Incredible Bongo Band

Highly influenced by the work of [a=Paul Buff], [a=Art Laboe] and [a=Preston Epps], The Incredible Bongo Band was a faux group (essentially just a studio project), formed by [l38969] record executive [a276428] to create theme music for the film "The Thing With Two Heads". Following the success of the project, Viner then used MGM studio downtime to record funk-influenced covers of hits, using pick-up musicians. Although the "group" never existed as a true band, a team of individuals was assembled for a publicity photo. The group's best known work is probably their percussion-centric cover of [url=http://www.discogs.com/Michael-Viners-Incredible-Bongo-Band-Apache/master/263520]"Apache"[/url], originally a worldwide hit in 1960 by [a=The Shadows]. It was later sampled heavily by hip hop artists (and, over a decade later, drum 'n' bass artists) to become one of the most popular sampled percussion breaks of all time. The [a=Art Laboe] and [a=Preston Epps] instrumental "Bongo Rock" was also covered by Viner's pick-up outfit as "Bongo Rock '73" (a minor US chart hit), along with a cover of "Let There Be Drums", much influenced by the "surf-style" treatments of [a=Paul Buff]'s drum-oriented works.