Joanna - Single Version

This was a huge hit for Kool & the Gang, and their second most successful song after "Celebration." It's a love song for a particular woman. In the video, Joanna is a well-liked waitress in a popular local diner who was once quite the glamor girl.

Just a few days before the album's release, Kool & the Gang performed this at New York's Radio City Music Hall, never imagining it would become the first single. The band's longtime associate Cleveland Brown recalled to Billboard: "Well the Radio City crowd got so frenzied by the chorus and horn break - people jumping up and down as if it were a hit anthem - that the group was taken by surprise. They were looking at each other, wondering what was up. But they tried it again the next night, and the next. And I remember Khalis [Bayyan aka Ronald Bell] came backstage and said, 'They went berserk! I guess it's the first single.'"

Guitarist Claydes Charles Smith brought the tune to the Gang under the title "Dear Mom." Ronald Bell suggested a few changes, including a new title that would capitalize on the "name" song trend, like Toto's hit "Rosanna" the year before.