A Taste of Honey (album)

The album established A Taste of Honey as a recording group rather than merely a singles act. It was issued by Capitol Records in 1978, during the commercial expansion of disco, and combined dance-floor arrangements with smoother soul and pop material.¹ The band’s core lineup included Janice-Marie Johnson, Hazel Payne, and Perry Kibble, whose bass, guitar, keyboards, and vocal parts gave the record a more musician-centered character than its most famous single might suggest.

“Boogie Oogie Oogie” serves as the album’s central statement: an upbeat, bass-led song built around a repeated hook, layered percussion, and a celebratory vocal delivery. The album also includes “This Time I’ll Be Sweeter,” “Distant,” “World Spin,” “Disco Dancin’,” “You,” “Sky High,” and “If We Loved,” presenting a broader range than the group’s best-known hit alone.

The record’s sound rests on the meeting point between disco’s rhythmic precision and contemporary R&B songwriting. Its dance tracks emphasize a steady four-on-the-floor pulse, prominent bass, orchestral color, and tightly arranged backing vocals, while the slower songs foreground melody and romantic themes.²

Production and arrangement are associated with Fonce Mizell and Larry Mizell, whose work in funk, soul, and pop helped give the album a polished studio character. Johnson’s bass playing is especially significant: it places an instrumentalist at the center of a commercially successful disco presentation, rather than treating the rhythm section as anonymous accompaniment. That balance between instrumental craft and accessible hooks became an important part of the group’s identity.

“Boogie Oogie Oogie” transformed the album from a promising debut into a major commercial success. The single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and also performed strongly on rhythm-and-blues and dance charts. Its popularity helped the album reach a wide audience beyond specialist disco clubs.

The song won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 21st Annual Grammy Awards in 1979.³ That recognition placed A Taste of Honey among the prominent Black vocal groups working across disco, funk, and R&B at the end of the decade. The album’s continuing reputation rests less on a densely developed concept than on the strength of its hit, its clean production, and its concise snapshot of late-1970s dance music.

The album’s lesser-known dimension is its contrast between a globally familiar single and a more varied full-length program. “Boogie Oogie Oogie” is often treated as a self-contained disco classic, but the surrounding tracks reveal the group working through ballad, funk, and mid-tempo soul settings rather than repeating one formula.

A second overlooked feature is the group’s instrumental identity. Johnson was not only a vocalist but also a bassist and songwriter, while Kibble contributed as a keyboardist, guitarist, and writer; these roles helped distinguish A Taste of Honey from studio projects assembled around hired singers. The album therefore belongs both to the history of disco crossover and to the broader tradition of self-contained R&B bands. Its platinum-era success also illustrates how a dance record could move from club culture into mainstream pop without abandoning its rhythmic foundation.⁴

Disco

A dance-oriented popular music genre characterized by a steady four-on-the-floor beat, syncopated bass, orchestral textures, and club-focused production.

Crossover hit

A recording that succeeds across more than one commercial chart or audience, such as pop, rhythm and blues, and dance markets.

Four-on-the-floor

A rhythmic pattern in which the bass drum marks each quarter-note beat of a measure.

Capitol Records

An American record label founded in 1942 and later associated with major releases in popular music, rock, soul, and R&B.