Hamilton Bohannon

Born: Mar 7, 1942 in Newnan, GA

Hamilton Bohannon (born Hamilton Frederick Bohannon, March 7, 1942, Newnan, Georgia) is an American percussionist, band leader and record producer, who was one of the leading figures in 1970s disco music. After 1980 he was usually credited simply as Bohannon.
After graduating from Clark College, Atlanta and playing in local bands, he was hired as drummer in the touring band of 13-year-old Stevie Wonder. He moved to Detroit in 1967 and was employed by Motown as band leader and arranger for many of the label’s top acts. When Motown moved from Detroit in 1972, he stayed behind to form his own band. His band featured members of the Detroit band, The Fabulous Counts.

He signed with Dakar/Brunswick Records and in early 1973 released the album, Stop & Go. This was followed by five more albums for the label over the next two years, on which he perfected his formula of heavy, thudding bass accents and aggressive rhythms. Although several of his tracks were club hits, he had limited chart success – however, in 1975 "Disco Stomp" made the Top Ten in the UK, and "Foot Stompin’ Music" later that year scraped into the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B Top 40.

In 1976, Bohannon signed to Mercury Records and two years later had his biggest success with "Let’s Start The Dance." It made the R&B Top Ten and featured the singer Carolyn Crawford, whose subsequent albums Bohannon went on to produce.

Although he continued to release records through the 1980s using new vocalists Liz Lands and Altrinna Grayson, he met with diminishing success. Nevertheless, more recently his music has been widely sampled, most notably Chicago DJ/Producer Paul Johnson's 1999 hit "Get Get Down" which heavily sampled Bohannon's "Me and the Gang."

His name was mentioned in the Tom Tom Club song "Genius of Love."

Bohannon is a devout Christian and dedicated his album "Dance Your Ass Off" to "God and His Son, Jesus Christ". The album also included a disclaimer that "The word 'ass' is not used here in the sense of profanity.

Discography: