BAAS Entertainment Podcast

During the summer of 1976, Cory Daye‘s voice wafted through the bamboo forests of New York’s Fire Island like an intoxicating fragrance. As the lead vocalist and co-founder of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, she beckoned the island’s dwellers to untold pleasures while the group’s self-titled debut stirred dancers into sweaty, salty abandon. Boardwalks seldom pulsed with such a bewitching beat.Fire Island was worlds away from the South Bronx where Daye first met composer/arranger Stony Browder, Jr. (guitar/piano) and his brother, lyricist August Darnell (bass). Drummer Mickey Sevilla and vibe master “Sugar Coated” Andy Hernandez (aka Coati Mundi) helped crystallize the group’s musical aesthetic, which had morphed from R&B into a blend of big band, soul, Latin, jazz, dance, and pop. Produced by Four Seasons tunesmith Sandy Linzer, Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band (1976) brought the grandeur of swing-era bandstands to the discotheque, melding wry social commentary with classic Hollywood romanticism. “Everybody’s favorite album is Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band on RCA,” critic Vince Aletti wrote in his “Disco File” column for Record World. “It’s this summer’s major surprise hit not only because three cuts are eminently danceable (‘Sour and Sweet’, ‘Cherchez La Femme’, and ‘I’ll Play the Fool’), but because the group’s fabulously eclectic sound — drawing on several decades of American pop music from big band jazz to doo-wop soul to sophisticated disco, full of sly musical quotes — is so fresh and appealing” (7 August 1976).Aletti would later declare Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band the “Most Essential Disco Album of 1976”, while the Los Angeles Times named Savannah Band “the hottest disco act in the country” (26 November 1976). Even Aletti’s peers in the rock press cheered the group’s arrival. “It’s a pleasure to admit that their music is a fresh pop hybrid with its own rhythmic integrity, and that its sophistication is a lot brighter and more lively than most of the organic bullshit making it to the rock stage in the mid-’70s,” Robert Christgau noted in the Village Voice.Rolling Stone published its own rave review of Savannah Band’s debut. “The highest moments introduce a genuinely surrealistic disco whose adventurous use of bitonality and electronic sound effects stands in absolute contrast to the recent disco market’s cynical prefabrication of oldies,” wrote Stephen Holden. “‘I’ll Play the Fool’, ‘Cherchez La Femme’, and especially ‘Sour and Sweet’, are group originals that literally explode the genre with their brittle scintillating audacity” (23 September 1976).With a sound that signaled disco’s penchant for innovation, Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band supplanted the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing” from number one on Billboard‘s “National Disco Action Top 30” in October 1976. A month later, “Cherchez La Femme” debuted on the Hot 100 where it would peak at #27 and introduce one of the era’s most indelible opening lines — “Tommy Mottola lives on the road” — to the airwaves. The album itself was certified gold and earned the group a GRAMMY nomination for “Best New Artist”.In ’79 Cory Daye released her solo album, “Cory and Me”. Rolling Stone, November ’79 - Cory delivers a vocal performance that’s direct and elusive, girlishly simple and musically sophisticated, sexy without being huff-and-puffy.   When Daye makes her entrance in any song, it’s like the sun breaking through a bank of dark clouds. Paired again with producer-extraordinaire Sandy Linzer, singles “Single Again”, “A Wiggle and A Giggle” and the thumping “Pow Wow” will

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