Not sure how many people here would be familiar with The Ohio Players, didn’t seem many people deeply familiar with funk when Maurice White died. Ohio Players were a funk band mostly known for their stuff in the 70s, as is often the case, though a fair bit of good 80s funk too,. Did a lot of good stuff, worked with George Clinton too. Some of my favorite funk jams are by them. Jones was 75 and had been sick for a while so it’s not a huge surprise. Still sad.
You gotta have heard Fire or Love Rollercoaster SOMEWHERE, those things were HUGE hits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y47G-Wa4qfs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBkVV9xxCHE
God the bass on Roller coaster is so funkin’ sick. Hell, fire’s is amazing too. Listen to that shit with the bass turned up on your subwoofer.
Gotdamn! What is it with celebrities croaking in 2016?
Tons of celebs croak every year, it just seems like this year it’s music that’s dying at an exceptional rate. Actors have had it pretty rough, with people like George Kennedy, Alan Young, Gary Shandling, Alan Rickman. However the music deaths are INSANE, giants of men. People whose influence were incredibly deep to the cultural landscape and musical world. Prince and Bowie alone are ridiculous, but losing other legends like Maurice White, Lemmy, Merle Haggard, George Martin, Lonnie Mack too? Then you add in Sinatra Jr, Natalie Cole, Glenn Frey, Blowfly AKA Clarence Reid(Google him), Keith Emerson, Nick Menza, Phife Dawg, Vanity, Paul Kanter, Marshall Jones and Jimmy Van Zant all on top of that. Hell, I’m probably missing some.