Preston Eugene Epps (July 19, 1930 – May 9, 2019) was an American percussionist.
Epps was born in Mangum, Oklahoma. He attended grade school in Tulsa and moved as a teenager to Oakland, where he attended junior high and high school. He learned to play percussion instruments, including the bongos, while he was stationed in Okinawa during the Korean War. When his duties ended, he forsook Northern California for Southern California, sustaining himself by working odd jobs; he hung around the emerging beatnik, hippie set by frequenting coffeehouses, and pounding the skins for the appreciative heads.
Epps became fascinated with the drums in the early ’50s when he visited a San Francisco jazz spot called Bop City. He started as a percussionist but took to the bongos after he saw an African group perform in the City of Hope and they gave him his first drum. Epps was the main percussionist on “Earth Angel,” first recorded by the Penguins in 1954.
DJ Art Laboe discovered Epps at a cozy, laid-back coffeehouse and signed him to his newly founded Original Sound Records. He and Barney Kessel, Rene Hall, Earl Palmer, Red Callender and Ernie Freeman recorded “Bongo Rock” at Sunset Sound in Hollywood in April 1959. It became the first hit for Laboe’s Original Sound label, spending 13 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, getting as high as No. 14 and going gold. . Laboe released a second single, "Bongo, Bongo, Bongo," in 1960 that reached #78 the following year.
Epps first album, Bongo Bongo Bongo, dropped in 1960 on the heels of the second single and did okay. However, subsequent singles, "Bongo in the Congo,""Bongo Rocket,""Bongo Boogie,""Flamenco Bongo,""Mr. Bongo,""Bongo Shuffle," and other Bongo derivatives failed to generate any interest. Two more albums, Bongola (1961) and Surfin' Bongos (1962), went unnoticed.
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| Preston with Ray Charles & Jackie Wilson |
He also played calypso music for Maya Angelou, and that led him to tour and perform with such artists as Ray Charles, Jackie Wilson, Little Richard, Johnny Otis, Sam Cooke, Jewel Akens, Robert “Bumps” Blackwell and Clifton “Fou Fou” Eddie. He also appeared as a headliner in Las Vegas.
Epps also helped to establish and manage the West Hollywood nightclub Pandora’s Box, where he discovered Lou Rawls. Epps manned the bongos in the films Calypso Heat Wave (1957) and Girl in Gold Boots (1968) — the latter set in the world of go-go dancing — and appeared on American Bandstand and other dance shows.He also did extensive session work, including an appearance on Gypsys' debut LP for Metromedia Records.
In the early seventies he toured and recorded with Johnny Otis. In 1973, the Incredible Bongo Band recorded "Bongo Rock" and released it as a single. Epps continued to play at a variety of clubs in Southern California into the 1990s, including Monteleone's West, the Lozano Restaurant, and the Atlas Supper Club.
Epps performed until he was 85, with his final gig coming in 2014 at the Tiki Oasis in San Diego before more than 3,000 people. He died of natural causes in Los Angeles on May 9, 2019 at age 88.
(Edited from Wikipedia, The Hollywood Reporter & All Music)