If you’ve ever turned on a radio in your life you’ve no doubt heard Wild Cherry’s claim to fame “Play That Funky Music”. It’s an absolute heater of a track that describes a real-life challenges the band had in adapting to the disco era. Wild Cherry actually a hard rock cover band early in their career but struggled to book gigs as disco became more popular during the 70’s. Frontman Rob Parissi urged the band to adapt by adding dance tunes, but the band told him to eff off fearing the “disco” label. During a show at the 2001 Club in Pittsburgh, a black audience member joked, “Are you going to play some funky music, white boys?”. Parissi quickly jotted down that line down, wrote the musical instrumentation in a single day, and the rest was history. The band was certainly a one-hit wonder through and through. But damn did that one hit ever strike gold.
As an aside, “The Lady Wants Your Money” (a really solid song off this album) has shades of RHCP in a few I can’t quite put my finger on. Obviously it’s no state secret Red Hot Chili Peppers took a ton of inspiration from funk (especially their pre-Californication material) but this song just sounds like a 70’s band who time traveled to the 90’s, heard Blood Sugar Sex Magik, went back to ’76 and wrote their version of an RHCP song.
Standout Songs: “Play That Funky Music”, “The Lady Wants Your Money”, “I Feel Sanctified”
