Magic Highway

Mama Coco were a Toronto theatrical rock band whose elaborate stage productions, relentless touring schedule and mixture of rock, pop, dance music and cabaret made them a popular Canadian club attraction from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. The group featured Susan Layne on lead vocals, Preston Wynn on guitar and vocals, Peter Latini on keyboards and vocals, Ray Lowe on bass and vocals, and Gino Latini on drums and vocals.

The band was formed in Toronto around 1976 by brothers Gino and Peter Latini, who had previously played together in other groups. After several bands led by other people, the brothers decided to organize one of their own and placed a newspaper advertisement for musicians. Ray Lowe and Preston Wynn joined the lineup, followed by Susan Layne. Early versions of Mama Coco included two female lead singers, but the group eventually settled into its established five-member configuration with Layne as the principal vocalist. The name came from ‘Mama Coco’, a song recorded by Gino Vannelli.

Layne already had considerable experience when she joined the band. She had recorded a country album at the age of thirteen, worked in a rock band as a teenager and released two pop and soul singles through Periwinkle Records in 1975 and 1976. Contemporary coverage described her as a strong and supple singer who could move easily between dance music, rock and theatrical material. She also became a familiar face beyond the club circuit through an appearance as a Toronto newspaper Sunshine Girl.

Mama Coco began as a hard-working show band, performing current Top 40 material and dance music in clubs across Canada. Their repertoire ranged from disco, pop and rock to songs from the 1950s and 1960s, but the group’s ambitions extended far beyond simply reproducing familiar hits. Each performance was constructed as a visual production incorporating costumes, characters, comedy, choreography, lighting, smoke effects and audience participation.

Their most celebrated routine was a condensed floor-show interpretation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Layne appeared as Janet, Peter Latini played Brad and Preston Wynn took the stage as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, complete with fishnet stockings and a black garter belt. Audiences familiar with the film joined in by throwing toast and rice toward the stage. Layne recalled that fans threw rice frequently and that one particularly enthusiastic patron once launched an entire bag.

The Rocky Horror segment became one of Mama Coco’s most dependable attractions, though it occasionally caused trouble. During a March 1982 engagement at the Paddock in Regina, the Saskatchewan Liquor Licensing Commission asked the club to remove the routine after receiving a complaint. The objection reportedly centred on the sight of Wynn performing in a garter belt. Gino Latini pointed out that Wynn had even worn trousers during the opening performance to avoid giving offence, but the commission threatened the club’s liquor licence if the segment continued.

The rest of the production was almost as unpredictable. Their stage repertoire incorporated material inspired by Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alice Cooper and David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. One recurring character was Fred, a Purple People Eater who periodically joined the band onstage and became such an audience favourite that the members joked they could not get rid of him. Costumes, smoke bombs, rapid character changes and theatrical props helped transform an ordinary hotel lounge into something closer to a travelling rock revue.

The band took the musicianship behind the spectacle seriously. Contemporary reports described Mama Coco rehearsing as many as four days a week and spending approximately 280 days each year onstage. The dance portion of the show was continually updated, while the theatrical routines were refined through repeated performances. Critics variously described the group as live theatre, cabaret, visual spectacle and even “live video,” but the members emphasized that the presentation worked because it was supported by a capable five-piece rock band.

Mama Coco travelled extensively through Canada, playing hotel lounges, nightclubs and cabarets from Prince Edward Island to British Columbia. An advertisement places them at the Village Inn Hotel in Bradford, Ontario, in August 1978, where they were memorably promoted as “exotic dancers” appearing daily in the Hideaway Lounge. By that time they were already developing the mixture of music, costumes and theatre that became their calling card.

The touring schedule was demanding. The members sometimes spent seven months of the year away from Ontario, travelling in a five-ton truck and a van carrying the musicians, costumes, instruments and stage equipment. They played long engagements in individual cities before moving on to the next club, gradually building an audience through repeat visits. Layne estimated that approximately half of the band’s following was concentrated in western Canada, where audiences tended to clap, shout and participate more enthusiastically than the comparatively reserved crowds they encountered in Ontario.

Their reputation was reflected in reviews from across Canada and the United States. Writers described the group as a colourful collection of exhibitionists, a visual and sonic tour de force and a band with more energy than “a bag of cats.” Reports from Fargo and Bismarck noted packed houses and growing interest in the Canadian group, while Canadian coverage emphasized that Mama Coco combined theatre with musicianship more successfully than the conventional lounge bands with which they were sometimes compared.

Mama Coco released their first single, ‘Long Lonely Heartache’, backed with ‘You Know How Much I Love You’, through Tuesday Records and Axe Records in 1981. The title song was written specifically for Susan Layne by Kitchener songwriter David Lodge and produced by Greg Hambleton at the Waxworks studio in St. Jacobs, Ontario. The band had already introduced the song during live performances, where it received a strong response before being issued commercially.

The record represented an effort to establish an identity beyond the cover-band circuit. ‘Long Lonely Heartache’ received Canadian radio airplay and sold enough copies for the group to break even, but the members remained cautious about accepting an unsuitable recording agreement. They wanted to make an album, though they were unwilling to abandon a successful touring operation merely to sign with the first company that showed interest.

By 1982, Mama Coco had begun touring in the United States. Promotional material later stated that the band performed in eight states and developed sold-out audiences on both sides of the border. Their performances were built around the same combination of rock music and visual theatre that had established them in Canada, although the group increasingly emphasized original material and a harder rock direction as the decade progressed.

Early in 1984, Mama Coco completed their six-song Magic Highway mini-album at United Media in Toronto. Produced by Mel Shaw, with Greg Hambleton serving as executive producer, the record presented a more focused pop-rock and power-pop side of the band. Steve Vaughan engineered the sessions, which featured the established lineup of Layne, Wynn, Peter Latini, Lowe and Gino Latini.

The title song, ‘Magic Highway’, was written by Preston Wynn and selected as the project’s first single. The album also included ‘Touch Touch’, ‘Midnight Romeo’, ‘Walk Right In (Everybody’s Talking)’, ‘Blame It All on the Night’ and ‘Another Drop in the Ocean’. The travelling imagery of Wynn’s title song was particularly appropriate for a group whose life had been spent moving between clubs, cities and highways.

The mini-album was independently manufactured and distributed by Mama Coco and produced for Peer-Southern Productions. Contemporary promotional material announced plans for videos to be filmed in Toronto between tours, along with negotiations for American and European releases. A further United States tour was planned for the autumn of 1984, followed by proposed European dates during the winter of 1985.

Mama Coco built their reputation primarily onstage rather than through an extensive discography. Their surviving records capture only part of an act whose full impact depended upon costumes, characters, comedy, lighting and direct interaction with club audiences. For nearly a decade, the group carried an ambitious theatrical production through Canadian and American bars, lounges and nightclubs, often performing hundreds of nights each year. In an era when working bands could spend most of their lives on the road, Mama Coco turned the hotel circuit into their own travelling theatre.

-Robert Williston