Today’s classic disco song of the day is “Boogie Ooogie Oogie” by A Taste of Honey. Released in June of 1978, this disco classic hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard Soul Singles, Billboard Hot Disco Singles, and Cash Box Top 100 charts. (It also hit #1 in Canada.) Billboard ranked it the #9 song for all of 1978. It was the first platinum single for Capitol Records, selling more than two million copies.
“Boogie Oogie Oogie” was written by A Taste of Honey members Janice-Marie Johnson and Perry Kibble. Johnson sang and played bass and Kibble played keyboards and produced. Other group members were Hazel Payne on vocals and guitar and Donald Johnson on drums. Yes, they got their name from the big hit by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
A Taste of Honey formed in 1972 in Los Angeles and was promptly signed by Capitol Records. “Boogie Oogie Oogie” was their first big hit, and I do mean big. It was big enough for the group to win a Grammy for Best New Artist, probably one of the most undeserving honors in Grammy history. While A Taste of Honey was more or less a flash in the pan (they had just one other hit, 1981’s cover of “Sukiyaki”), the other Best New Artist nominees that year were The Cars, Elvis Costello, Toto, and Chris Rea. With the exception of one-hit wonder Rea, the other nominees were much more impactful, long lasting, and deserving than the disco group.
A Taste of Honey broke up in 1983, although Janice-Marie Johnson continued on her own (for contractual reasons) as One Taste of Honey. She continued to record and perform as a solo artist and was inducted into the Native American Music Association Hall of Fame in 2008.
So dust off your dancing shoes and get out there on the floor. We’re gonna boogie, oogie, oogie till we just can’t boogie no more.
[…] week I wrote about the song “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by a group called A Taste of Honey, and how they won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1979 […]