OHIO PLAYERS anyone like them? did they ever do anything remotely Prog-y?

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

well DUH, almost every artist has...
but seriously, check this out... especially the last minute where they go full-on Prog

https://www.mediafire.com/?6hykrkl327k018b


I have been into Funk since the 70s but didn't buy any OP albums until the 80s and then only played them once and was not impressed. While digitally remastering albums from my LP collection I did artists of the letter O and found that the OP was erratic to say the least. They have some real gems and some real stinkers on every album but I got 66 minutes worth of pretty cool stuff from their first Capitol LP and 4 Westbound LPs. The above piece being one of the 2 or 3 Afro Prog tunes they created. The rest of the tunes are just good solid Funk.

[trurl]

OP was a great band. Gold is a terrific compilation for those who don't want to dive into the albums.

[GuitarGeek]

My oldest brother had Honey and Fire when I was little. Very first pictures I remember seeing of naked women were on those album covers.

I still haven't gotten Fire on CD, but I do have Honey and that is a great funk record. Not much "prog" on it, but so what?! There's lots of great grooves and that's what R&B music is all about.

And I still love that ridiculous urban legend about Love Rollercoaster, especially the version that has it that the girl murdered during the recording session is the model on the album cover. Apparently, according to the band members themselves, she really did get stuck to the plexiglass during the photo session, and they had to pour warm water over her to get her loose. From what I gather, she was unharmed, but the band still had to pay a settlement to her for psychological harm or whatever.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

OP was a great band. Gold is a terrific compilation for those who don't want to dive into the albums.

I haven't dug into the Mercury albums yet (from where all of the tunes from Gold would come) but I've got the sense that there is a lot less experimental stuff on those and more straight, killer Funk grooves. The 4 Westbound albums had a lot of experimental stuff, most of it doesn't work for me. I would say if anyone wanted a Westbound album, the one that's most enjoyable is Ecstasy. Pain is the most noodly. Pleasure is pretty solid and Climax is a completest thing released after they signed to Mercury. Climax has 2 very solid pieces not available anywhere else. Here's one of those:

I love the way this morphs... gotta stick with it
https://www.mediafire.com/?t9byqbihjx11xa1

[Vic2012]

Never got any of their albums. Always liked the song Fire. Rollercoaster is cool too. Really, that's about all I've ever heard by them.

[bRETT]

And I still love that ridiculous urban legend about Love Rollercoaster, especially the version that has it that the girl murdered during the recording session is the model on the album cover. .

They were pulling someone's leg. It was actually the keyboard player screaming.

[spellbound]

A great funk/soul band. Not prog. I have Skin Tight, Fire, Honey (these three being their prime albums, IMO), and Jass-Ay-Lay-Dee, all from the 1970s.

[Vic2012]

I remember "Skin Tight" now. What were they singing about?

[trurl]

I haven't dug into the Mercury albums yet (from where all of the tunes from Gold would come) but I've got the sense that there is a lot less experimental stuff on those and more straight, killer Funk grooves.

That would be correct

[spacefreak]

I like their funk tunes. Their slower ones do not work for me. "Funky Worm" is an all times classic of the style.

[jgprogbear]

Cool band. Always enjoyed them back in the day. Maybe its time to give another listen.

[klothos]

Love Ohio Players........if you are looking for other Proggy Funk:

There are a lot of funk bands that have had Prog-gy moments (besides Parliament/Funkadelic, which is prog-funk IMHO).

Cymande and Mandrill are both very proggy funk bands. So was Herbie Hancock.

Slave, Skyy, Sun, Fatback, Cameo,and Earth Wind & Fire all have sporadic moments of Prog throughout their discographies, ya just have to sort through them......Many bands were very Proggy early on in their histories if they had their inception in the early 70s. For example, Bloodstone, Ohio Players (as youve mentioned) some Early Commodores and some Early Kool & The Gang have material that borders on being "Kraut-funk", for lack of better terms, and sound nothing like the hit-makers they later evolved to be

On a sidenote, there is a new-ish band called Afroskull that I really like

[ItalProgRules]

When it comes to Prog-Funk, nothing beats the early Funkadelic albums on Westbound Records.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

The OP only ever did a few tunes with a Prog touch. If you haven't already listened to the two tunes I posted above, check them out.
The first one is just a slow Funk jam until the last minute or so where they go full-on Prog
The second one I posted morphs from a Ballad into Funk then into Jazz. Very Prog like

but in general, OP never did enough Prog to be considered Afro Prog. I consider them a good Funk band.
There aren't many full-on Afro Prog bands... perhaps as many bands as there are in the style of Canterbury Prog, if that many.

[GuitarGeek]

They were pulling someone's leg. It was actually the keyboard player screaming.

Yes, I'm well aware that it's Billy Beck doing the scream. But if you'll recall, at the time, the rumor was that a woman was murdered in the studio while the song was being recorded. That wasn't the band "pulling someone's leg" that was just one of those weird urban legends that appeared out of nowhere.

Whenever they were asked about it at the time, they'd refuse to comment because it was actually selling records for them, and they didn't want to dispel the legend, as it were. I saw a program once where they interviewed a guy who played in a later version of the Ohio Players, in the 80's, and he said even then, when he asked the older guys in the group, they wouldn't talk about it.

But as I understand it, the model on the Honey album cover really did get stuck to the plexiglass, and they really did have to pour hot water all over her body to undo the bonding. But one version of the rumor had it that she was badly scarred when the plexiglass was pulled from her skin. Later, she stormed into the stud control room, supposedly while the band was recording Lover Rollercoaster, and their manager killed her right then and there.

Of course, to buy any version of the story at all, you have to believe that recording studios and control rooms are not soundproof, and therefore a sound heard in the control room or out in the corridor or whatever will bleed over into the microphones in the studio while the band is recording. And of course that's not the case. So whether or not it's Billy Beck doing the scream, the whole story is rendered invalid by the realities of professional recording studios.

And if you think about it, as urban legends go, that one's pretty mild, and as was said, it apparently helped shift units, because people wanted to the scream.

They say Frank Zappa got tired of beign asked about the gross out contest that never happened. I wonder if Sugarfoot, Rock Jones, Pee Wee, Satch, or any of the other Ohio Players ever got tired of being asked about that scream.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

That story musta been circulated before I started collecting the OP albums. I do not recall ever hearing it

[GuitarGeek]

That story musta been circulated before I started collecting the OP albums. I do not recall ever hearing it

This was back in the mid 70's, when Honey first came out. I first remember hearing the story in the mid 90's, when a radio show i used to listen to discussed it. I've since seen at least two different TV programs devote about 5 minutes of air time each to talking about the urban legend, and there's even a couple paragraphs on it on the Love Rollercoaster Wiki page:

<<<The song has a persistent urban legend. During an instrumental portion of the song, a high-pitched scream is heard (between 1:24 and 1:28 on the single version, or between 2:32 and 2:36 on the album version); this was Billy Beck, but according to the most common legend, it was the voice of an individual being murdered live while the tape was rolling. The "victim's" identity varies greatly depending on the version. The supposed sources of the scream have included an individual who was killed at some prior time, her scream inexplicably recorded and looped into the track. Another version says that a girl has fallen off the roller coaster and was screaming to her death. Another version tells of a rabbit being killed outside the studio whose scream was accidentally picked up by the band's recording equipment — highly implausible, since professional recording studios are soundproof. The most widespread version of the myth, however, tells that Ester Cordet, who appeared nude on the Honey album cover, had been badly burned by the super-heated honey used for the photo shoot, which occurred simultaneous with the recording session, and her agonized screams were inadvertently captured on tape. A further variation had Cordet suffering permanent disfigurement due to the burns; she interrupted the band's recording session, threatening to sue, at which point the band's manager stabbed her to death in the control room. The latter scenario, however, is impossible as Ester Cordet is still alive.

Casey Kasem reported the urban myth of the woman being killed in the studio recording booth on his radio show, American Top 40, when the song was on the charts in 1976.

Jimmy "Diamond" Williams explained that the scream was nothing eerie or disturbing:
“ There is a part in the song where there's a breakdown. It's guitars and it's right before the second verse and Billy Beck does one of those inhaling-type screeches like Minnie Riperton did to reach her high note or Mariah Carey does to go octaves above. The DJ made this crack and it swept the country. People were asking us, "Did you kill this girl in the studio?" The band took a vow of silence because you sell more records that way.>>>

[progholio]

Ok, this ain't the Ohio Players but i find it remotely proggy from Shuggie Otis



another very swell version by The Brothers Johnson

[Vic2012]

NP: Skin Tight

I didn't know it was 7 minutes long. Killer .

[Trane]

Never got any of their albums. Always liked the song Fire. Rollercoaster is cool too. Really, that's about all I've ever heard by them.

Can't say I heard more about them than you.

I had lumped them in the same bag as K&tG, EW&F, Commodores, et al.... which basically means that I missed them in the 70's , for I thought thet were a "disco sucks" thing... like those other bands, I later discovered they all did some killer funk stuff during the late 80's and 90's

Never really wanted to own anything about those bands, though... My type of funk was more in the WAr and Funkadelic mould

[Vic2012]

I saw an Ohio Players documentary on Youtube a couple days ago (because of this thread). Bootsy Collins worships the OP. They were better than Cool & The Gang or EWAF. Not better than James Brown or Tower Of Power though.