>Which is why to me they are 3rd tier at best, despite the fact >they sold a lot of records.
I think their records before Allen A. really went hard w/the biting other acts were worthy of a tier above 3rd... but when the late '70s and '80s hit... dude was not ashamed at all who he ripped off. Which is kind of funny to me, because Leroy Dotson was kind of like Rick James before most of (Black) America knew who the hell he was....
on the subject of Allen, man. that biting. I remember OldPro tipped me to some of the records he produced. Ebonee Webb, Kwick...
Ebonee Webb's first album was hilarious. When they weren't biting Prince, they were biting EWF. And sometimes, those two concepts were bridged together ("Keep On Steppin", where you had a dude singing like Prince's falsetto... but on the chorus a dude who sounded just like Maurice White). Like, what kind of Nutter Butter shit...
Kwick had a straight up BITE of 2 Michael Jackson songs, wholesale. There were some original cuts, but I couldn't believe how badly they went at MJ. Then they did Rick James (vocal styling) and all on another cut. Won't even talk about how both Ebonee Webb and Kwick were vying for the title of "who can bite The Time" more. I love that album FOREPLAY (and it's getting reissued soon), but man. Put the Purplesaurus Rex down, man.