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Notable people · Music · Entertainment · African American History

Ohio Players

Dayton funk band, formed in 1959 as the Ohio Untouchables, whose No. 1 hits 'Fire' (1975) and 'Love Rollercoaster' (1976) made Dayton a centre of 1970s funk.

Formed 1959, Dayton (formed as the Ohio Untouchables)

Ohio Players
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Formed
1959, Dayton (formed as the Ohio Untouchables) (Montgomery County) source
Also known as
Ohio Untouchables, The Ohio Untouchables
Known as
Music, Entertainment, African American History

The story

The Ohio Players began in Dayton in 1959 as the Ohio Untouchables, led by guitarist Robert Ward with bassist Marshall 'Rock' Jones, saxophonist Clarence 'Satch' Satchell, drummer Cornelius Johnson and horn player Ralph 'Pee Wee' Middlebrooks, and backed the Falcons on the 1962 R&B hit 'I Found a Love'. After Ward left in the mid-1960s, guitarist and singer Leroy 'Sugarfoot' Bonner became the frontman, drummer Greg Webster joined, and by 1967 the group had renamed itself the Ohio Players. On Westbound Records they scored with 'Pain' (1971) and 'Funky Worm' (1973), and after moving to Mercury in 1974 they reached No. 1 on both the pop and R&B charts with 'Fire' and 'Love Rollercoaster', with keyboardist Billy Beck, drummer James 'Diamond' Williams and trumpeter Marvin Pierce in the classic line-up. Their success encouraged a wave of Dayton funk bands, among them Slave, Lakeside, Sun and Zapp. Reconfigured line-ups kept recording into the 1990s; the band was inducted into the inaugural class of the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 2013, and Dayton named a stretch of Hillcrest Avenue Ohio Players Way in 2021.

Ohio ties

  • Dayton (1959-present)
    where the band formed as the Ohio Untouchables and was based; hometown of members including Marshall Jones Montgomery County · source
  • Dayton (West Hillcrest Avenue and Kensington Drive) (1970s; named 2021)
    the band owned a building and practised near this intersection, now designated Ohio Players Way Montgomery County · source
  • Cleveland (Cleveland State University) (2013)
    inducted into the inaugural class of the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame at Waetjen Auditorium Cuyahoga County · source
  • Dayton (Funk Music Hall of Fame & Exhibition Center) (2017-present)
    museum of funk that features the Ohio Players and counts them among Dayton's founding funk acts Montgomery County · source

Timeline

  1. 1959 Guitarist Robert Ward, who had moved from Georgia to live with an aunt in Dayton, formed the Ohio Untouchables with Marshall Jones, Clarence Satchell, Cornelius Johnson and Ralph Middlebrooks. source
  2. 1962 Signed by Detroit producer Robert West to his LuPine label, the Untouchables backed the Falcons on 'I Found a Love', an R&B hit that launched Wilson Pickett. source
  3. 1964 After a fistfight between Ward and Jones the group broke up; the core members regrouped in Dayton with 21-year-old Leroy 'Sugarfoot' Bonner as frontman and Greg Webster on drums. source
  4. 1967 Renamed themselves the Ohio Players, added singers Bobby Lee Fears, Dutch Robinson and Helena Ferguson Kilpatrick, and became the house band for Compass Records of New York. source
  5. 1970 Disbanded again, then re-formed with Bonner, Satchell, Middlebrooks, Jones, Webster, Bruce Napier, Charles Dale Allen, Marvin Pierce and keyboardist Walter 'Junie' Morrison. source
  6. 1971 'Pain' on Detroit's Westbound label reached the Billboard R&B top 40. source
  7. 1973 'Funky Worm' reached No. 1 on the R&B chart and No. 15 on the Hot 100 in May and sold over a million copies. source
  8. 1974 Signed with Mercury Records, with Billy Beck on keyboards and James 'Diamond' Williams on drums. source
  9. 1975 'Fire' reached No. 1 on the R&B and pop charts in February and became another million-seller. source
  10. 1976 'Love Rollercoaster', from the album Honey, reached No. 1 on both the R&B and pop charts in January and was certified gold. source
  11. 1976 'Who'd She Coo?' became their last No. 1 R&B hit in August and their only UK chart single. source
  12. 1979 Three members left to form the band Shadow; reconfigured Ohio Players recorded through the 1980s, with a minor hit in 'Sweat' (1988). source
  13. 2013 Inducted on 17 August into the inaugural class of the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University; Sugarfoot Bonner had died that January. source
  14. 2016 Founding bassist Marshall 'Rock' Jones, a Dayton native, died in Houston on 27 May, aged 75, while pressing for a Dayton street to be named for the band. source
  15. 2017 The Funk Music Hall of Fame & Exhibition Center opened in Dayton, featuring the Ohio Players among the city's funk bands. source
  16. 2021 On 2 April Dayton designated a stretch of West Hillcrest Avenue and Kensington Drive, near the building where the band had practised, as Ohio Players Way. source
  17. 2022 Original drummer and former leader Greg Webster, the last surviving member of the original group, died in January. source

Stories

The guitarist who came to live with his aunt

The band's founder was not from Ohio. Robert Ward, born in rural Georgia in 1938, had a band called the Brassettes in Florida that opened for James Brown, but they made so little money that he sold his guitar and moved to Dayton to live with his aunt. In Dayton he bought a Fender Telecaster and a Magnatone amplifier and worked out the vibrato-soaked sound that became his trademark, and his new band, the Ohio Untouchables, built a following around the region. Ward left the group in the mid-1960s, and it grew into the Ohio Players without him. Years later he had dropped out of music so completely that rumours said he was dead; in 1990 he walked into Fretware Guitars in Dayton, and the store's owner put him in touch with a record label that had spent two years looking for him.

Source

The scream in 'Love Rollercoaster'

About a minute and a half into the single of 'Love Rollercoaster' there is a high scream, and by early 1976 a rumour had spread that it was a woman being murdered in the studio. The story seems to have started with an offhand remark by a disc jockey in Berkeley, California, and spread after Casey Kasem repeated it on American Top 40. The most common version named the model on the cover of the album Honey as the victim. Drummer James 'Diamond' Williams later explained that the scream was keyboardist Billy Beck reaching for a very high note, and that the band kept quiet about it at the time because the rumour sold records.

Source

Ohio Players Way

On 2 April 2021 a crowd gathered in Dayton with the surviving members of the band and the families of those who had died to rename a stretch of West Hillcrest Avenue and Kensington Drive as Ohio Players Way. The band had owned a building and practised near that intersection. Bassist Marshall Jones, who had been with the group since it started as the Ohio Untouchables in 1959, had pushed for a street to be named while some members were still alive, but he died in 2016, five years before the dedication. Band members told WHIO that being honoured in their hometown meant everything to them.

Source

Named for Ohio Players

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

1

Ohio places

Where Ohio Players was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Ohio Players, and what the record shows.

Often said The scream in 'Love Rollercoaster' is a woman being murdered in the studio, often said to be the model on the cover of Honey.

The record The rumour grew from a disc jockey's remark and was spread by American Top 40. Drummer James 'Diamond' Williams said the scream was keyboardist Billy Beck hitting a high note, and the band kept silent because the story sold records. source

Often said The Ohio Players started under that name.

The record The band formed in Dayton in 1959 as the Ohio Untouchables and took the name Ohio Players only around 1967, after founder Robert Ward had left. source

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

  • The Ohio Players c. 1975
    The Ohio Players c. 1975
    Public domain

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.

Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-15.

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