In early 80’s Wellington New Zealand , as the political climate of control increasingly resembled eastern Europe and bully prime minister Muldoon began to self-destruct, it was inevitable that this gaudy exotic album cover would draw me into an impulsive escapist purchase.
What was I expecting? To be transported from anglo-saxonity and implied exile to some wild sensory exuberance? Basically yes, and from the first blast of sound I was delivered to Trinidad, Harlem, the 1930’s, maybe Cuba…. to voodoo kitsch, big band satire, blatant innuendo, fun! I danced along to this petite version of Prince in a Talking Heads tuxedo, unaware of his real persona (Thomas August Darnell Browder) or that we shared the same arithmetically desirable year of birth, 1950.
What more can I say? Kid creole whisked me away from repression to a kind of audible vaudeville ex the Caribbean via Folies Bergere…….. I can hear him now with the chanteuse coconuts, flamboyantly taking the piss.
-Judith Lenart
