Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Too Cool to Conga (Expanded Edition) (2014)

American latin pop band founded by August Darnell aka Thomas Browder in 1980 in New York City. Fronted by Kid Creole backed by the trio of The Coconuts and also featuring Coati Mundi, they enjoyed most of their success in the eighties. Their debut album was critically well-received but not successful commercially. Their second album was a concept album matched with a New York Public Theater stage production; it received positive reviews, with Darnell recognized as a clever lyricist and astute composer, arranger and producer. Their international breakthrough came with their third album, 1982's Tropical Gangsters, which hit #3 in the UK and spun off three Top 10 hits with Stool Pigeon, Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy and I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby ; Dear Addy also made the Top 40. In the US the album was retitled Wise Guy and reached #145, and I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby flirted with the R&B charts. Dixit Darnell: "In the Savannah Band I’d modelled my style on 1930s/40s jazz singer and showman Cab Calloway, and I created Kid Creole as an extreme version of that, a sort of lounge lizard/bon vivant or what an ex-girlfriend called a “lovable rogue”."