Wild Cherry - Play That Funky Music

The album version runs in the range of 4:55 to about 4:58, and I have it on the following CDs:

• Razor & Tie's Suddenly '70s (2-CD set mastered by Steve Hoffman, 1997 - best-sounding of the bunch)
• K-Tel/CBS Special Products' Seems Like Yesterday Vol. II - Mid '70s (1989 - the first CD on which the album version appeared, I think, and excellent sound)
• JCI's Only Rock 'N Roll 1975-1979 (1994; different EQ than above Seems Like Yesterday CD and also excellent sound)
• Razor & Tie's The '70s Preservation Society Presents Those Fabulous '70s (1990, very good sound)
• EMI Australia's Seventies Complete (5-CD box, 1997; sound good)
• Epic Dance's Club Epic Vol. 4 (1996; is indeed the "original album version" as printed but does not run the printed time of 5:20; sound less than stellar due to boomy EQ)
• Dominion Germany's Disco Fever - 80 megastarke Disco-hits (4-CD set, 1993; pretty bad sound)

The true 45 was (orange-label) Epic 8-50225, matrix number ZS S 161177-1H, with a printed and actual time of 3:12.

The true 45 has an edit on the downbeat at the word "die" at 1:20, and a 28-beat fade beginning on the downbeat on the word "play" at 2:56 and ending at 3:11.

The true 45 appears on exactly two CDs that I have:

• Sony Music 100 Years - Soundtrack For A Century - Pop Music: The Modern Era 1976-1999 (2-CD set, 1999; clips a lot but sound is OK)
• Time-Life's Solid Gold Soul - Make It Funky (Time-Life R838-29, 2001; mastered by Dennis Drake, but is digitally identical to above CD and therefore sounds exactly the same as above CD. Note that this CD is insanely rare - I'll be happy to post more details if anyone wants them...)

Here is how to create the true 45 edit from the album version (timings from Suddenly '70s):

Keep from 0:00-1:20.
Edit on the word "die".
Remove the 128 beats from 1:20-2:30 until the next "die".
Add a 28-beat fade beginning on the downbeat on the word "play" at 4:07 and ending at 4:21.
Your mixdown should be in the neighborhood of 3:12 (forgot to actually check this).

Back in 1976, there was a promo DJ version sent to radio with the words "white boy" removed from the chorus and replaced with a new line like "play that funky music" at each instance. The edit points and fade are exactly in the same places as the commercial 45 described above. I've never actually seen this promo 45 (I assume it's a 45?) If anyone has this promo 45, please post the matrix number, just for the sake of completeness.

Oddly enough, this no-white-boy version was the first version to appear on CD, and appears only on the following two CDs:

• Silver Eagle's Dancin' The Night Away (2-CD set, 1988, Warner Special Products OPCD-4512; a fantastic set of 40 songs and billed as the first disco CD collection ever - I love these discs)
• Priority's Mega-Hits Dance Classics Vol. 5 (1989; mastered way too loud with lots of clipping - sound much worse than the Silver Eagle CD, but this CD is far more common and may be the only place you'll ever get to hear the censored version of the song)

Finally, there is another edit that I assume was created in 1989 for a Time-Life compilation. It's a very good edit, but it uses the wrong part of the song for the first chorus.

Here is how to create the faulty edit from the album version (timings from Seems Like Yesterday):

Keep from 0:00-0:52.
Edit at the space before the word "yeah", about 1.5 beats before the downbeat at the word "dancing" at about 0:53.
Remove the 128 beats from 0:52-2:03 until the next "yeah".
Add a 20-beat fade beginning on the downbeat on the word "play" at 4:15 and ending at 4:26. Note that this fade will actually include 4 beats into the key change - this is not present on the true 45.
Your mixdown will have an edit at 0:52 and a 20-beat fade from abut 3:05 to about 3:15.

This faulty edit appears on the following CDs:

• Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies - 1976 (1989, terrific sound - this is the CD that the edit was created for)
• Rhino's Billboard Top Hits - 1976 (1991, sound nearly identical to above CD)
• Rhino's In Yo' Face Vol. 3 (1993; digitally identical to above Rhino CD)
• Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies - Seventies Dance Party - 1975-1976 (1997, different EQ than above 2 Rhino CDs)
• Razor & Tie's Super '70s (2-CD set, 1995; mastered by Steve Hoffman, sounds superb, although all of the above faulty CDs sounds pretty darn good)
• Rhino's Millennium Funk Party (1998; terrific track listings and lousy sound on all of Rhino's Millennium CDs - I avoid them when I can)

In terms of sound quality, all of the faulty edit CDs sound better than all of the album version CDs, both no-white-boy CDs, and both true 45 CDs. Too bad it's the wrong edit.

And there you go. Your results may vary!

Edited by crapfromthepast

80smusicfreak wrote: In fact, it wasn't until I bought Pat's book in '04 that I learned the non-"white boy" version was LEGIT, and had actually been created by the label back in '76! And by coincidence, just a few months ago, I actually heard the non-"white boy" version again on a radio station here in NH, while at work. In fact, a 40-something co-worker of mine actually noticed the difference as well, and asked me if I knew what was "missing" from the song,

While I was aware that an edit of this song existed, I don't recall hearing it played anywhere. Any station I worked for back in "the day" played the more common "white boy" version (if they played the song at all).
It wasn't until a few years ago that I heard it on our local oldies station.

What was so un-PC about the term "white boy"? After all, a couple years earlier Elton John got away with "h0nky". I would think that any station that might pass on the song would have done so because of the song's "funkiness" as opposed to any objectionable lyrics.

Edited by Hykker

There's another thread for this song here that oddly enough didn't turn up in my search.

From that thread, the "no white boy" version is very easy to identify - its catalog number is AE7 1107. The "white boy" catalog number is 50225.

I'll need a little time to go through Solid Gold Soul - Make It Funky. I'm going to be out of town for the holidays, and I'd like to get a scan of the artwork to Mike Callahan beforehand so I can link to the Both Sides Now discography page. Stay tuned...

That's exactly correct. For "Play That Funky Music," my notes say that the 1-CD version has volume increases of 2.5 dB, 1.5 dB, and 2 dB, in discrete blocks, compared to the 2-CD version.

I have a copy of the radio edit with "White Boy" edited
out and replaced with vocals lifted from other parts of
song. Sounds extremely choppy! If anyone evers wants to
hear a hack job on a fun record PM me!