Club work was getting scarce if you didn’t play dance music, so weĭecided to change. “’Play That Funky Music’ is pretty autobiographical and quite
In an in-depth and wide-ranging Facebook interview with Danny Gochnour (guitarist for Pittsburgh’s Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers) about the ‘70s Pittsburgh music scene, rhythm guitarist Bryan Bassett revealed key details of the song’s clever hybrid of rock, funk and disco. And I wrote the last verse in the car on the way home.” I had the first two verses and chorus written by the time we hit the stage. “I finally told the guys ‘how about if Led Zeppelin did “That’s The Way I Like It” (KC & The Sunshine Band)?’ So I walked out and I wrote down exactly what was going on with us. And we were a hard-working band playing four, five, six nights a week.”ĭuring a break at the band’s steady gig, Parissi told the band he couldn’t book them anymore unless they added dance music to their set.
“Rock clubs were closing down and discos were opening up.
Wild cherry rag player piano tv#
“We were a rock band and disco music was coming in,” he told Harry Connick Jr in a 2017 appearance on Connick’s TV show Harry. Band leader/founder Rob Parissi, worried about the influx of disco music moving in and taking over the club scene, realized a change, or at least an adaptation, was needed. Wild Cherry was a top-level rock cover band on their second incarnation in 1975, playing the circuit in the Ohio and Pennsylvania region, with their own originals thrown into the mix. Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” has all the essential musical ingredients to get the party started- a killer riff, funky ninth chords, in-the-pocket drums, precise horns, a simple monster bass bottom end, requisite ‘70s cowbell, scat talking vocals and an undeniable sing-along chorus that manages to poke fun at itself with an insider’s ‘we’re in on the joke’ wink.Ī mixture of the Ohio Players “Fire,” Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and a whole lot of Eastern Ohio/Pittsburgh, PA white boy grease, “Play That Funky Music” was essentially written out of sheer desperation.
It’s one of a handful of intro guitar riffs that makes people hoot and holler and shake it on down to the dance floor.
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