Kokomo

BGO's 2007 two-fer combines Kokomo's first two albums -- their eponymous 1975 debut and its sequel, Rise and Shine! -- on a single disc, adding new liner notes from John Tobler.

Kokomo were renowned as Britain's finest funk band of the mid-'70s, a genuine live experience, which makes their 1975 eponymous debut a bit of a shock: there's no live feel here, only slick studio gloss that brings the album closer to the sunbleached sounds of the American West Coast than the R&B-vamping working bands that populated the pub rock circuit Kokomo frequented. Kokomo yo-yos between percolating funk that flirts with disco -- à la the Average White Band -- and the smoothest of soft rock, everything sounding mellow and relaxed even when the tempo revs up, as it does on the opener "Kitty Sitting Pretty." Here, the group's female backing singers take center stage, but they're prominent throughout, even when they're fading into the background to support the band's other singers, who can evoke Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, or Frankie Miller depending on the tune. Although Kokomo is bursting at the seams with nine members, it sounds impressively sleek here -- too much so, really, as the sleekness tends to flatten out any sense of funk on this LP. That's why the softer blue-eyed soul moments work better than the dance tracks -- the shimmering "Feeling This Way" and the cover of Bobby Womack's "I Can Understand It" suit the sound of the production better than the bright, laid-back funk of "I'm Sorry Babe" -- but all in all, Kokomo fails to live up to the band's reputation as a killer live act, the kind that was so good the band inspired Graham Parker and had Bob Dylan hire them as support for the initial Desire sessions. That group resurfaced on the band's better second album, Rise and Shine!.

Bluntly, Rise and Shine! stands as the finest British funk album of the 1970s, a set which counts only Roogalator among its rivals, but squeaks past by virtue of that group's failure to truly get it on in the studio. The opening "Use Your Imagination" has enough funkadelia around its edges to satiate the most demanding palate, while "Little Girl" might borrow its vocal arrangements from something slick by Hall & Oates, but nobody told the instruments that. Occasionally, the sublime groove does fade -- "That's Enough" is a ponderous dirge, again looking towards Hall & Oates for its impetus, and the strangely staccato ballad "Without Me" might have slipped off Bowie's Young Americans. But the title track is insistently nasty, while "Do It Right" and "Feelin' Good" are primal growlers in solid Sly Stone mold. With only "Rise and Shine" breaking the five-minute barrier, the album does err on the side of concise caution -- live, Kokomo were capable of some truly gargantuan grooves, and it would have been rewarding to catch a couple on vinyl. But still it is a pulse-pounding package, plus it packs one of the most appropriate sleeves of the era. Kokomo hit everyone with the force of an express train. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Dave Thompson, All Music Guide