Chaino

Leon "Chaino" Johnson (1927 – July 8, 1999, pronounced: "Cha-ee-no"), the self-styled "percussion genius of Africa," was an American bongo player. After touring for several years on the Chitlin' Circuit, he released several albums and became popular with listeners of exotica music in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the promotion of his albums, a fictional biography was developed, depicting Chaino as an orphan from a lost tribe in central Africa who had been rescued by a missionary after his tribe had been massacred. Chaino was actually born in Philadelphia and raised in Chicago.

Early years Chaino was born in Philadelphia,

Exotica albums In 1958, Chaino teamed up with record producer Kirby Allan; the pair released several albums in the late 1950s. The first album released by the Chaino-Allan team was Jungle Mating Rhythms, released by Verve Records in 1958. Chaino and Allan released five additional albums: Percussion for Playboys, Jungle Echoes, Night of the Spectre, Africana, and Temptation. The albums featured Chaino playing bongos, steel drums and other percussion instruments, combined with primal chants and "strains of grunting and howling" that Allan called "sensual primitive music" or "Americanized African" music.

Seeking to capitalize on the popularity of the exotica genre, the liner notes for Chaino's albums built a mythology of Chaino as an orphan who was "the only survivor of a lost race of people from the wilds of the jungle in a remote part of central Africa where few white men have ever been." In 1962, he toured on the same bill with Miriam Makeba. He was scheduled to perform with Makeba at the Hollywood Bowl, but was unable to appear because he was in jail at the time.

Chaino's music enjoyed renewed popularity in the late 1990s as part of the revival of interest in the exotica and ultra lounge genres. In his book, Mondo Exotica, Francesco Adinolfi wrote that, in Chaino's albums, "exotica found its fullest expression: repeated, driving rhythms, savage cries, and tribal iconography intended to trigger the pagan fantasies of the listener." Another reviewer in 1999 wrote that Chaino's work consisted of "trippy tunes" that "could be heard in settings like tiki parties and porno theaters."

Discography Jungle Mating Rhythms (1958), Verve MGV-2104 Jungle Rhythms (1958), Score SLP-4027 Jungle Echoes (1958), Omega Records OSL-7 Night of the Spectre (1958), Tampa Records TP-4 Chaino Africana (1959), Dot DLP-25240 Temptation: The Exotic Sounds of Chaino (1961), Empire Recording Co. V-17 plus... The Kirby Allan Group, Percussion for Primitive Lovers (1958), Maze MAZ-B-331 The Kirby Allan Group, Percussion For Playboys, Volume 1 (1958), Maze MAZ-B-385 The Kirby Allan Group, Percussion For Playboys, Volume 2 (1958), Maze MAZ-B-387