Wha-Koo was an American rock band best known for their 1978 single, “(You’re Such a) Fabulous Dancer”, which peaked at #101 on the Billboard and #10 on the Australian charts.
Wha-Koo were a Los Angeles, California-based soft rock ensemble formed in 1977 under the leadership of singer, songwriter and guitarist Danny Douma. Douma assembled an entourage of veteran musicians that included David Palmer, who had sung lead vocals on two tracks of Steely Dan‘s debut album Can’t Buy a Thrill, Nick Van Maarth, from Buddy Holly‘s backup band, The Crickets, Don Francisco, formerly of Crowfoot and Atlee and British blues man Andy Silvester, formerly of Savoy Brown. L.A.-based session musician Reinie Press, bass player on many of Neil Diamond‘s most successful recordings, contributed bass and saxophone on two tracks on the band’s 1977 debut album.
“Berkshire is their second album, relreased in 1978. The only personnel change on this album is the bass player Peter Freiberger, who took over from Andrew Silvester. A short album by today’s standards (34 minutes), the obvious highlight here is the 70’s hit ‘You’re Such A Fabulous Dancer’, which made the charts all over the world. As mentioned, the band were particularly popular down-under, the song going to #10 in the Australian singles charts and spending 20 weeks in the top 100. The album itself apparently got as high as #51 in the Aussie album charts. ‘Berkshire’ might be perceived as a one hit wonder, but there are some other goodies onboard. The smooth ballad ‘Mother Of Pearl’ drips emotion out of a dry sponge, ‘Dreaming As One’ invokes a gospel like response, while the title track is an acoustic rocker. The band chuck in a couple of coarse 70’s hard rockers such as ‘Midnight Kitchen’ and ‘I’m Here’, while ‘Rig A Marole’ identifies well with Little River Band (perhaps why they were so popular in Aussie in the first place?) plus ‘Fat Love’ is a bit of an ‘all in chant’ sing-a-long.
Tracklist
1. Rig-A-Marole – 3:10
2. Fat Love – 3:37
3. Mother Of Pearl – 3:22
4. Midnight Kitchen – 3:20
5. (You’re Such A) Fabulous Dancer – 3:52
6. Berkshire – 5:13
7. I’m Here – 3:44
8. Expire On Me – 4:05
9. Dreaming As One – 4:50
Companies, etc.
- Phonographic Copyright (p) – ABC Records, Inc.
Credits
- Bass – Peter Freiberger
- Drums – Claude Pepper
- Engineer – Herman Rojas
- Guitar, Lead Vocals – Nick Van Maarth
- Keyboards – Richard Kosinski
- Lead Vocals, Guitar – Danny Douma
- Lead Vocals, Tambourine – David Palmer
- Percussion, Vocals – Don Francisco
- Producer – Wha-Koo
- Producer, Engineer – Ken Caillat
Notes
Released: 1978
Genre: Pop Rock
Length: 34:00
Label – ABC Records
Record-facts... 