Ohio Players

"Jive Turkey" was a major crossover moment of the 1970s, marking a period when African-American culture really began to dictate what was cool and what wasn't in the white mainstream. Beyond that, the song -- and the rest of this major label debut -- is dirty, filthy, glorious funk, the likes of which could only exist in the loose-as-a-goose atmosphere of the '70s.

Skin Tight suffers from too little substance, though its skeleton is streamlined, expertly
wrought funkiness. On a majority of the six extended cuts, the Ohio Players build some
tantalizing riffs around skimpy vocal and lyric performances. The fast numbers are buoyed
up admirably by the group's horn section, which avoids the murky Blood, Sweat & Tears
quality of some of its earlier work. The guitars and keyboards are beefy but und... More >