Disco
(Weird World)
blowfly.com
It was a matter of time before we got to some real pioneer work within these digital pages of BFTP. Some call him a funk demon, a sex pariah, a freak, a bug that oughta be squashed, his mama calls him Clarence, the original dirty rapper; we call him Blowfly, and he's cemented himself firmly in the consciousness of South Florida's music scene since the late 1960s. As writer, producer, and A&R scout for Miami's TK Productions, Clarence Reid's alter ego, Blowfly, was the late-night parody-making machine that eventually got committed to tape and released unto the world.
These are party discs in the vein of Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx but with some righteous musicianship backing him up. In 1976, against the boss' wishes, Blowfly rounded up local outfit Foxy and ran through their nightly set of disco hits with his dirty twist on them. From the cover photograph of '70s titties to the overuse of the words prick and pussy, this was a record you'd drop when your real friends were left at the party in the wee hours. Undeniably funny, this is still an album you can shake your ass to.
Sued by songwriter Stanley Adams for his version of "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes," Blowfly's "What a Difference a Lay Makes" is segued so well by the opener, "Shake Your Ass," that you almost wish you had a time machine to get Adams to grow a sense of humor. From a dark, funky alley comes "Spread Your Cheeks," and you believe his ghetto sprechgesang of having the Vaseline. It might hurt for a little while, but the pain will fade.
"Bad Fuck" and "Suck It" provide the middle groove. Even KC and the Sunshine Band, clients of his day-job prowess, aren't above the law with "Freak Out." The album closes with his fellatio call to arms via the Isley Brothers' "Fight the Power" into "Kiss It All Around."
This LP was originally released in 1977 by TK's quiet, P.O. box-driven label Weird World Records, and it had the catalog number WW-2028. House of Funk Inc. released it as a compact disc in the '90s, and this review pertains to that edition. Foxy would have a mainstream hit with their original track "Get Off" (not featured here). Ray Martinez engineered the album in TK Studios.
