Get funky with Chocolate Chip & Company

Soloists and duos performing music along the Grand Strand will always have their place at a wide variety of venues, especially in the tourist-heavy summer season. But year-round late nights and weekends, it’s all about the booty shakin,’ and the Grand Strand’s bands better wise up.

Chocolate Chip & Company, which has as much or more booty-shakin’ music at the ready than almost any other band in town, understands what it will take to compete. Bands are learning the hard way that the highest-paying gigs belong to the acts that fill dance floors.

Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd covers, no matter how well they’re performed, are becoming passé. It seems that it may be OK for a band to be stuck in the 1970s so long as it plays disco hits and R&B dance tunes. It doesn’t hurt to have a handful of current dance hits in your arsenal, either.

Once the singing drummer of the popular funk, soul, and R&B dance act NTranze, Tony “Chocolate Chip” Howard has been working hard to give the people what they want.

With just six shows under its belt since January, the newly formed CC & Company is just now making headway in the highly competitive local musical marketplace. The band will perform at Wild Wing Café 8:30 p.m. May 1, and again May 2 at Whiskey Beach Bar & Grill.

“We’ve been working hard, trying to keep everybody focused,” said Howard, who plays the Zendrum, a complex and difficult to master wearable electric drum instrument. He’s out front as the male lead vocalist of the six-piece act.

“I’ve been playing drums since I was 6 years old and I got some age on me, I’m not gonna lie,” he laughed. On stage Howard sings, plays the Zendrum, dances and carries on like a man half his age. He says he gets his energy from a band filled with seasoned veterans and a few young guns, including his 18-year-old daughter, vocalist Monique Howard, and 21-year-old bassist Dylan Parker. Also in the company is female lead vocalist Laniece Randall Mayfield, an award-winning performer at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem. Chris Smith (guitar), and Blake Graham (keyboards) round out the versatile act.

Howard earned his chips the hard way, by following the job offers.

“I’m originally from Greenville, N.C.,” he said. “A friend of mine, Rick Ramos, and I were in bands together and out on the road. He was in NTranze and called me about the gig. I got here in 2002 and came to join NTranze, which, at the time, was the house band at the House of Blues.”

As happens in bands, Howard and NTranze leader Grady Avery decided to part ways after some 13 years.

“People like to run their mouth,” said Howard. “Me and Grady are still pretty cool; we just had different ideas about [moving forward].”

One of the primary reasons for the split came from Howard’s desire to front a band.

“I love sitting down on a drum kit,” he said, “and have played drums for a number of bands during my career, and then I got to singing more, and that became a hassle. You’re way in back, and I needed to be out front. I’m more of an entertainer than anything else, and that got me started with trying to think of way to be out front and to play the drums and sing. When I saw the Zendrum, it blew me away. It took me full year to learn how to play, but it got me out front.”

The band’s set list includes mostly ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s dance tunes, disco, funk and soul. “We also play a little classic rock, and a country song here and there, and the current dance tunes, ‘Uptown Funk,’ and stuff like that,” said Howard. “We don’t do a floor show, but we’re very showy on stage, with some choreography. It’s all about keeping the dance floor full and the people happy.”

CC & Company has performed at Whiskey Beach, where they have a standing gig the first Saturday of every month, and at Senor Frogs at Broadway at the Beach, Jack’s Waterfront in Morehead City, N.C., and few private gigs. More dates may be found on the CC & Company Facebook page.

This story was originally published May 1, 2015 at 3:12 AM with the headline "Get funky with Chocolate Chip & Company."