You all know that Prince gave The Sex Of It to Kid Creole And The Coconuts in 1990. Less known are the facts that he composed the track with the express intention of giving it to them and that Eric Leeds was a huge fan of the band (both things were explained by Leeds in his interview for The Last Miles website).

Also less known is the fact that August Darnell, the creative force behind Kid Creole And The Coconuts was a "Jaimie Starr before Jaimie Starr": between 1979 and 1983 he produced and conceived quite a number of side-projects: Machine, The Coconuts, Elbow Bones And The Racketeers, Gitchy Dan's Beechwood #9, Aural Exciters, Christina, Don Armando's Second Avenue Rhumba Band and of course before that he was also heavily involved in his brother's band Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. Coati Mundi, James White And The Blacks, Cory Daye and Boomerang were also spin-offs from that musical family, even though Darnell wasn't behind these particular projects. So that's a big similarity with Prince as both a producer and the godfather of a highly creative musical family. If you're not familiar with Darnell's work with both Kid Creole And The Coconuts and all these side-projects, I suggest you give it a shot: Darnell and his pals produced the most delicious ethnic disco funk you could think of, with elaborated melodies, complex arrangements, litterary lyrics and a real, dynamic, sense of groove. Though they never really met the success they deserved despite a massive critical acclaim by the musical press and New York's tastemakers, these dudes remain among the most exciting artists of the late 70's and 80's!

But that's not the point of this thread: my point is that I was wondering wheither August Darnell had any kind of influence over Prince's retro style during UTCM/Parade. There are many similarities between some of the retro, broadway-like aspects of Prince's music and dance routines in the Parade Tour shows that highly remind me of Darnell's musical and visual universe. Another thing is that in the 80's everyone was all synth and Prince kinda started to surf on the wave backwards when he replaced his cold synth sound by this warm R&B, horns oriented act. At the time no one had been doing this for years except... August Darnell and his crew! (this retro vibe probably cost them the popular success they deserved, by the way).

So, knowing that Prince was aware of Kid Creole And The Cocunut's existence, and that Darnell was probably one of the only musicians at the time that could qualify for being as talented as Prince was, could we assume that Kid Creole's music and visual style had any kind of direct impact on P's artistic choices for the Parade shows, or could it be that the resemblance is sheer coincidence?

Opinions?

i think you got it the wrong way round. the coconuts are a copy of the time. look further back at the disco stuff on zee, then skip to after the time influence

I know that Wendy and Lisa have said several times that they saw All My Dreams as being like a take on classic Kid Creole and the Coconuts so there's certainly an influence on the people playing with Prince maybe rather than Prince himself. It seems more likely to me that Prince in 1986 was mining the same musical/visual/cinema sources as Darnell in 1981.

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unique said:

i think you got it the wrong way round. the coconuts are a copy of the time. look further back at the disco stuff on zee, then skip to after the time influence

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Was there not an interview somewhere where Andre Cymone said something about seeing Kid Creole on tv in France and suggesting they use it as an influence for the Morris persona?

[Edited 10/24/13 6:25am]

I don't know who influenced who (although I would guess Kid Creole influenced Prince since his persona was pretty much established in the very early 80's), but I definitely see some overlap. Aside from the big band sound, the stage show and just Kid's general persona remind me so much of both Morris Day and Prince. All very cool and talented.

Oh, and thanks Databank for listing those other band names. I was unaware of most of them, but I'll be sure to check them out!

[Edited 10/25/13 20:49pm]

jaawwnn said:

Was there not an interview somewhere where Andre Cymone said something about seeing Kid Creole on tv in France and suggesting they use it as an influence for the Morris persona?

Yeah, I definitely remember Andre saying that. He didn't remember who it was specifically but it was pretty obvious it was Kid Creole (August D). And that trip to France was 1980 or early 1981 - before the first Time record was out.

I had already seen Kid Creole's performances in the movie Against All Odds before I saw Purple Rain in the movie theater. When I first saw The Time perform in Purple Rain, I thought back to Against All Odds, probably because of a similar clothing style or maybe just because they both had music performances in a club.

There is definitely a Cab Calloway influence there at least for Kid Creole.

The first time I discovered Kid Creole And The Coconuts I remember thinking "who's that Morris Day clone" + there's a lot in common between the Morris/Jerome interaction and the Darnell/Coati Mundi interaction. BUT now the whole Kid Creole concept goes back to 1980 (before The Time) and even if we go back to the beginning of Dr. Mamabo's Original Savannah Band in 1976, everything was already there: look at this video from 77: http://www.youtube.com/wa...CK-f-Hhij4, and if you look at KCATC's first TV appearance in 1980 it's already there: http://www.youtube.com/wa...uCxNlWWe3g

So I've never heard that Cymone quote before but I can definitely believe it: there's NO way Darnell borrowed anything in terms of look and attitude from Prince and The Time, it's either the opposite or a coincidence.

errant said:

I don't think Prince wrote The Sex of It expressly for Kid Creole and the Coconuts. It was written 3 years earlier, and Prince had it sent to him at the last moment. It was so last-minute that the album got delayed, IIRC.

What happened is that P ran into Kid Creole in a club in Europe (IIRC it was in Paris and it was most likely during the SOTT Tour or maybe even in 86 but I can't confirm) and Darnell asked P if he could give him a song and Prince said "sure, I'll send you something" and he eventually cut "The Sex Of It" later in 87, but P then just got lost in the jive of his own life and totally forgot about it until 89 when he finally sent it (and you are correct about the album being delayed because of that last minute addition). I looked on The Last Miles to find the Eric Leeds quote but obviously I got it wrong, it comes from another Eric Leeds interview that I must have read somewhere else, but basically the genesis of this track is quite a fascinating story: Leeds explained that once he was totally trippin' on the last KCATC album (I, Too Have Seen The Woods from 87) and its lead single (the brilliant Dancin' At The Bains Douche) and then he got to Paisley Park and Prince had just finished recording The Sex Of It and the sound engineer was mixing it or something and allowed Leeds to listen to it and Leeds thought, "shit, I'm gonna make a horn arrangement on that, à la Kid Creole, and I don't care if Prince doesn't like it and won't use it", then he recorded the horns parts with Atlanta and the next day had Prince listen to it but he never mentioned that he had Kid Creole in mind when doing the arrangements, and Prince liked it and then Leeds asked him "what are you gonna do with that song?" and Prince answered "I'm going to send it to Kid Creole"