OHIO PLAYERS
At B. B. King's Blues Club, NYC (8/17/01)
At
8:15pm, the Ohio Players started funking the New Yorkers with some "Love
Rollercoaster"....the opening scratch guitar riffs were FONKAY!!! The
Players even threw in a little bit of "O-H-I-O"! "Who'd She Coo?" was the next
FUNKY tune.....halfway through the song, the band paused so Diamond Williams
(original OP drummer) got his drums on (some FUNKY drumrolls!), followed by
some meaty basslines!!!!
The OP guys surprised the fans with a Westbound-era
hit, "Funky Worm" (written by original OP keyboardist/later P-Funker,
Junie Morrison)....the horns (sax, trumpet & trombone) were hot and
blaring, and the keyboardist provided some freakishly funky riffs (almost like
Junie)!!
"It's All
Over" was good, but "Heaven Must Be Like This" was hilarious,
with lead vocalist, Leroy"Sugarfoot" Bonner saying that if everyone
wanted to go to heaven, they would have to drop their pants!
"Heaven" featured some funky hot trumpet & sax riffs by Bird
& Joe, respectively! "Sweet Sticky Thing" featured some strong
& sticky bass riffs.....so sweet!!! "Jive Turkey" was good, but "I Want to Be Free" was so much better with
Diamond's tight drumming (just exactly like the album version)....Sugarfoot
sounded like he did about 27 years ago (it was so magical)!!
The encore performance started with a fire
marshal asking where the "fire" was. The butt-groovin', bass-driven
funk song "Fire" set the club afire!! Three male patrons in the back
danced in a frenzy as the funk scorched them to death!!
The short Ohio Players set ended at 9:25pm.
Submit suggestions or comments to david.brooks@brookenstein.com