Ohio Players

The Ohio Players’ horn-driven grooves and risqué album sleeves propelled funk music from a regionally rich novelty to a commercially viable art form. Formed in Dayton as the Ohio Untouchables in 1959, the band first served as the backing band for the vocal group The Falcons before regrouping as the Ohio Players. With guitar phenom Leroy “Sugarfoot” Bonner and funk prodigy Walter “Junie” Morrison in the fold, the band signed to Westbound Records in 1971. Inspired by funk forefather James Brown’s “on-the-one” rhythm philosophy, the oddball vocal stylings of Junie (who promptly left the band for a solo career, and later joined Parliament-Funkadelic) powered the band’s eclectic funk sound across five albums for the label between 1971 and 1974. But they hit commercial pay dirt in the mid-’70s on the Mercury label. From 1974’s Skin Tight to 1977’s Angel, the band fashioned Sugarfoot’s distinctive yowling vocals around sleek, deliciously street funk grooves that paved the way for Dayton’s future funk acts—from Slave to Zapp & Roger—while being immortalised through countless samples in R&B and hip-hop today.