Incredible Bongo Band

Unlikely godfathers of hip-hop, the Incredible Bongo Band was a revolving-door group of studio musicians led by bongo player Michael Viner (who by day worked as an executive at the MGM label and ran its short-lived Pride subsidiary), MGM executive Mike Curb and arranger Perry Botkin, Jr. Percussion was supplied by Bobby Hall, Jim Gordon and King Erisson. Viner had worked on Bobby Kennedy's ill-fated presidential campaign before entering the music industry as a talent scout and A&R man in Los Angeles. By the early '70s, he was successful enough to start his pet side project th...