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Jody and the Individuals


Springfield, 1974

Joe "Jody" Parsley has been an aspiring songwriter who worked a factory job by day but was always playing around with music. His house in Springfield was a place for musicians to jam and woodshed with him.

1974 would go down as the year of the streaker, a fad that drove people to disrobe and run in public places. Ray Stevens had a huge hit with a song about it. Jody came up with his own streaking song, and worked it out some some of the musicians from the house jams. Sometime in the summer of 1974 they went to Musicol and recorded "Soul Streak" and the anti drug song "Hooked". The sounds are right out the pyschedelic funk sound of early Funkadelic, or more local bands like Stone Coal White.  The players on the record included Ralph Aikens on guitar, Melvin Jordan on bass, Charlie Borden on drums, and Fred Borden on congas, The Bordens were brothers, and Jody's nephews. At the time of the recording, Jody was 46 at the time while the other musicians were about half Jody's age.

The group never played live, or recorded anything else together. The 1000 copies of the 45 were mostly given away or sent to radio stations or people in the music business but nothing came of it.

As of 2012, Jody was still living in Springfield and the other members were still alive. In the late 1970s, Ralph Aikens played in Faze-O.

Discography:
Soul Streak / Hooked - Musicol 101911/2, 1974