- This article is about the band, there is a play and film with the same name.
There is also a song, "A
Taste of Honey".
A Taste of Honey was the name of an American
recording act formed in 1971 by associates Perry Kibble and Donald
Ray Johnson. They later went on to score one of the best known
songs of the
disco
era. After their popularity waned during the early 1980s
Johnson went on to record as a
solo
artist and release the album
One Taste
Of Honey which produced numerous minor hits. In 2004, singers
Hazel Payne (guitar) and Janice Johnson (bass) reunited for the
first time in over 20 years to perform on the
PBS specials
Get Down Tonight: The
Disco Explosion and
My Music: Funky Soul
Superstars.
Biography
Formed
during 1971, A Taste of Honey hailed from Los
Angeles
, California
. The members of the band consisted of Janice
Marie Johnson (vocals, co-writer,
bass),
Carlita Dorhan (vocals,
guitar), Perry Kibble
(keyboards, co-producer, co-writer) and Donald Ray Johnson
(
drums). Long time friends, Kibble and Johnson
(no relationship with Donald Ray) were the original members of the
band. Each had left a band to join forces and, after going through
several drummers, they settled on Johnson, as well as replacing
lead singer with Gregory Walker, who left the band just prior to
the successful release of "Boogie Oogie Oogie" to join Santana. As
Kibble recounted. Despite his misgivings for his son's musical
aspirations, Mr. Kibble (Perry's father) was instrumental in their
future success as he had set up a rehearsal studio wherein the
group could experiment with various sounds. Carlita Dorhan left the
group in early 1976 and Hazel Payne was added.
Two ladies up front singing and playing bass and guitar, this
innovation was unheard of in its time. Nonetheless, it created a
trend for female bass and guitar players. Kibble had been the
bassist in the band, which meant that he had to switch to
keyboards. Learning a new instrument was nothing new to Kibble, he
had already switched mid-way through a band tour in the late
sixties from saxophone to bass. When the bass player dropped out of
the band, Kibble took two weeks to practice each of the tunes just
so that he could stay on the road. Johnson, who was already playing
bass when she met Perry, gives him credit for teaching her the
fundamentals of playing bass. In fact, Janice states that she
learned more about bass from Perry than all of her other teachers
combined. Perry had a way of helping the ladies to improve their
musicianship, which proved to be important when they were being
considered for a record deal.
The group began to improve their sound over a period of six years
prior to being "discovered" by Capitol Records. Hitting major
cities outside of Los Angeles (especially discos as these started
to appear), they also began doing USO tours, with spots in Spain,
Morocco, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Alaska and returning
several times to Japan. After one evening of failing to enthuse a
military crowd, Johnson announced, "If you think that you're too
cool to boogie, we've got news for you! Everyone here tonight is
going to boogie, and you're no exception to the rule." Thinking the
line would make great lyrics, Johnson wrote it down that night,
while Kibble discovered a funky bass line, which was to be the
driving force behind the 1978 disco hit
Boogie Oogie
Oogie. The group knew they were on to something big as the
song became a hit everywhere they performed it. They were on the
road for several years, prior to signing a record deal, making sure
not to saturate their hometown with their act as they had hoped for
a new view from a record company A & R.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, while playing in a night club, they
were spotted by producers Fonce and Larry Mizell who convinced
Capitol Records' then vice-executive producer, Larkin Arnold, to
give them an audition. Returning several times to hear them
perform, Arnold finally decided to sign them to the label and
negotiated a five album contract. The band, which had billed itself
after
Herb Alpert's song "A Taste of
Honey," stuck with the name when asked by Arnold what they "called"
themselves. Their first
single,
"
Boogie Oogie Oogie", from their
debut
album A Taste of Honey, tapped
into the popular
disco style and spent three
weeks at number one (#1) on the
Hot 100 in
1978. The single sold a record two million copies, which broke the
record any single had had to date. The group was awarded two
platinum records
for the single and album; then they went on to win the
Grammy Award for Best New
Artist for the 20th Grammy Awards on February 15, 1979. This
was the first song to achieve a double platinum single and the
first Black group to receive a Grammy Award. Their subsequent disco
releases, such as "Do It Good" (#79 in 1979) from
Another
Taste and "Rescue Me" (1980) failed to attract attention, and
by 1980 the group had reduced to a
duo
consisting of Johnson and Payne. Some of the band's music
(
Boogie Oogie Oogie and
Distant) has had a recent
revival as it has been sampled by many Hip Hop and Rap artists,
most notably Ice Cube. Boogie Oogie Oogie can be heard world
wide.
When
recording
their
cover version of the
Kyu Sakamoto song "
"Sukiyaki"" (from their third album -
Twice As Sweet, released in 1980) they resisted
suggestions to turn it into a dance tune, and as a soft and simple
ballad it brought them the second and final
major hit of their careers in 1981, when it reached number one (#1)
on the
Billboard R&B
and Adult Contemporary charts and number three (#3) on Hot 100. The
group was awarded a gold record for this single. The recording and
release of the song also brought them some financial distress as
Sakamoto sued Capitol Records for copyright infringement, a song
Johnson had believed to be a Japanese "folk" song (and in the
public domain).
A Taste of Honey released their final major album,
Ladies of
the Eighties in 1982. It featured their final Billboard Hot
100 charting single "I'll Try Something New" (#41). This cover of
the
Smokey Robinson and
the Miracles hit from 1962 also went to number nine (#9) on the
R&B charts and # 29 on the Adult Contemporary (their second and
last AC charting hit).
After their popularity waned in the early 1980s Johnson went on to
record as a
solo artist and release the album
One Taste Of
Honey which produced the single "Love Me Tonight" and became a
minor hit on the R&B charts. Payne went on to become an
international stage
actress, appearing in a
number of
theatre plays around the world
including
Oh! What A Night.
Upon
moving to Calgary,
Alberta
, Canada in the early nineties to play in local
night clubs and to write music for a television production, Kibble
(keyboards) married a local
school music teacher in 1993 and become stepfather to three
children. In February 1999, Kibble died of
heart failure, at the age of 49. Donald Ray
Johnson continues to live and play Blues in Calgary and surrounding
regions, where he also married a local from Calgary. Johnson
released several blues albums (under his own name) and is well
known in Western Canada as a Blues singer/drummer. The following
year (Janice) Johnson released her second solo album,
Hiatus Of
The Heart. and "Until The Eagle Falls (Native American Music
Award winning song. In 2004, Payne and (Janice) Johnson reunited
for the first time in over 20 years to perform on the
PBS specials
Get Down Tonight: The
Disco Explosion and
My Music: Funky Soul
Superstars.
Janice Marie Johnson was inducted in the Native American Music
Association Hall of Fame in 2008.
Discography
Albums
| Year |
Album |
R&B Albums |
Pop Albums |
| 1978 |
A Taste of Honey |
2 |
6 |
| 1979 |
Another Taste |
26 |
59 |
| 1980 |
Twice As Sweet |
12 |
36 |
| 1982 |
Ladies of the Eighties |
14 |
73 |
Chart success
See also
References
External links
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