From 1975 to 1981, Johnny “Guitar” Watson was on a roll, churning out an album a year without deviating from his blueprint of steady-rolling but often eccentric disco funk. Like George Clinton and Sly Stone, Watson pursued a completely individualized vision of R&B that occasionally intersected with the mainstream but mostly existed under its own set of rules (or lack thereof). Though “Superman Lover” and “A Real Mother for Ya” became two definitive funk songs of the late '70s, Watson’s career blossomed not on the Billboard charts but in grassroots African-American communities, where he was a bigger star than the white mainstream ever realized. Songs like “Ain’t That a Bitch” made Watson a realistic representative of the street culture that was usually absent from or misrepresented by the mainstream. Watson’s legacy was one of individualism. He didn’t sing or play or produce records that sounded like other people. He sounded like himself, and his defiantly self-determined albums—many of which were played entirely by him—paved the way for autonomous creative artists like Prince.