It must be strange when your band struggles to make hit records but anytime you’re on a break half of your members go gallivanting off to other studios because they’re in high demand on other people’s platinum hit records.

Welcome to Tower Of Power!

It all started in the late 1960s when a bunch of horn players in the Bay Area got together to form a band called The Motowns. They added your standard guitar, bass, and drums, along with a vocalist, and started playing gigs at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West. They also signed to Graham’s San Francisco record label and changed their name to the mighty Tower Of Power.

Simultaneously, the horn section began to get gigs on the side; at first with other Bay Area artists like Big Brother & The Holding Company, Santana, and The Grateful Dead’s drummer Mickey Hart, but soon after appearing on bestselling albums by Elton John and Little Feat. It didn’t stop there. Cat Stevens, Rod Stewart, Huey Lewis & The News, Heart, Toto, Aerosmith…the list goes on. And it’s long.

Meanwhile, the group as a whole signed with Warner Bros. and released eight albums in the 1970s, but never managed to score that one big hit that everyone remembers. Their singles and albums tended towards minor to moderate success, although in 1973 their eponymous third album went Gold and became their most popular record. It contained a fine Top 20 ballad called “So Very Hard To Go” — which time has mostly forgotten — but the band truly showcased their best chops when they brought out the full force of their funk.

Released in the fall of 1973, “What Is Hip?,” the third single from the Tower Of Power album, barely cracked the Hot 100, but the hard-charging funk workout proved a concert favorite over the years.

I hope you have good circulation, because this band is tight.