"School Boy Crush" (Average White Band)

Although "Pick Up the Pieces" is the band's signature song, "School Boy Crush" from the album Cut the Cake (1975) is actually my favorite Average White Band track.  The song's laid back funk, with its big gulps of bass, strategically placed clavinet, bizarre sleigh bell percussion, and strutting jazz guitar riff—provided by founding member Alan Gorrie, is just too sweet and lowdown to deny.
As I've mentioned before, I happened to catch one of AWB's shows while I was in California years ago.  I was at House of Blues with a group of coworkers, including several who shared my love of ol' skool funk.  
When Gorrie launched into the song's signature riff and those sleigh bells jangled through the PA system, I about lost my friggin' mind.  (Spilled my $12 Grey Goose and soda and everything.)
Funny thing was: no one else seemed to know the song!
I thought for sure, for as many times as Gorrie's guitar lick and drummer Steve Ferrone's in-the-pocket groove have been sampled/reinterpreted by the hip-hop/R&B world (see: Nas, Eric B. & Rakim, Too Short, Bobby Brown, TLC), that everyone in that venue would have known the song right away.
But I underestimated just how deep a cut "School Boy Crush" is.
(It's okay, though, because yours truly got everyone in my office dancing and crushing on this groove before it was through.)

"Pick Up The Pieces" (Average White Band)

If there ever were a testament to the power and influence of music beyond borders and boundaries, it's Average White Band.  This funk band from Scotland was influenced by R&B and soul from America--especially the sounds of James Brown and his backing band, The JB's.  More or less, during the late 1960s, AWB's six original members had all been session musicians or members of prog rock groups, playing on tracks that probably weren't their cup of tea.  The founding of AWB in 1972 gave them an outlet for the music that really moved them, and by 1973, they were touring in support of Eric Clapton and winning over audiences with their brand of funk.  By 1975, they had a #1 hit--"Pick Up The Pieces" from the album AWB (1974).
The influence of The JB's is abundantly clear on "Pick Up The Pieces," a mostly instrumental, horn-driven track that was inspired by two of The JB's songs: "Hot Pants Road" (which you may recognize as the foundation of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power") and "Pass the Peas."
In fact, when "Pick Up The Pieces" hit #1 on both pop and R&B charts, The JB's (recording under the name "Above Average Black Band") responded with the song "Pick up the Pieces, One by One."  In some ways, it was a good-natured jab at the Scottish band of funkateers.  But, no doubt, there was a little vinegar in that parody, too.  And who could blame them?  An all-white band (at that time) comes out of nowhere, gets massive mainstream exposure, and scores a huge hit with a song that easily could have been one of their own.  That had to sting.
Which brings up the age-old argument of, was AWB co-opting The JB's sound, or was the band simply inspired by it?
Personally, I think you can tell when a musician feels what she/he is playing.  I happened to catch Average White Band in Anaheim, CA, during a business trip in 2001, and those dudes were putting down the funk like it was still 1975.  There wasn't any faking going on.
Generally, unless you're an artist that was manufactured in a laboratory by a record company or producer for the sole purpose of making cash (exhibit A), the problem is never "is the artist sincere about what she/he is performing?"  Furthermore, artists rarely are shy about revealing who influenced their sound.
The problem lies with how record companies, their marketing people, and the media have historically packaged artists in a way that's about as subtle as a barker trying to draw toothless hicks into a carny sideshow.  It's easier to hype an artist with superlatives or boil their entire sound down to some BS two-word classification than it is to delve into their actual artistry or influences.  (Elvis wasn't the one going around in the 50s calling himself "The King of Rock & Roll" just as much as Living Colour wasn't running around in the 80s trying to pigeonhole themselves as "black metal" either.)
On the merits of the music itself, "Pick Up The Pieces" is an airtight groove by one of the best funk bands still out there.  And that's all that should ever matter.