Song:Dancing In The Moonlight
Album:Hard To Find 45s on CD Vol. 12: 60s & 70s Pop Classics
The 1973 top 20 hit Dancing In The Moonlight was the only big hit for King Harvest. They had one other song chart and they only recorded two albums. They were plagued by a constantly changing lineup. It's hard to build consistency when guys are coming and going all the time. King Harvest was formed in 1970 by former Cornell University students living in Paris. Lead singer and keyboard player Dave "Doc" Robinson and keyboard player Sherman Kelly had recorded as Boffalongo in 1969. They started King Harvest with keyboard player Ron Altbach, guitarist Ed Tuleja, sax player Rod Novak and Kelly's brother Wells Kelly on drums. You'll notice there were three keyboard players in the band. Obviously that's too many and Sherman Kelly left before King Harvest recorded. But he wrote Dancing In The Moonlight and first recorded it on the Boffalongo album. Wells Kelly suggested the song but then he left and was a founding member of Orleans. Steve Cutler replaced him. King Harvest signed with Perception Records and Dancing In The Moonlight reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973. They actually recorded it in 1972 and then split up. When it became a hit, King Harvest got back together to tour. They had a new drummer and some other guys. I don't know what happened to Perception Records. It looks like they went out of business. So King Harvest was looking for a contract and befriended Mike Love and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys. King Harvest released one album on A & M in 1976 that went nowhere and then the four core members of King Harvest became part of The Beach Boys touring band. You can get Dancing In The Moonlight on this various artists comp from Eric Records. The band Toploader hit the UK top ten with a cover of Dancing In The Moonlight in 2000. I'm sure many fans don't know it was a cover. Here's a video for Dancing In The Moonlight by King Harvest.
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