Skin Tight cover

Skin Tight

Released

The Ohio Players were much more than their hit singles and sexy album cover photos, and this album, their first of two released in 1974, proves it. While “Skin Tight” is a monster groove, with a stinging horn line, the album version runs nearly eight minutes and makes room for extended solos. Once you get past the jokey title, “Streakin’ Cheek To Cheek” is a monster jazz-funk jam that showcases Billy Beck’s keyboard wizardry; “It’s Your Night/Words Of Love” is an eight-minute soul-gospel ballad with some psychedelic warping and panning added to the vocals, to captivating effect; and the closing “Is Anybody Gonna Be Saved?” takes them into Funkadelic territory, laying apocalyptic visions and social criticism over a monster groove.

Phil Freeman

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