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Wild Cherry


Steubenville, 1970-80

Wild Cherry started as a straight rock band, seemingly playing Ohio style melodic hard rock with proto power pop influences. They cut a couple records on their own, before getting signed to Terry Knight's Brown Bag label (probably some connection with them and Mom's Apple Pie) and had one 45. None of these records had much impact, and the band broke up for a while.

In 1975 or thereabouts original WC leader Rob Parissi recruited some musicians from the Pittsburgh area, and started a new Wild Cherry. This band tried to crack the rock clubs, but in the time since the original band's breakup, musical tastes, and clubs, were changing to more dance music (not quite full out Disco). Parissi wrote a song from experience called "Play that Funky Music", and in doing so, the band followed their lead and became a funk/disco/dance band.

Wild Cherry issued several more 45s and five LPs for an Epic records subsidiary. Keyboard player Mark Asvec played with Donnie Iris and wrote songs for LaFlavour.

Discography
WC's Where It's At no # - You Can Be High (But Lay Low) / Tomorrow Morning
WCII no # - Something Special On Your Mind / You Took the Sun Away (Nov '71)
W.C. III no # (CRC 2172) - Get Down / I Wrote This Song For You
Brown Bag 90001 - Show Me Your Badge / Bring Back the Fire (1972)
Brown Bag BB-XW217 - Get Down / (unknown) (1973)
The WC label is, of course, the band's own label. The records appear to be numbered in order of release. The WC III record has a Cleveland Recording Company (CRC) index number, which is not a catalog number.