B-side "Place For Us" Format 45 RPM 7" Length 4:02 | Released December 17, 1983 Genre R&B, Pop Label Polygram | |
"Joanna" is an R&B/Pop song by Kool & the Gang from their 1983 album, In the Heart. Released as a single on December 17, 1983, the song was an immediate hit peaking at #2 in the US for one week, behind "Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club. Additionally, the track reached #2 in the UK as well as #1 on the US R&B chart.
A romantic ballad similar to many of Kool & The Gang's later releases, the song features as its main subject the eponymous girl named "Joanna". In the group's music video, "Joanna" is portrayed as the current owner of a small, roadside café named "Joanna's Diner" (Filmed at the Colonial Diner in Lyndhurst, N.J. The Colonial sign can be seen briefly outside in the opening seconds of the video). Throughout the video, she serves the band members as both cook and waitress as they serenade her with the video occasionally flashing back to her younger days as a dancer at Harlem's famous Cotton Club in New York City and in love with the character portrayed by the group's lead singer, James "J.T." Taylor.
Around 2013, this song was also known for being sampled by Glue70 - Casin with some of the lyrics and the song itself being sampled in. In 2016, the song Glue70-Casin became an internet meme.