Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye ... He played with the older kids. Disco pioneer drummer Hamilton Bohannon died at the age of 78 on Friday, his relatives told the Newnan Times-Herald . The causes of death of the former star of the record company Motown have not been specified.
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Born in Georgia in 1942, he started his career in Atlanta behind the drums playing with local groups. There, he shared the stage with a certain Jimi Hendrix before being hired as a touring musician for a little thirteen-year-old prodigy from the Motown label named Stevie Wonder.
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Hamilton Bohannon rose in rank and was named leader of the backing band of Motown, Bohannon & The Motown Sound a few years later. The collective arranges the pieces of the stars of the label and accompanies them during their tours. Among them, Stevie Wonder, but also Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Diana Ross and The Supremes or Smokey Robinson. "I've never been to heaven, but it must look like that," he remembered those years.
Bohannon signed with the Dakar label in 1973 and started a solo career with the Stop and Go record . An album recorded in only thirteen hours, according to legend. In fifteen years, the musician has had some success in the disco world with his songs South African Man , Foot Stompin 'Music and Disco Stomp . But his most famous song remains his collaboration with Carolyn Crawford, Let's Start The Dance - a title which is also very successful in its version remixed especially for dance floors.
After producing other artists with his Phase II Records label and contributing to the emergence of house music, he released his latest album, It's Time To Jam in 1990.
Throughout his career, Bohannon helped popularize the "Four-on-the-Floor", rhythmic signature very popular with disco musicians. Samples of his songs have been used by rappers like Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Craig Mack. Recently, we heard his song Save Their Soul in the movie The Way to Justice with Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan.
