Dayton, Ohio never looked like a music capital. It looked like a working city, which is exactly what it was. The Chrysler steering assembly plant was there. Frigidaire was there. National Cash Register was there. The steady wages those factories paid gave Black families in Dayton's west side something that mattered enormously for what came next: disposable income, and the cultural instinct to spend a piece of it on instruments for their children. What grew out of that combination, between roughly 1971 and 1985, was one of the densest concentrations of funk talent any American city has ever produced. The Ohio Players, Slave, Zapp, Lakeside, Heatwave, Sun, Faze-O, and a dozen more acts all came from the same few square miles. At one point, Dayton, Ohio had five records in the Billboard top 50 at the same time. No single mogul coordinated it. No dominant label shaped it. All of the bands emerged on separate labels, with Ohio Players on Westbound then Mercury, Lakeside on SOLAR, Slave on Cotillion, Zapp on Warner Bros, and Sun on Capitol. There was no single mogul directing the operation: the bands each earned their national status themselves, and still kept their hometown ties.
The Ohio Players are where the story begins, and the origin goes deeper than their hits. The members first came together in Dayton in 1959, as the Ohio Untouchables, with Marshall "Rock" Jones on bass, Clarence "Satch" Satchell on saxophone and guitar, and Ralph "Pee Wee" Middlebrooks on trumpet and trombone. After years of dues-paying, including a stint backing Wilson Pickett's Falcons on the road, they signed with Westbound Records in Detroit in 1971. The Westbound era is where Walter "Junie" Morrison comes in, and Morrison is one of the most undersung figures in the entire funk canon. Morrison was a producer, writer, keyboardist, and vocalist for the Ohio Players in the early 1970s, where he wrote and produced their first major hits, including "Pain," "Pleasure," "Ecstasy," and "Funky Worm." "Funky Worm" hit number one on the R&B chart and number fifteen pop in 1973, featuring Morrison's "granny" character and an uncommonly high-pitched synthesizer — a track that would later be sampled on dozens of rap songs, most commonly in West Coast G-funk productions. When the Players signed with Mercury in 1974, Morrison left and eventually landed with George Clinton's collective. In 1977, Morrison joined Parliament-Funkadelic as musical director, playing a key role during the time of their greatest popularity from 1978 through 1980, making prominent contributions to the platinum-selling Funkadelic album One Nation Under a Groove and the number one R&B single "(Not Just) Knee Deep." One man, two of the most important funk organizations in history. Dayton produced him.
At Mercury, the Ohio Players without Morrison became a different kind of force. Keyboardist Billy Beck replaced Morrison and drummer Jimmy "Diamond" Williams took over for Webster. At Mercury, the Ohio Players enjoyed their greatest success. Starting with Pain in 1972, they put together five gold or platinum studio albums in the '70s, including the platinum trilogy of Skin Tight in 1974, Fire also in 1974, and Honey in 1975. "Fire" hit number one on both the pop and R&B charts. So did "Love Rollercoaster." The classic-era lineup featured Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner on guitar and vocals, Billy Beck on keys, Clarence "Satch" Satchell on saxophone, Ralph "Pee Wee" Middlebrooks on trumpet, Marvin Pierce on trumpet, Marshall Jones on bass, and James "Diamond" Williams on drums. That horn section, those locked-in grooves, that particular Dayton fullness: it was a sound that the younger musicians in the city absorbed completely. The Ohio Players were Dayton's first major music act, and even at the peak of the band's success, the working-class city remained their home. Kids watched them rehearse in garages. The proximity was the education.
What made Dayton so fertile was a combination of economics and infrastructure that had nothing to do with the music industry. Basim Blunt, a music producer and radio host who has spent decades in the city, credits the combination of economic opportunity and a commitment to music education. "Dayton, Ohio was a working-class town — you could get a good factory job and buy a house," Blunt said. "For a lot of African Americans, what they did with the extra money was buy their kids instruments so they can take music classes at school. There began a fierce rivalry of the different high schools in Dayton: whose band was the best?" Once those students graduated, there was no shortage of stages. At its heyday, Dayton had almost 20 different venues for weekend entertainment that had live bands, not jukeboxes. That circuit was the laboratory. Slave formed in 1975 when trumpeter Steve Washington and trombonist Floyd Miller built a group from two local bands. The original lineup included Tom Lockett Jr. on saxophone, Carter Bradley on keyboards, Mark Adams on bass, and Mark "Drac" Hicks on guitar. They scored their first big hit with "Slide" in 1977 for Cotillion Records. "Slide" was a tough, brassy dancefloor anthem built on Mark Adams' relentless bass line. The track spent 20 weeks in the R&B charts. Then Steve Arrington joined in 1978, along with vocalists Starleana Young and Curt Jones and keyboardist Ray Turner, and Slave became something else entirely — a band with melody and architecture, capable of songs like "Just a Touch of Love" and "Watching You" that held the pocket without sacrificing feeling.
The scene's final and most technologically far-reaching chapter belongs to Roger Troutman and Zapp. Born in Hamilton, Ohio, Troutman was the fourth of nine children. He built his band with his brothers, and within two years, Troutman and his brothers were discovered by George Clinton, who signed the newly christened Zapp to his Uncle Jam Records label in 1979. When Uncle Jam folded, Troutman found his next advocate in Bootsy Collins. Troutman signed with Bootsy Collins under Rubber Band Music to Warner Bros. Records and released the self-titled debut Zapp, which yielded "More Bounce to the Ounce," produced by Collins, co-produced, written, composed and performed by Troutman. The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Soul Singles chart in late 1980. The debut album reached the top 20 of the Billboard 200. The talk box, which Troutman wielded on "Computer Love" and across the Zapp catalog, was a device that combines vocals with amplified instruments to make it sound like the instruments themselves are talking. It sounded like the future. It sounded, specifically, like the future that West Coast hip-hop would eventually inhabit. In a 2002 interview, Ice Cube said that seeing people dance to Zapp's "More Bounce to the Ounce" was his introduction to hip-hop. In 1995, Troutman featured alongside Dr. Dre on 2Pac's "California Love," which topped the Billboard Hot 100, sold over two million copies, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.
The deeper irony of the Dayton story is that the very economic conditions that built the scene also set a timer on it. The employment base that fueled the public sphere in Black Dayton was already going through the impact of de-industrialization by the time the heirs of the Ohio Players got signed. Groups like Zapp in the late '70s, Slave, which was really getting popular, and Lakeside with "Fantastic Voyage" by 1980 — these groups got popular just as the local situation that allowed them to hone their craft started eroding through cuts in public spending, Reaganomics, and the flight of jobs. The factories left. The venues thinned. But the records remained, and the records traveled. It was Dayton funk that gave the rap music of the '90s the chrome wheels on which it rolled, particularly the G-Funk of the West Coast. Samples from Dayton became the underpinnings for countless hip-hop hits. Steve Arrington's voice ended up on the soundtrack of Straight Outta Compton. "Funky Worm" became a cornerstone of G-funk production. The talk box Roger Troutman perfected echoed forward through two more decades of pop music. What Dayton built in those rehearsal garages and high school band rooms and west-side clubs outlasted the economy that made it possible, which is the most Dayton thing about the whole story.
