it doesn't get much better than this'. »

Kid Creole & The Coconuts toured extensively to promote the album. « Anyone who went to a concert was taken by the amalgamation of so many different styles, » Darnell recalls. « It was not as commonplace as it is today. Now there's Latin elements all over the place in music. Back in the early 808 people looked at you as if you were insane. »

Was the British fan different? « Absolutely. » Darnell states emphatically. « It was all brand new and magical. There was no New Yorker who was as crazy as the Brits became about Kid Creole, it didn't happen over there until much later, the turning point was after My Male Curiosity was used in Against All Odds, and the video was played all over television. The British fan was the first enthusiastic over-the-top fan we had. Then it spread to France and Italy. Britain is what gave us the strength to continue. Had it not happened there, it may never have happened. It made us say 'holy mother of god, is this real? »

Tropical Gangsters, quite rightly, became a mini-greatest hits, spawning no less than three Top 10 smashes. I'm A Wonderful Thing Baby reached No. 4 in May 1982; Stool Pigeon went to No. 7 in July and - prolonging the album's shelf life, in October, the marvelous faux-calypso of Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy (still the only record with 'onomatopoeia' used as a backing vocal) clambered to No. 2, thwarted only in its chart-topping aspirations by Culture Club's Do You Really Want To Hurt Me. Much was made at the time of the love-hate relationship between Darnell and his right-hand man, Andy Hernandez. « We had a lot in common - a lot of people just remember the ugliness. A part of it must have been growing pains. Andy must have been going through the same shit as me. He was relegated to this comic foil on stage, a joke. When it came to the songs he must have realised, 'wait a minute; I only have one song on this album'. On Fresh Fruit, he had two. Then he wanted three. His contributions weren't musically what I wanted for Kid Creole & The Coconuts. I loved him as what he was, the comic foil. I wanted him to stick to the Latin stuff. You can't stop a guy from being creative, because that's what had happened to me. I was blind to it. I didn't realise till years later. He had to go off and do his solo stuff. He did his thing and went off to be a happier guy. Years have passed and we can laugh about these things. We still are in communication, though we haven't collaborated in years. »

Apart from the press looking for angles with Hernandez, the success of the album gave Darnell the problem of having his career reduced to only one or two records for the general public. Given everything he's done, does Dame!! resent it when people come up and    - sing Annie. I'm Not Your Daddy? « I love that actually, » he laughs. « I've grown to appreciate the fact that most of the greatest artists in the world are known for one song. Of all the great stuff James Brown did, the older generation to this day would say to him I Feel Good. There's so much more, but it's their identification. It's like Andy Warhol saying we're all famous for 15 minutes. There's so much information out there, you are lucky to have one thing they can remember you for'. »

It was a remarkable album and a tumultuous year for Kid Creole & The Coconuts. Tropical Gangsters was feted by the UK press and was in Melody Maker. The Guardian, NW and Smash Hits year-end polls. It was rare for such accord to be found. The only dissenting voice was The Face, possibly aggrieved that their secret was now out. It said « August Darnell's voice is ultimately limited, while the wit is so pleased about being spry it gets tiresome. We are only mildly amused. » When asked 'are you surprised by your British success' again in The Face in October 1982, Darnell replied 'no, not at all, although I'm surprised it took so long. I'm surprised that people are so blind'. Darnell laughs at the memory in 2002 « Now, that was arrogant ! »

However, an indicator that this might not last Was provided by the relatively lowly placing the re-released Dear Addy (from Fresh Fruit) received at the end of the year. No. 29 was only a splash compared to the other hits. Surely there couldn't be something wrong in Paradise ?

Daryl Easlea spoke to August Darnell on May 22nd, 2002. They joked about the good old days and recorded it on a reel of tape.

Liner Notes from the 2002 Islands Remastered reissues.