I'm Jake Barshick.
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Play That Funky Music would have never sounded the way it did, nor would we have ever been introduced to the record company that finally signed us if it weren't for the owner/engineer of Cleveland Recording, Ken Hamann. Jimmy Fox, drummer from the James Gang was at the studio to pick up some tapes the day I was singing the lead and Ken Hamann ran out and yanked him in the control room. Upon hearing what I was doing, Jimmy asked me if he could have that song for the James Gang. Having known him and them because of running into them in between ours and their sessions more than a few times over the years, I said, " Hell no man, if you think it's that strong, I want US to have a damn hit". Jimmy was managed by the same people that were also concert promoters in Cleveland and they were planning on branching out to also start their own record company, they just needed a hit project to push CBS (who was their potential distributor) over the edge to commit. Jimmy asked me if he could play it for them. I agreed and Ken sent a copy down the street to them. They loved it, played it for Steve Popovich, then head of A&R at EPIC/CBS. Steve loved it, we got signed, and the rest is history. The bottm line is: Ken Hamann never got the credit due him for Play That Funky Music. He got so disgusted listening to me and Carl Maduri try to mix that song that one day he finally said, "If you'd just move over, I can mix this thing in 5 minutes". The final mix of PTFM you hear to this day was that 5 minutes it took for him to nail it on the first try.