In the wake of their hit ‘Funky Worm’ the Ohio Players quit Westbound Records and keyboard and vocal wizard Junie quit The Ohio Players. He immediately set out on a solo career that was less commercial than his erstwhile colleagues but musically intriguing. He recorded three solo albums for Westbound.
Recorded at the world-famous Ardent Studio in Memphis, "Freeze" saw Junie play every instrument from a traditional rhythm section, to a barrage of the latest synthesiser technology. The result was an avant-funk masterpiece that ranged from the sublime ’Not As Good As You Should’ to the wild ‘Granny’s Funky Rolls Royce’ which reprised the worm character and was later sampled by DJ Shadow.
Junie would later join Funkadelic, originating their biggest international hit ‘One Nation Under A Groove’, and touring the world. He died in 2017 a year after Solange and Andre 3000 from Outkast lauded him on the track ‘Junie’ from Solange’s Grammy winning album ‘A Seat At The Table’.
The album is reissued in a facsimile of its original cover, and is reissued for the first time ever.
Dean Rudland
