BLAZE STREET MUSIC PRESENTS - MUSIC OF A LIFETIME EPISODE #14 - THE OHIO PLAYERS 'SKINTIGHT' & THE MUSIC OF 1974

ALOHA! PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT WHAT I'M DOING 👍🏾 I APPRECIATE YOU! The year is 1974. Life in America was in a flux. Richard Nixon became the first US President forced to resign after the Watergate Scandal (and was later pardoned by President Gerald Ford). The nation was headed for a gas crisis as gas prices hit...."42 cents" per gallon??! YIKES, OMG!! GAS WAS 42 CENTS IN 1974!! Because there was a gas crisis the US government began a new speeding limit on federal interstates across the land, lowering speed limits to 55 MPH....yes, that's right, it was in 1974 that the government created and instituted the famous "55 Mile an Hour" speed limit, of which Sammy Hagar said in 1984 - I CANT DRIVE 55!! National inflation was 11/3%, the Sears Tower was the world's tallest building, can you believe that? Lastly there was the famous 'Rumble in the Jungle' boxing match held in Zinshasa, Zaire between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman for the boxing heavyweight championship of the world (Ali won the match using his famous 'rope a dope' strategy). But also in 1974, a popular Black group from Dayton, Ohio named 'The Ohio Players' released what would become their most popular album titled 'Skin Tight.' It was the band's fifth release and although they'd achieved moderate success in black radio and on the concert scene, their overall popularity and immense appeal of Skin Tight would propel the Ohio Players to superstar status. Consider that between 1973 and 1976, the Ohio Players had seven Top 40 charted hits. Skin Tight would one day hit platinum status (several times platinum); it charted 31 on the US R&B chart, and #11 on the Billboard Pop chart. My memories of hearing 'Skin Tight' during that year, that summer, stay with me. Our local black radio station in Winston-Salem, WAAA, played the Ohio Players music and had been playing it since the previous year when they came out with a song named "Funky Worm". In the hood & nationwide, the Ohio Players were fast becoming one of the "Supergroups from the 70's" that would dominate black music for years to come. I would say that for me the defining moment came one night when again, because WAAA had to "sign off" from the air after sunset, I would go over to my Dad's stereo and fire up his classic Pioneer radio tuner so I could maybe get FM reception from nearby Greensboro, NC. WQMG radio in Greensboro played soooo much good music, and although WAAA and "QMG" both played great urban (and classic rock!) music, QMG radio programmers seemed to take more chances with how they played music , when they played it. It was usually late at night and on weekends when they played "b" sides, and other cuts from albums that maybe wouldn't get play during the day, when everyone was competing for radio wave ratings. "Heaven Must Be Like This" dropped on my ears one night; immediately the low, slow drag of the groove, the violins and strings and how the melody floated above Sugarfoot's whimsical and sexy vocals, for me, that song would forever attach me to the Ohio Players music. Of course, the absurd and direct funkness of the title track, 'Skin Tight' was the song that we all danced to at the house party, and there was also Jive Turkey, Skin Tight was an album that when I think of it now, I smile and nearly cry because hearing it then was during a great time of my life, a definition that could be called "coming of age", I was 12 years old, and in the 7th grade going to "Jr" high school at Mineral Springs Jr. High School back home in Winston-Salem. Come with me on this journey as I give you some of the best music of 1974. Music of A Lifetime presents The Ohio Players, 'Skin Tight' & best music of 1974! THANKS FOR LISTENING! I APPRECIATE YOU ALL! Call my studio hotline: 808-391-5394, leave me a message! Please SUBSCRIBE to my You Tube channel: @djceejaay IG: @cjaaybeats; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carl.r.johnsonjr1;