1. Wild CherryPlay That Funky Music
Like a lot of other people, I had no idea this was a white group. And I think a lot of black people on the funk scene where convinced this was a black group that no one had ever heard of. This is so perfectly executed that it’s almost like a pastiche. But this really is an amazing record; it really does have the funk.
It was a massive hit when I was at school and they were one of those bands that you’d never hear of again. I’d put them in the same category as Cymande who again, were pretty obscure then but really came through afterwards. Cymande were sampled a lot during the early hip-hop period.
And The Stone Roses, whatever they may say, I’m pretty certain they took Wild Cherry’s riff and used it for ‘Fool’s Gold’. They were certainly influenced by it, anyway.
But Wild Cherry were English, which is interesting. It’s like Cymande made one of the great funk albums with their eponymous debut. Every song on that album is brilliant and every song makes you think you’ve heard it before because someone else has nicked the riff!
