Cerrone - The Best Of Kongas (2014) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

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Cerrone - The Best Of Kongas (2014) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

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It couldn't be simpler: a boy, tired with his work, decided to quit everything and form a band. In most cases, the band and the hopes didn't last long. With Kongas, French disco producer Marc Cerrone's first band, this was more complicated. In the early '70s, the young man made his own revolution. Musical director at Club Mditerrane, in charge of programming musicians in holiday resorts, he had a quiet job but he was bored to death. He decided to leave all this to focus on his only passion: make music himself and play drums, his instrument. One summer, he went playing in the streets of Saint-Tropez, in front of the hip bars of the time (le Snquier or le Gorille) and impressed a local character: Eddie Barclay. Barclay got him to play a local club and Cerrone urged some musicians he had met a few weeks before to join him. The concert was a success and they spent the summer playing the mythical Papagayo before being signed by Barclay: Kongas were born. It was to be a quick journey but punctuated with nice moments. With tracks melting rock and Afrobeat, the band toured a lot in France and abroad (they even played Japan, which was very rare at the time). Fed up with the record company's requirements and its desire to turn Kongas into a more pop affair, Cerrone left the band after two albums, Afro Rock (1974) and Africanism (1977). Yet, he would stick to the band's musicians and some of them are still playing with him today. He kept on working with Don Ray, who arranged most of his albums and whose cult album, revered by all disco lovers, he produced. In some way, Kongas was the matrix for the records to come. Pressed on double white vinyl.