97. Kid Creole & the Coconuts, "Dear Addy" (1981)

(listen)

I don't recall from the vinyl version of the Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places album the spoken-word overture that now accompanies this song on anthologies and reissues, but it is otherwise exactly the gem I encountered, undiminished: a glittering production of a straightforward lamentation of love lost (maybe—perhaps the spoken-word intro is there to indicate the jury is still out on the matter, all hope not yet lost), complete with swirling strings, sighing Coconuts, woeful backstroke guitar chording for rhythm, and a host of small touches designed to make one's heart swell, as swell it must. Bronx native August Darnell, aka Kid Creole, had a real knack all through the '80s for working memorable pop strains into various molds of world music (by way of Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building) powered by an encyclopedia of rhythmic figures to drive them. Nearly anything he recorded is worth looking into, and some of it is essential. This closer for a concept album about a globe-circling adventure remains my single favorite for its simplicity and for its shameless mournfulness. The voyager has returned home and all he wants now is his Addy. "Dear Addy, I'm afraid / I've lost more than I've gained," so on and so forth. The cries for Addy on the chorus are piercing, just her name and the sweet aching mess of the sound. It only goes to show you can travel the world 'round and when you come home again all you find is yourself, or something like that. It was a top 40 hit in the UK in 1982, which in its own way also just goes to show.

Doppelganger (1983)

Interesting that the Kid Creole reissues of just a few years ago have evidently already sunk without a trace, other than Fresh Fruit and this—my impression had always been that 1982's Wise Guy more or less endured as the go-to choice, at least for most critics, so go figure. I like pretty much everything August Darnell did, which also includes Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band in the '70s, but for better or worse the two Kid Creoles still available besides anthologies and live albums (worthwhile themselves, of course, to varying degrees) are also my two favorites. Maybe it's because they're the ones that sound most like musical productions never mounted? And the more's the shame for that. I can't discern a theme in this sparkling mess, let alone a story line (nor could Robert Christgau), but the clues are tantalizing, starting with the title. August Darnell, Dr. Buzzard, Kid Creole, not to mention at an extensive curriculum vitae of studio session work, and did you know the guy has a master's in English? "Doppelganger" doesn't even begin to cover the teeming identities finding ways to coexist inside Darnell's tiny frame. And I'm telling you, the guy not only merits more attention, but positively rewards it, with horns and charging rhythms, melody and a pristinely clarified production, propelling it all, from the exuberant album kickoff "The Lifeboat Party" to the obligatory new wave cover gesture of "If You Wanna Be Happy" to the touchstone declaration of general purpose, "Call Me the Entertainer." There's even a leftfield meditation on dead rock stars, "Survivors" ("It happened to Jimi, it happened to Janis, it happened to Elvis [eliding toward Walrus] too / It happened to Vicious, and Frankie-uh Lymon, it can happen to me and you"). Oh, and here's another that would appear to signify intention, "Broadway Rhythm," with something to say about "integrated rock 'n' roll." And the lovely "Back in the Field Again," with very few twists and turns, just a brave and bittersweet avowal post-divorce that things are going to be all right again, maybe. It all closes on something called "The Seven Year Itch." As you may surmise, there's show biz all over the place here, stuffed into every nook. And if the whole never manages to cohere into anything greater than the sum of its mystifying parts, there's an awful lot of pleasure to be had attempting to piece it all together.

Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places (1981)

At one time I liked to refract this through the lens of a concept album, because arguably that's what it is, though one rather more like a song and dance musical than Tommy—a South Seas cruise more or less, departing from approximately New York City with stops in the Caribbean and across the Panama isthmus, with local color and musical numbers and styles galore. To point out that something like that was a little out of step in 1981 is an understatement, though by and large it was well reviewed, as a bit of a novelty, which is how it came to my attention. I'm not sure how many people even remember Kid Creole at all now but for several years in the '80s I numbered him among my pet obsessions and collected 'em all. I even saw the act in 1986, attending it more out of duty than anything but in the end coming away more than a little impressed—I count it as one of the better live shows I've seen, in fact, thanks partly to the comically sexualized energy and presence of the Coconuts. But the music of Kid Creole (nee August Darnell), who somehow went directly from the Bronx to an astonishing plurality of musical locations across the globe, is what always seals the deal, and Fresh Fruit may well be the best single-volume introduction to his work. A heady stew of rhythms, pure pop tunesmithery, and a Broadway producer's flair for showmanship, the fragmented stories of journey, border crossings, adventure, and love found and lost move briskly through their paces and somehow grow almost illicitly charming. Not a one of them is a bit like any of the others, yet the overarching sensibility and sharp production unifies them into something that's practically seamless. It's not hard to understand how "fresh" worked its way into the title. At one point this became an album I listened to frequently enough that even now I can hear the beginning of the next song in the end of the last. And while I remain impressed with the musical styles absorbed so completely and deployed so artfully, I have to say that it's when Kid Creole opens the jacket of his quasi-zoot suit to reveal the palpable pounding of his throbbing heart that I am most enduringly affected. So "I Stand Accused" and "Gina, Gina" and especially the album closer "Dear Addy" tended to be the tracks I put on mix tapes again and again for friends and for myself, and that even now I enjoy hearing again most fondly.