Ohio Players Tickets

About The Ohio Players

The Ohio Untouchables split up in 1963, when Ward left for a solo career. However the chief members of the group returned to Dayton. The ensemble added two more singers, Bobby Lee Fears and Dutch Robinson, and became the home band for New York City-based Compass Records in 1967. They subsequently became one of the well known R&B bands of the 1970s. Their song "Runnin' from the Devil" influenced the Van Halen song Runnin' With the Devil.

The group broke up again in 1970. After again reforming with a line-up including Bonner, Satchell, Middlebrooks, Jones, Webster, trumpeter Bruce Napier, trombonist Marvin Pierce, and keyboardist Walter "Junie" Morrison. The group collaborated with Mercury Records in 1974, by this time their members had changed again, with keyboardist Billy Beck instead of Morrison and Jimmy "Diamond" Williams as drummer rather than Webster. Bonner sang lead vocals on many of the band's hits. Music on those albums often centered on funky jamming presenting various instrumental solos.

"Funky Worm" was the band's first big hit, which hit #1 on the Billboard R&B Charts and made the pop Top 15 in May 1973. From1973 and 1976 the band had seven more Top 40 hits, consisting the smashes "Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster". The group's last big hit was "Who'd She Coo" a #1 R&B hit in August 1976.

The band achieved world wide popularity not only for their sound, which has been tried out and copied by innumerable R&B and hip-hop artists. Clarence Satchell died in January 1996 after he had a brain aneurysm and Ralph Middlebrooks died in November 1997. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were one of the bands heavily inspired by the Ohio Players, covering "Love Rollercoaster" for the film Beavis and Butt-head Do America.