History
1959–1967: Ohio Untouchables
The members first came together in Dayton, Ohio, in 1959 as the Ohio Untouchables. The group included members Robert Ward (vocals/guitar), Marshall "Rock" Jones (bass), Clarence "Satch" Satchell (saxophone/guitar), Cornelius Johnson (drums), and Ralph "Pee Wee" Middlebrooks (trumpet/trombone). They were best known at the time as a backing group for The Falcons.
Ward proved to be an unreliable leader, who would sometimes walk off the stage during gigs, forcing the group to stop playing. Eventually, the group vowed to keep playing even after he left. Ward and Jones got into a fistfight in 1964, after which the group broke up.
Ward found new backups, and the group's core members returned to Dayton. They replaced Ward with 21-year-old Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner (guitar), who would become the group's frontman, and added Greg Webster (drums). To accommodate Bonner's musical style preferences for the group ("R&B with a little flair to it") and to avoid competing with Ward, the group changed their format.
By 1967, the group had renamed themselves the Ohio Players, reflecting its members' self-perceptions as musicians and as ladies' men.
The group added two more singers, Bobby Lee Fears and Dutch Robinson and became the house band for the New York–based Compass Records. In 1970, the group disbanded temporarily.
1970–1972
After re-forming with Bonner, Satchell, Middlebrooks, Jones, Webster, trumpeter Bruce Napier, vocalist Charles Dale Allen, trombonist Marvin Pierce and vocalist/keyboardist Walter "Junie" Morrison, the group had a minor hit on the Detroit-based Westbound label with "Pain" (1971; from their second album, Pain), which reached the Top 40 of the Billboard R&B record chart. James Johnson joined the group on the following album, Pleasure (1972) as vocalist/saxophonist, replacing Charles Dale Allen. The two albums' covers featured a black-leather-bikini-clad bald model, Pat "Running Bear" Evans, who would later appear on additional Ohio Players albums, including Climax, Ecstasy, and Rattlesnake.
1972–1979: Success
James "Diamond" Williams, drummer and vocalist, replaced Webster in 1972. The next year, the band released its first successful single, "Funky Worm", which reached number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and peaked at number 15 on the Hot 100 in May 1973. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. The Ohio Players followed the single's success with the album Ecstasy later that year, but it failed to gain the same traction. In 1974, Billy Beck joined on keyboards/vocals, replacing Morrison, just as the band signed with Mercury Records. With newfound label support, the group released Skin Tight (1974), Fire (1974; with the title track "Fire" going to number 1), and Honey (1975; with another number 1 hit, "Love Rollercoaster"). All three albums topped, or nearly topped the Billboard 200. Following the recording of Honey in 1975, second guitarist/vocalist Clarence "Chet" Willis was added to the lineup, though he did not play on the group's next release Contradiction (1976). Robert "Kuumba" Jones joined on percussion in late 1977, after the release of Angel. At the same time, the group appeared as themselves in the film "Mr. Mean" and released a corresponding soundtrack album. In 1978, the group released its final album for Mercury, Jass-Ay-Lay-Dee, and were dropped from the label, as the group's last successful single had been "Who'd She Coo?" a number 1 R&B hit in August 1976. It was their only success in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number 43 on the UK Singles Chart in July 1976.
1979–1980s: Split
Early in 1979, Jones was replaced by percussionists Rubens Bassini and Azzedin Weston, with whom the band recorded Everybody Up (1979) for Arista Records. Later that year, keyboardist Billy Beck, drummer James "Diamond" Williams, and guitarist Chet Willis departed to form Shadow, which released three albums. Another collection, Orgasm, followed in 1993.
Following the 1979 split, the Ohio Players entered a period rife with lineup changes. Guitarist/frontman Bonner, bassist Jones, and horn players Middlebrooks and Pierce kept the group anchored for the 1981 releases Tenderness and Ouch!, but between 1983 and 1984, all members except for Bonner departed. In the same period, Beck returned as keyboardist and principal songwriter, and this new reconstituted lineup (featuring a new horn section) released Graduation in 1984.
1988–2020s
In 1988, The Ohio Players released a "reunion" album, titled Back. It featured, for the first time in nearly a decade, Williams, Willis, and Robert "Kuumba" Jones. This core lineup hired sidemen and remained a stable touring act until Bonner retired from the group in 1997. Jones retired in 2019, dying in 2025, and Willis died in 2025 as well. As of 2026, Beck and Williams continue to perform with the Ohio Players.
