Slide / Son Of Slide
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Album Summary
Slave came out of Dayton, Ohio, with that deep funk fire burning bright, and in 1977 they delivered this infectious two-track single release on Cotillion Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic, with Steve Washington and Mark Adams steering the creative ship as the band's core architects. 'Slide / Son Of Slide' was born out of that golden era when Dayton was quietly becoming one of the most fertile grounds for funk in the entire country, and Slave were right there in the thick of it, laying down grooves so tight they could make the walls sweat. The record captured the band at their most raw and visceral, a lean, mean funk statement pressed into the wax with the kind of organic studio energy that only comes when a band is truly locked in together.
Reception
- "Slide" became a significant R&B chart entry for Slave, helping establish the group as a serious force in the funk and soul landscape at a time when the genre was fiercely competitive.
- The record was embraced by funk and soul radio programmers across the country, earning Slave considerable airplay and building a devoted following that would carry them forward.
- Critics and tastemakers in the funk community recognized the track's hypnotic groove and tight ensemble playing as a mark of a band operating at a genuinely high level.
Significance
- "Slide" stands as one of the defining examples of the Dayton, Ohio funk sound — a regional style rooted in deep pocket grooves, layered horns, and rhythmic precision that the city's bands made entirely their own.
- The record demonstrated Slave's extraordinary ability to build a groove from the ground up and sustain it with relentless energy, a quality that set them apart from many of their contemporaries in the late 1970s funk scene.
- As a double-sided funk statement, 'Slide / Son Of Slide' showcased the thematic and musical continuity that Slave brought to their work, treating both sides of the record as a unified artistic expression rather than a throwaway B-side.
Samples
- "Slide" — one of the most sampled funk records of its era, with its irresistible groove and horn stabs appearing across a wide range of hip-hop and R&B productions over the decades, most notably sampled by Too Short in "Slide" (1992) and drawn upon by numerous producers mining the Dayton funk catalog.
Tracklist
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A Slide 115
3:20
-
B Son Of Slide 115
5:29
Artist Details
Slave was a funk powerhouse that emerged out of Dayton, Ohio in 1975, bringing with them a thick, grooving sound that blended hard funk, R&B, and early elements of what would become known as electro-funk, sitting right alongside their Ohio neighbors like Ohio Players and Zapp in that rich Midwest funk tradition. Led by the visionary Steve Washington and later launching the career of the incomparable Steve Arrington, they hit hard with their 1977 debut single Slide, which became an undeniable dancefloor anthem and showed the world that Dayton had soul to spare. Their influence ran deep, with their bass-heavy, synth-laced grooves later becoming prime sampling material for hip-hop producers, cementing their legacy as architects of a sound that kept on giving long after the disco ball stopped spinning.
