The band got the idea for this song when they played a show at a military base. It was a tough crowd, and the audience was not responding to their songs. Bass player Janice Marie Johnson admonished them from the stage: "If you're thinking that you're too cool to boogie, we've got news for you. Everyone here tonight must boogie and you are no exception to the rule."
Afterwards in her hotel room, Johnson wrote down the line, thinking it would be a good song lyric. It was: The single went on to sell over 2 million copies.
A Taste of Honey were a US R&B group formed in Los Angeles in 1972 by Janice Marie Johnson (bass/vocals), Hazel Payne (vocals/guitar), Perry Kibble (keyboards) and Donald Johnson (drums). They won the 1978 Grammy Award for Best New Artist, beating out Elvis Costello and The Cars. A Taste Of Honey had one other hit: Their cover of Kyu Sakamoto's "
Sukiyaki" went to #3 in the US.
Johnson came up with the famous bass intro when she was warming up before the recording session, unaware that she was being recorded. She wrote the song with keyboard player Perry Kibble.
Johnson felt there was a chauvinistic undercurrent to the audience's cold response to the female-fronted act. "We were knocking ourselves out but getting no reaction from the crowd," she explained in The Billboard Book Of Number One Hits. "In fact, they seemed to have contempt for two women who thought they could front a band."
Larkin Arnold, the record executive who signed the group to Capitol Records, thought the song title was too simple and tried to convince Johnson to change it. "But he also suggested that I take those African braids out of my hair because it was too ethnic and so I listened to no one," she noted in The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits.
But Johnson was grateful to Arnold for making sure the group retained the publishing rights to their big hit.
Johnson almost wrecked her 1967 Volvo when she heard "Boogie Oogie Oogie" over the airwaves for the first time. "I almost had an accident," she confirmed. "I ran a red light, I was so excited. I was trying to pull over but I didn't realize the light was red and should have stayed where I was."
Prior to the disco era of the '70s, the word boogie often referred to the boogie-woogie piano rhythm that was popular in blues tunes from the 1920s to the 1940s and influenced other musical genres. When acts like Kool And The Gang ("
Jungle Boogie"), Heatwave ("
Boogie Nights"), Earth, Wind & Fire ("
Boogie Wonderland"), and A Taste Of Honey got hold of the word, it became a popular descriptor for dancing to disco hits.
Burger King used this in a 1999 commercial advertising their 99-cent double cheeseburger. The tagline noted the deal was "perfect for when you gotta boogie." In this context, boogie was a hip way to say you had to get going, so according to the fast-food giant, swinging by BK for a cheap burger was saving on time and money.
This was used in these TV shows:
Love & Death ("The Huntress" - 2023)
Music Box ("Mr. Saturday Night" - 2021)
Pose ("Life's A Beach" - 2019)
The Deuce ("What Big Ideas" - 2018)
Scandal ("Any Questions?" - 2013)
White Heat ("The Personal Is Political" - 2012)
Everybody Hates Chris ("Everybody Hates Rejection" - 2006)
My Name Is Earl ("White Lie Christmas" - 2005)
The King Of Queens ("Road Rayge" - 1998)
WKRP In Cincinnati ("Bailey's Show" - 1978; "The Creation Of Venus" - 1982)
And these movies:
Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool (2017)
The Nice Guys (2016)
The Hooker With A Heart Of Gold (2010)
Canvas (2006)
Screwed (2000)
Mystery Men (1999)
Contact (1997)
At Close Range (1986)
