Ohio Players – Fire

Ohio Players was probably my first real exposure to funk. In 1973, just as I was beginning to be music-crazy, they had an infectious hit single, “Funky Worm,” that was like nothing I had heard before in my admittedly short listening life. Despite having hit #15 on the US charts, and apparently being a hugely sampled song in hiphop, I mostly get blank looks when I tell people about “Funky Worm.” But it was absolutely among the very first singles I ever bought.

Ohio Players Fire front cover
Ohio Players Fire front cover

Then just a year or so later, their career-defining hit “Fire” came out. It was ubiquitous, it was funky, it WAS 1974. And I’m sure I had the single of that as well (though, like a lot of people, I abused my 45s and at some point lost a bunch of them and didn’t even care).

But what I didn’t buy was the album “Fire.” Or any Ohio Players albums. And the reason was their covers. There was no way for 14-year-old me to buy an album with a cover that sexy and bring it home – and this would be, arguably, the least salacious of their covers.

Nothing against it – sex sells, women are beautiful, it was the ’70s, etc. But a cover that essentially looked like a Playboy magazine cover? I could not have brought that into my house. …. I’m still waiting for my mother to have “the talk” with me. I got into trouble for playing an Elton John song called “Jamaica Jerk-Off” (which I lied my way out of) – this was not gonna fly.

So, I never owned this or any Ohio Players until just a few years ago, when I realized it was insane that I didn’t own “Fire,” a song that was so emblamatic. So I picked this up at a local record store, and it helped to kickstart my late-in-life extreme expansion into the world of funk.

Ohio Players Fire back cover
Ohio Players Fire back cover
Ohio Players Fire gatefold left
Ohio Players Fire gatefold left
Ohio Players Fire gatefold right
Ohio Players Fire gatefold right
Get Down With The Philly Sound sleeve
The sleeve in my copy of Fire is a Philadelphia International promo sleeve, “Get down with the Philly Sound,” but that’s not the original, since Ohio Players were on Mercury.
Ohio Players Mercury label
Ohio Players Mercury label

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