See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang..... by Bow Wow Wow, RCA Records, 1981. Value £100

An album featuring an unusual style of music known as Berundi Beat, based on tribal dance music originating from Central Africa.

The source of the music was a recording of a mass of drummers whose rhythmic beat was brought to prominence in the UK by bands Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow.

The origin of Berundi music was first heard on the excellent 1965 single ‘I Want Candy’ by The Strangeloves, a huge hit in the USA but failed to chart in the UK. BWW recorded their own version of the song, not featured on this album but which made the UK top ten a year later.

The band was founded by former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, it included two members from Adam and the Ants, lead singer Annabella Lwin and another unknown singer known as ‘Lieutenanant Lush’, real name George O’Dowd, his stay was short lived, he left and formed his own band naming them Culture Club, then went on to superstardom, calling himself Boy George.

The album cover photographed by Andy Earl is a direct pastiche of the 1863 painting Le De’jeuner sur L’herbe (Luncheon by the Lake).

The original painting caused outrage and so did this one, and Lwin almost had to leave the band because of adverse controversy over the photo. The album produced their first UK hit with ‘Go Wild In The Country’ which also included the original photo as a picture sleeve disc.

The image was used again on their follow up, an E.P. ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ which did feature the song ‘I Want Candy’.

In 1981, attitudes to nudity were more relaxed, but trouble broke out when it was discovered that Miss Lwin was only 15 years old and therefore underage. When her mother discovered what she had done, Annabella was whisked away to stay with an aunt who lived in a house on a remote part of Dartmoor, and the band were told they would never see her again.

RCA records threatened to sue McLaren for breach of contract, also for the signing-on fee unless he produced her, after all, they had invested heavily in the band who had a hit record, an album to promote and a tour lined up, but minus the lead singer. Eventually, it all calmed down and Annabella returned.

Footnote: The album’s full title is See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah! City All Over! Go Ape Crazy!