This is a jam I love to start a party with since I'm just a hip happening honkey living in a hum drum hip hop hell. It lets everybody know it time to throwdown and it's time to throwdown hard. No Shitney Houston....no shit hop....I'm gonna fuck your ears so hard you're gonna beg me to stop!

Give it up for Wild Cherry dammitt!

til U die!!!

funkpill said:

Prince been nailing this the last few years, IndigO2 performance was fuckin mental. What a guitar solo!

A summer 1976 jam

I have a "greatest hits of 76" compilation, with this on it. They edited out the "White boy" part of the song, can you believe that?

Marrk said:

shorttrini said:

Yeah, I was watching something about this on VH1 a few years ago, and they said a lot of radio stations wouldn't play it, or they'd play the edited version because some people found it offensive. Of course Wild Cherry was pissed of by this because they felt that 'white boy' made the song. I was in college at the time, and I remember asking my roommate if he was offended by the term 'white boy' and he said 'No, I am a white boy, so how is it offensive'.

things that make you go

I fucking love love this song!!!

This song makes me want to

When I saw George Clinton for the very first time in concert back in 2002, there was this dude behind me not only talking bad about Prince, saying that he was shit after "Lovesexy" and "The Black Album," but also saying that Clinton had something to do with the writing of this very song. Does anybody out there know if there's any truth to this?

Kinda played out, don't you think? It's cheap wedding music over here in the U.K
It's become Funk for those who don't like funk. Sad but true.

anc282 said:

No,I don't believe that George had anything to do with this song.

didn't think so.

"Play That Funky Music (sometimes called "Play That Funky Music White Boy") is a funk rock song written by Robert Parissi and recorded by the rock band Wild Cherry. The song hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 18, 1976. It was also the basis of a top five U.S. hit for Vanilla Ice in 1990.
The song was inspired by a black audience member who shouted, "Play some funky music, white boy" while they were playing at the 2001 Club. Lead singer Robert Parissi decided they should, and wrote down the phrase on a bar order pad. They later recorded it in Cleveland with a Disco sound. Although the band was concerned about the lyrics, Parissi insisted on keeping them.
Originally, it was planned that the song should be released on the B-side of Wild Cherry's cover of the Commodores' "I Feel Sanctified;" however, when the owners of their record label heard the song, they suggested that the B-side become the A-side. The song sold over two million copies, but was Wild Cherry's only hit.
The song listed at #73 on Billboard's Greatest Songs of All Time.[1]
Parissi said he often wrote songs in a similar style as a song he'd pick out from each new week of the Top 40. After writing songs in this manner for some time, one of the songs he wrote was Funky Music. The song that served as inspiration for the hit was Fire by Ohio Players, which features a remarkably similar bass line and rhythm guitar part."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...unky_Music

Unfortunately,Wild Cherry sealed their fate with their second album.The first single was a lame "Play That Funky Music" rip-off called "Baby Don't You Know" which covers the exact same theme as the earlier hit,only this time the lyrics weren't fun and catchy,they were horrible:


baby don't you know....that the honkeys got soul

Think this one of the most played out funk songs of all time along with Fire by the Ohio Players and Flashlight.

I loved it when I first heard it...



liked it after a while



...then heard it on commercials and in the clubs


Now I'm like

Dont mean to burst a bubble, just hear this song redone by every 70's remake band in Minneapolis, (High & Mighty and Boogie Wonderland to name select few, not to mention Prince does it couple of times)

I remember hearing this song during the summer of 76 as a little
boy. I thought it was the commodores when i first heard it. My uncle
schooled me on the commodores and i became a fan immediately after
hearing i feel sanctified. So when i heard this i was excited thinking
it was lionel singing and i was disappointed to hear it wasn't the
commodores and i was like who in the hell is wild cherry. Despite this
number i still really don't know who they are.
One hit wonder.

If I was Wild Cherry, I would have been pissed off that it was edited out also because it changes the whole meaning of the song when it's edited out. I mean, hell, the song is about a black audience telling that white boy that he better play that funky music. For a white guy to be loved and accepted by a black audience or who's music could be mistaken for someone black is the biggest compliment I can think of. That white boy's got to be cool as hell and throwing down hard for that to happen.

I heard this song for the first time last year when I bought their "Best Of" CD. I instantly loved it, especially since they proudly called themselves a "honkey" instead of "white boy" because it felt kinda like a "fuck you" to the racist rednecks out there who not only hate blacks, but also hate any white person who hangs with them. I also loved it that they were bragging...."they really didn't know that the suckers was white".

Hell, I want that song played at my funeral.

I remember the songs that were Popular around this Time...Parliament Funkadelic Tear The Roof Off ..The Sucker, Nick Gilder's Hot Child In The City, Afternoon Delight Starlight Band. Remember those 45's....

vainandy said:

True. But, you have to remember the era in which that song came out. I don't think it was as accepted then as is is now.

vainandy said:

I don't like that song.The gimmick worked the first time around,but there was no need for another song like that but I am curious to hear the rest of their second album 'Electrified Funk'.

SoulAlive said:

Hot To Trot was the single off that album

To me, "Play That Funky Music" is like "Brick House" - overplayed, cliched, and undeniably a funk classic on its own merits.

Wild Cherry also had a nice disco cut in 1979, can't remember the name right now.

FunkyGraf said:

"Try A Piece Of My Love"? That's a nice song