Ohio Players Honey CD

Personnel: Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner (vocals, guitar, harmonica, percussion), Claren "Satch" Satchell (vocals, saxophone, flute), Ralph "Pee-Wee" Middlebrooks (trumpet), Marvin Pierce (trumpet, trombone, percussion), Billy Beck (keyboards, vocals), Marshall Jones (bass), Jimmy "Diamond" Williams (vocals, drums, percussions).
Recorded and mixed at Paragon Recording Studios, Chicago.
This is a DTS CD, which features DTS 5.1 Surround Sound technology and is playable on a DTS-capable 5.1 Surround Sound system.
Personnel: Leroy "Sugar" Bonner (vocals, guitar, harmonica, percussion); Claren "Satch" Satchell (vocals, saxophone, flute); Jimmy "Diamond" Williams (vocals, drums, percussion); Marvin Pierce (trumpet, trombone, percussion); Ralph "Pee-Wee" Middlebrooks (trumpet); Billy Beck (keyboards); Marshall Jones (bass).
Recorded at Paragon Recording Studios, Chicago, Illinois.
Honey may have had the most controversial LP cover of 1975. Its erotic cover, which depicted a nude model covered in honey, was protested by feminists when it was alleged that the model had become stuck to the floor during the photo shoot. Some retailers, in fact, refused to carry it. All the controversy certainly didn't hurt the album commercially. In 1975, the Ohio Players were one of R&B's most successful acts, and were inescapable for anyone who listened to black radio at the time. The album kept the band's commercial momentum going thanks to such hard-driving funk as "Love Rollercoaster" (a song that was sampled to death by rappers in the 1980s and '90s and covered by the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1996), "Fopp," and the playfully jazz-influenced hit "Sweet Sticky Thing." While the Players' outstanding contributions to funk would continue to have an enormous impact long after the band's popularity faded, it's important to stress that only about half of Honey falls into the funk category. In fact, lead singer Sugarfoot's moving performance on the remorseful "Alone" makes one wish that the Players' ballads were discussed more often. ~ Alex Henderson
The follow-up to FIRE, the band's breakthrough smash, HONEY continued the Ohio Players' golden streak by building on the elements that made FIRE such a hit: smooth soul balladry, churning funk, and plenty of freaky, outrageous attitude (due in large part to the cartoonish lead vocals of Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner). Slow songs and balladry seem to play a larger part here, as the lush leadoff title track and the carpe diem anthem "Let's Do It" indicate. "Alone" strikes an unusually somber note for the Players in its sincerity, a mood marked by the song's comparatively spare arrangements.
But the Players thrive on pulse-quickening jams, too, and "Ain't Givin' Up No Ground," with its jittery pop-and-lock rhythms, and the stomping groove of "Fopp" rank with the band's best sweaty workouts. Of course, the irrepressible "Love Rollercoaster" may be HONEY's highlight. (Its instantly memorable three-chord riff and vocal hook have been sampled endlessly in the decades since.) Add to all this some rather explicit and provocative cover art (the photo, of a naked female model covered in honey, was the band's most controversial), and you've got another feisty, fun slab of classic funk.