Now this is a CHOON! I’d say it’s a banger but that word was limited to small noisy fireworks back in 1976. And this is bigger and noisier than that.

Firstly, it’s one of those riffs you never forget.

Secondly, it gets you up on your feet right away.

Thirdly, it’s got one of the all-time great guitar solos.

Fourthly, it’s the funkiest tune by a bunch of white boys since Pick Up The Pieces by AWB.

It’s got all the essential musical ingredients to get the party started – a killer riff, funky ninth chords, in-the-pocket drums, precise horns, a simple monster bass bottom end, requisite ‘70s cowbell, scat talking vocals and an undeniable sing-along chorus that manages to poke fun at itself with an insider’s wink that says: “We’re in on the joke.”

Not that everyone was. All the labels they took it to told them to take out the words “White boy.” Band founder Rob Parissi, who wrote the song, refused to compromise and eventually got his way with a small subsidiary of Epic, who were willing to take a chance on it.

The song’s lyrics are essentially all true: Wild Cherry were a rock band, already in their second incarnation in 1975, playing covers on the club circuit of Ohio and Pennsylvania, with a few of their own originals thrown into the mix.

With the advent of disco music, rock clubs were closing down and discos were opening up and audience members were heard on occasion advising the band to: “Play that funky music white boy.”

In response, Parissi set to work on the lyric, telling his bandmates to imagine Led Zeppelin performing KC & The Sunshine Band’s hit That’s The Way I Like It. Which is pretty much what this is, right down to Bryan Bassett’s guitar solo, channelling Jimmy Page’s solo on How Many More Times.

The band didn’t immediately see it as a hit, preferring their cover of The Commodores‘ equally funky tune I Feel Sanctified, but were thankfully overruled by their new label. Sadly, they never built on this, becoming another of those legendary one-hit wonders of the 1970s.