Bohannon - S/D

Then Alive from 1981 has "Let's Start the Dance Part II", "Let's Start II Dance Again" and "Start the Dance (Inserts)" (see what I mean) which are all entertaining. The song got a little faster, a little tighter, and a maybe a little fuller. Plus, the cover of this record is pretty wonderful. Bohannon has been cut out of whatever photo he was in and is placed in the midst of some really haphazard op-art type graphics.

i'm having trouble tracking down pics online of these later album covers. they're hilarious. i'd scan mine and host them if i had the means.

that rhino comp is indeed great, though the second half is more smooth than funky and wicked. and i say "though" because some of that stuff gets a bit silly to my ears. recently made my own bestof comp for some friends. it was a hit. fave tune of the moment: "can you feel it." seek! oh, and "south african man." that weird circular groove!

http://i3.tinypic.com/2vvmmbo.jpg

this is genius. and not at all a stretch, when you think about the Kraftwerk/Bambaataa connection.

That is why I never BOUGHT a Bohannon album, because of the soundalike factor (alhough I do possess a few 45's).

i do admit that on each record, there is a song that could easily be put on any of the others. but there ARE differences in sound.

I stop checking for Bohannon around 1983, but his Dakar and Mercury stuff before that is worth hearing.

I got the Rhino comp. in a charity shop in Dorset at the weekend. Some amazing tracks on there!!!!

i got a sealed copy of On My Way in the mail today. the genius 13 minutes of "Maybe You Can Dance" (which has this sweet "Peking O"/ Cecil Taylor piano bit) is a given, but i didn't know it had a gatefold of our man in a white tux.

I just found On My Way cheap, and it IS great so far. Maybe You Can Dance is AMAZING.

Fuck me. I Got to Stay Funky. Wow. I'd never even heard of Bohannon till that vs Neu poll thread.

Johnny Marr cites 'Disco Stomp' as a major influence on 'How Soon Is Now?', which is a pretty awesome thing

yeah "I Got to Stay Funky" is unreal. how has that song escaped "classick" status all these decades?

found another sealed Bohannon record Keep On Dancin' (with his wife Andrea on the cover) that i'm exccited about as well.

never heard that Marr quote before. so now we got Bohannon influencing Arthur Russell, Talking Heads/ Tom Tom Club, and the Smiths?

"Disco Stomp" was a big hit in the UK, my big sister had a copy of it!

The quote is: "It was my boyhood love of 'Disco Stomp', Can's 'I Want More' and then tying the whole thing together with the Bo Diddley bow, as it were. That was the whole thing." Someone else spotted the Can-Bohannon connection up there^

Yeah, I almost mentioned "I Want More" 'cos I've always assumed that's where Marr got the idea. 'S all Bo Diddley anyway.

Disco Stomp is really fun to put on at parties. I like to slip it into the party mix between Janet and Ne-Yo and it always makes people dance.

Regarding the avoiding "classick" status thing, it seems he doesn't quite get the attention he deserves overall. I've wondered about this and thought that maybe it's because he doesn't really have THE DEFINITIVE ALBUM or THE DEFINITIVE SONG or something. He basically put out one or two very similar (but largely awesome) records a year for about 10 years. It's like there's so much of his good thing that it all just blurs together and none of it gets the credit it deserves because it's so hard to say listen to this one thing.

I'm one of those losers who has only heard "me and the gang". Going to remedy that soon.

xpost, disco stomp! I get it though, even disco stomp is kinda small and subtle and, um, punctum-free?

It's just completely fucked that NONE of his albums is in print (in the US). Like, that's got to be the most insanely unjust OOP I can think of at present. I mean--is there a story there? Labels being assholes, something like that? Because there's simply no way there isn't money to be made in a reissue/remaster program for this guy. Hell--ex-members of Talking Heads alone should be out there pushing this shit, if necessary.

they're very common used LPs. if you need help, send me an e-mail and i can probably locate a few.

found a beat up (but totally serviceable) orig at the 2008 carrboro, NC record fair. zack has the scorpio repress, and it sounds good to me!

ya. i eventually got the repress.

anyone know those 4 Men, you know, the ones With Beards? put a bug in their beards. they should really jump on reissuing the Dakar/Brunswick years. the Mercury years can probably wait as they seem to be plentiful and cheap.

What do you think is keeping Light in the Attic or some such label from doing a proper reissue series, if a larger label won't do it?

How's it going, Ettiem? Planning on doing an end-of-year/decade best-of mix at Gris-Gris?

perhaps hamilton himself has something to do with it? he's still kicking it somewhere. we could add him to that "just walked away" thread.

hey, ian. man, i haven't even given doing something like that much thought, and at this late stage i doubt i'll begin thinking about doing it. i guess i could be like the wet towels back at the turn of the century and explain how the decade actually ends NEXT year at this time and do it then. and no one will come to the party.

been jamming this album a lot this week. it made a good soundtrack for a night making pizzas and drinking wine in our kitchen with friends:

http://www.free-blog.in/uploads/s/saltyka/48896.jpg

Bohannon Rules!

that was the first one i ever bought

interesting:

http://www.hnarecords.com

think i might try ordering this audio book history thing.

Man--if he's putting himself out there homebrew style like that, surely some enterprising person can reach him and ask him why the hell his music is being suppressed by the powers that be?

Just joking--but seriously, I hope maybe we can find out why the stuff isn't in print. I'd put down $100-$200 for a nice, complete-ish CD box set of clean (hopefully original-master-sourced) recordings. In fact, I would be waiting outside the record shop getting kid-on-Christmas excited the day it were released. I'm super lame for getting annoyed by pops/clicks/hiss etc. on the available beat-up & cheap LPs that I could actually afford.

Well, here we go, right on the page: bohannonmusic {at} gmail.com

Guess I'll give asking the man direct a go? Feeling too small to approach rhythm Jesus. . .

Man,

http://www.hnarecords.com/myspace/wall1.jpg

*sigh*

I think I'm ready to officially declare "I Found My Love on a Saturday" my favorite song, period. So warm, that slinking bass, that whatever-it-is solo, Bohannon's weirdly phased double-tracked vocals, just every single thing about it is absolutely perfect (other than that it could stand to be a few minutes longer). It is the sound of pure happiness, for me.

I think you and I might be .0001%-ers for loving the later stuff so much, Andrew. Reviews everywhere talk about the post-75 stuff like it's an artistic collapse, when at least an equal amount of my favorites come from those LPs.

Does anybody know David Byrne? Can we contact him and guilt him for stealing half of his career from Bohannon (the other half from Fela Kuti) and get him to do a reissue series on one of his labels?

Or Water, or Light In the Attic?

Okay, the Funki T Roc Walk is fucking awesome.

http://www.hnarecords.com/welcometumyworld.html#funki

looks like BH's rec room is stocked with a full rack of Frito-Lay selections

Your day will be better if you listen to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vAv2QcIaLM

i guess this is where i say caroline crawford's nice and soulful is a masterpiece.

East coast US gigs coming in March

I always want to say the name Bohannon like in the Tom Tom Club song. That LCD song has me saying The Sonics a certain way as well...

Summertime Groove from 1978 has what I think is the first of many versions of "Let's Start the Dance" and is great for that alone.

Title track is a funk monster

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/mar/17/hamilton-bohannon-the-return-of-a-disco-legend

Discussion of his NYC show

Damn, wish I'd known about that. I would've gone down, told everyone I know.

Also, still can't believe no (domestic) reissues. Slowly, like four albums so far over two years, dripping out in Japan. . .

I knew of but couldn't make the DC gig. He just did those 2 shows.

Was in DC for work and, just like every year, the cool stuff happens a few days before or after. Was walking past the Howard Theater and saw the poster for the show up and just had to shake my head and keep walking. BUT, maybe he's serious about getting out and about a bit more in upcoming years.

These 2 gigs were supposedly his first in 40 years!

That would mean he hadn't played a gig since 1974, unlikely surely?

Oops, 31yrs anywhere, and allegedly 40 years since any NYC & DC gigs

Rare because this was his first show anywhere since 1983 and 40 years since his last show in New York.

He became a religious Christian at some point which might have affected his gigging

I wonder why he didn't play in NYC during the time he was most commercially successful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOX7Qt9YF4c
This is a dope track

Nice, and note mention of return gigs, also, re audible influence on rockers, this also mentions that Fernando Saunders played with Lou Reed (I remember a feature, maybe in Creem, where Reed was talking about how excited he was to work with Bohannon's bassist):
http://georgiamusic.org/discofunk-pioneer-hamilton-bohannon-honored-by-ga-senate/

Always figured Prince was a fan/student of Bohannon too.

RIP - Isn't this the actual Bohannon thread?

Listening to Bohannon’s US R&B hits, the ones that are on Spotify anyway, and I’m really feeling this gentle boogie jam from 1981:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyD701w8SWc
Bohannon • Goin’ For Another One

Never did see him live, and still need to catch up more on his music. Bohannon doing "South African Man" on Soul Train in 1974 is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xS6tgKml-I

Bohannon - Disco Stomp is great too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM4Q4Nf62So

Still very little Bohannon available on Spotify

or apple music. can't even get Save Their Souls :(

Not reissued or repackaged either

More albums appear to be on Spotify now

We need a box set.

Stop & Go plus Keep on Dancin and 4 other Brunswick label efforts now on Spotify

that’s very good news!

and oh look, a singing drummer that has never been mentioned on the dedicated thread in all these years

So with Mute setting up to reissue Telex's oeuvre, that leaves Bohannon as the main artist (to my ears) who hugely warrants a full-career reissue campaign and/or box-set, that hasn't happened.

Anybody here know why? There've been sporadic and highly incomplete reissue efforts out of Japan, but very disjointed and seemingly ended.

It would seem like Light In the Attic or Now-Again or Soul Jazz or hell Luaka Bop would have the wherewithal to make it happen...

Does anybody know David Byrne? Can we contact him and guilt him for stealing half of his career from Bohannon (the other half from Fela Kuti) and get him to do a reissue series on one of his labels?

Or Water, or Light In the Attic?

― Soundslike, Sunday, May 16, 2010 8:21 AM (ten years ago)

Been beating this drum a while now, I guess...

... using Bo's Beat of course. You're not the only one btw.

this has gotta have something to do with his estate/heirs, yeah?

No, of course not the one--that's why it seems so odd it hasn't happened...

I don't know how or why--maybe on the basis of this thread? But once circa 2009 or so, I got a call one morning (I was dead asleep, because I was working overnights at the time) from someone who identified themselves as I think a son of Bohannons? Or someone associated with him anyway. Somehow they thought I somehow had some power to do something with a reissue campaign, as opposed to just being someone who desperately wished there were one. I was sad, honored, and very confused (plus very asleep). Obviously the ultimate anecdotal evidence, and hazy at that--but would seem to suggest folks associated with his estate want reissues to happen?

I am reasonably sure that Scorpio is doing new-ish pressing of the Dakar LPs fwiw

*pressings

hamilton bohannon looks like the grinch: y/n?

https://cdn2.albumoftheyear.org/750x/album/212383-too-hot-to-hold.jpg

https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/blog-images/show_how_the_grinch_stole_christmas.jpg