{"id":3999,"date":"2019-04-06T09:31:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-06T13:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3999"},"modified":"2019-04-07T10:38:28","modified_gmt":"2019-04-07T14:38:28","slug":"albert-powell-on-wild-cherry-and-al-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3999","title":{"rendered":"Albert Powell on Wild Cherry and Al Oliver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Play that funky music.<\/p>\n<p>Albert Powell has a story to tell about that song.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XK7gOC150ew\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Powell was a drummer for the rock band Wild Cherry.<\/p>\n<p>Yes the Wild Cherry with the one hit \u2013 Play that Funky Music.<\/p>\n<p>The leader of Wild Cherry was Rob Parissi. Wild Cherry was a rock band.<\/p>\n<p>And in the 1970s times were changing \u2013 disco and dance music were starting to come in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWild Cherry was playing in a club in Pittsburgh and the club owner says to Rob \u2013 music is changing, you guys are playing rock and the crowds are getting thinner and thinner,\u201d Powell told <em>Russell Mokhiber of This Week in Morgan County.<\/em> \u201cYou are going to have to play some dance music, play some funkier music. Rob and the band went to a restaurant one night, and all of a sudden, Rob Parissi started writing Play that Funky Music. He wrote it on a napkin. They recorded the song in Cleveland and the song took off. Disc jockeys started passing it around. And all of a sudden, everyone wanted this song. And that song is still on the charts as one of the top 100 songs of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Powell came along in the second life of Wild Cherry in the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was in Oklahoma at the time when Wild Cherry was auditioning for drummers,\u201d Powell said. \u201cMy brother called me and said \u2013 Wild Cherry is holding auditions for drummers. You ought to come back home and audition for the band. I called Rob Parissi and he said \u2013 I can\u2019t guarantee you a spot, but you can audition. I started practicing hours and hours on end. I polished my drum set up. I drove back to Ohio. I set up my drum set in his basement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Powell meets Rob Parissi and they spent a couple of hours together, talking, having dinner, playing music. And he got the gig. He played with Wild Cherry for the next three years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe main focus of the band at that time was to write a second hit,\u201d Powell said. \u201cWe spent a lot of time writing music, recording music, testing music out. We practiced a lot, we played out a lot and we played the original music that we were testing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But there was never a second hit after Play that Funky Music.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou never know what is going to resonate with people at one time,\u201d Powell says. \u201cA lot of it is timing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRob Parissi is a great and kind hearted person,\u201d Powell said. \u201cAnd to this day, he still has that same spirit. We are very close. I have a lot of respect and admiration for him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Powell is also good friends with former Pittsburgh Pirate Al Oliver. He\u2019s written a chapter in the book about Oliver \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Life-Hit-Dont-Strike-Out\/dp\/1939670136\">Life is a Hit, Don\u2019t Strike Out: The Al Oliver Story.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Powell met Oliver through business. Oliver is now a motivational speaker. And Powell has been helping Oliver get speaking engagements \u2013 and <a href=\"http:\/\/al-oliver.com\/\">Powell helped Oliver set up his web site. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAl is up for nomination for the Hall of Fame,\u201d Powell said. \u201cHis stats are Hall of Fame stats. Al has a great Hall of Fame character. He\u2019s a man of integrity. We\u2019re hoping this year will be his year. People are starting to recognize that not only is he a great player but a great human being.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Albert Powell moved to Morgan County, West Virginia to start a small business. He\u2019s got a construction company. His specialty is painting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople hate painting,\u201d Powell says. \u201cI love painting. That\u2019s how I got to know the people in Morgan County. You get to meet them on a day to day basis. I\u2019ve gotten to meet some really interesting people.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Play that funky music. Albert Powell has a story to tell about that song. Powell was a drummer for the rock band Wild Cherry. Yes the Wild Cherry with the one hit \u2013 Play that Funky Music. The leader of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3999\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3999"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4003,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999\/revisions\/4003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}