Artist · chart history
Wild Cherry
Band Mingo Junction United States Active 1970–1979 1970s US funk rock band, known for “Play That Funky Music”
Wild Cherry formed in 1970 in Mingo Junction, United States and was active until 1979. Wild Cherry has 5 chart appearances on 5 radio countdowns from 4 stations on RockLists, spanning 1990–2025. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Play That Funky Music”, which appears on 4 lists with a best position of #32. The station that charted Wild Cherry most often is WFPK (Louisville, KY), with 2 appearances.
Wild Cherry came out of Mingo Junction, Ohio, in 1970, a rock band with funk in its bones, and in 1976 they cashed in big. Their self-titled debut album went all the way to number five on the Billboard 200, riding on "Play That Funky Music", a strutting slab of funk rock that went to the top of the Hot 100 and into the top 10 in a string of countries overseas. It's all greasy guitar hook and a groove you can't shake, and it got them a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.
The trouble was following it. The next singles still made the Billboard charts, and so did Electrified Funk (1977) and I Love My Music (1978), but nothing came close to that first rush. The lineup kept shifting over the band's nine years around its one fixture, Rob Parissi, with players including Bryan Bassett, Mark Avsec, Allen Wentz and drummer Ronald Beitle on the roll call, and Epic Records as the label.
After a fourth album, Only the Wild Survive, in 1979, they called it quits. History files them as a one-hit wonder, but what a hit: the single and the debut album both went platinum.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Wild Cherry on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Play That Funky Music | 4 | #32 | – | – | |
| 2 | Play That Funky Music White Boy | 1 | #709 | – | – |
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