August Darnell

August Darnell (2016)

Interview by Larry Jaffee, Rock's Backpages audio, 16 May 2016

The erstwhile Kid Creole talks about his new off-Broadway musical Cherchez La Femme: the cost, joys and difficulties of staging a production, and the part played in it by RBP contributor Vivien Goldman. He also talks about his escape from New York City; his days at Hofstra University; Kid Creole & the Coconuts' overseas success; his relationship with Seymour Stein; Prince writing 'The Sex of It' for him; his time on ZE Records; on Jamaica and Haiti, and about his wife Eva Tudor-Jones.

File format: mp3; file size: 52.7mb, interview length: 54' 52" sound quality: ***

Kid Creole: Fresh Fruit in Downtown Manhattan

Interview by Paul Rambali, The Face, June 1981

A CHECKER CAB pulls up at the corner of MacDougal and 7th; out of it steps Mr. Michael Zilkha. The cab is yellow with a ...

Kid Creole & the Coconuts

Profile by Ian Birch, Smash Hits, 11 June 1981

AUGUST DARNELL sounds like one of those mysterious names that invariably appear in the final credits of a movie or TV series. Could it be ...

The Kid & I: A Dinner Date with Kid Creole

Interview by Fiona Russell Powell, The Face, October 1982

The night Fiona Russell Powell joined August Darnell for a late late dinner date ran into the morning of the Kid's 32nd birthday and the ...

August Darnell Gets Even With Everybody (For Forcing Him To Make Race Music & Other Sins)

Interview by Iman Lababedi, Creem, December 1982

ON A hot Wednesday evening I'm playing flick-yer-bic with the dial on my television, you know: flick — Three's Company — flick — Masterpiece Theatre ...

Tropic of Creole: The Indiscretions of August Darnell

Memoir by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 24 September 1983

The story so far... We are about to meet SUSANDRA MINSKY, who could be described as August Darnell's first wife, although they never did get ...

Kid Creole: "I'm not a party man anymore"

Retrospective and Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 7 September 2011

He was a zoot-suited wise guy who crooned out hit after hit. Now Kid Creole is back. Paul Lester meets the man who blew a ...

August Darnell: Kid Creole's Alter-Ego Mounts a NY Musical

Report and Interview by Larry Jaffee, Huffington Post, 21 May 2016

THE BREAKOUT HIT from the first Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band album in 1976 was 'Cherchez la Femme', a sublime dance hit that even appealed ...

Time Machine: June 1943 – L.A.'s Zoot Suit Riots

Retrospective by Fred Dellar, unpublished, February 2020

CAB CALLOWAY was something of a superstar by 1943. A would-be Harlem Globetrotter, he'd had that possible career nixed by his big sister Blanche, who ...