Only a few posts in and you can already detect some themes at Vinyl Vogue. Quite obviously we have a sweet tooth. Like Mom’s Apple Pie, Ohio Players’ Honey is one of the most infamous record covers in history. Traces of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger, maybe a bit of a golden shower if you are quite a bit kinkier. The cover catches the eye. It is a “Sweet Sticky Thing” for sure.
Ester Cordet is the golden girl on the cover, and she was a Playboy Playmate in November 1974. Cordet in the blonde/blue eyed pages of Playboy is as revolutionary as Angela Davis and her afro. At the time, she was a flight attendant for Pacific Southwest Airlines, which is further proof that air travel has gone significantly downhill over the years. Whatever happened to luxury in the skies. Sad.
Two of the urban legends about Ester Cordet and the cover of Honey are that the honey on her skin injured her and killed her modeling career. Just like Jill Masterson (played by Shirley Eaton) was rumored to have suffered from skin suffocationduring the filming of Goldfinger. It was also rumored that Cordet was stabbed to death in the recording booth and that her screams were captured on “Love Rollercoaster”. Place the platter on the turntable and listen between 2:32 and 2:36 and a scream can be detected on the album. Casey Kasem reported that it was a murder on American Top 40 in early 1976, although he was not the first to do so. Fake news on both counts. Glad to report that Ester Cordet is 78 years old and still alive and well.
The songs of Honey have lived on as well. The Ohio Players’ seventh studio album went to number 2 on the Billboard charts in 1975, and the Ohio Players were major players in funk and R&B in the 1970s scoring seven Top 40 hits from 1973 to 1976. Honey is widely considered to be their best album. The band were obviously from Ohio (Dayton) like Mom’s Apple Pie. Looks like Ohio had sex on the brain. Who says the flyover zones are boring and conservative?
The album is the kind of stuff that should play on an 8-track in your tricked out van with a waterbed in the back. Or at a Playboy mansion party attended by Bill Cosby. “Love Rollercoaster” is the song you know, in all probability from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ version from 1996, for the Beavis and Butthead soundtrack. “Love Rollercoaster” by the Ohio Players hit number one in January 1976 and was certified gold. Goldfinger references abound. But for those with better musical tastes you might know “Fopp” from Soundgarden’s second EP released by Sub Pop in 1988. “Fopp” opens that four-song album and is a much more interesting rendition of the Ohio Player sound than the Chili Peppers offered up.
Like Mom’s Apple Pie, buy Honey for the cover art, but keep it in your collection for the music, which is a nice slice (to confuse albums) of 70’s funk and R&B and proves the “Love Rollercoaster” is a time machine.
Suggested sites and sounds:
Goldfinger’s Golden Girl: Goldfinger - "Paint...Gold paint." (1080p)
Soundgarden “Fopp”: Soundgarden - Fopp
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Love Rollercoaster”: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Love Rollercoaster [Official Music Video] - YouTube