As an FYI, ask I’ll be be shortly deleting all the National Lampoon Radio Hour posts currently up on the site — because I’ve just gotten through properly re-tagging a VERY LARGE batch of NLRH episodes, and will be posting the entirety of what I have sometime in the next week.
BOHANNON – “KEEP ON DANCIN’ “ (1974)
I’m a relatively new convert to the wily ways of the wildly prolific Hamilton Bohannon, one of the unsung heroes of ’70s funk and soul. The newish blog Dyin’ To Be Dancin’ sez:
Hamilton Bohannon began as a drummer for Stevie Wonder and after a successful stint as a bandleader for Motown, he created disco. More or less: the strings came from Philadelphia and Barry White, the groove was handed by James Brown, Bohannon for his part brought the hypnotic rhythms. On his second album, ["Keep On Dancin'], all his tricks are laid down: the funky bass, the unstoppable drums, the meaningless chants and, overall, the African trance. So proud with the result, he shamelessly recycled the formula (see the countless versions of “Let’s Start the Danceâ€). But, hey, who can blame him when the music is so good!
Well well. And here I was thinkin that the NLRH posts were a take for other reasons. When you consider that the best place for info on these shows is a site where they host NO audio files, I look forward to this despite the fact that the audio mock-u-mentary “The Romance of King Creosote” was the only track I was looking for. I last heard that in 1978 – wow.
Much as I enjoy the Tom Tom Club, I mainly have to thank them for the line “Bohannon, Bohannon, Bohannon”. Without it I might’ve gone many more years without hearing the man’s amazing music. My fave is ‘On My Way’. Fantastic album, but ‘Come Dance With Me’ and “I Found My Love on a Saturday” are two of my favorite songs of all time, by anyone. The latter is audio prozac–a smile in song. Truly insane that almost none of his albums is available on CD reissue.