News – Classic – Gamble-Huff Music

To singer Jean Carn, who recorded three albums for the label, “Philly Soul was even more than a sound. It was a genre,” she said. “How many labels can say they started a genre?”

Fifty years ago, music industry veterans Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff pulled that off by producing a plethora of classic albums on the imprint they started, Philadelphia International Records. As a black-owned and -operated music company, the label picked up the gauntlet from Motown, applying its crossover strategy to a new decade, with a lush new sound to herald it. In its most successful ventures, Philly International erased music’s color line with songs everybody could dance to and hum while at the same time including enough socially aware lyrics to make sure everybody understood exactly who made these records and where they came from.

Still, not everything worked by the Motown plan. Unlike Berry Gordy’s company, Gamble and Huff’s venture enjoyed far more success with their male stars than their female ones. Lacking a distaff act with the enormous popularity of Diana Ross and the Supremes, Gladys Knight or Martha Reeves, the label scored most of their biggest hits with male acts like the O’Jays, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, Billy Paul and the solo Teddy Pendergrass. The only time they scored a top-five pop hit for a female act came when the Three Degrees cooed When Will I See You Again. Otherwise, Philly’s female artists enjoyed far more success on the American R&B charts than on the broader pop list. At the same time, the women of Philly Soul – including Carn, Dee Dee Sharp, Phyllis Hyman, the Jones Girls and the Three Degrees – created many of the label’s most adventurous recordings. For a short spell, Patti LaBelle also recorded for the label, but she enjoyed her biggest hits on Epic with the group Labelle, or with her solo work on MCA.

To throw a light on the underappreciated women of Philadelphia International Records for the label’s 50th anniversary, Legacy Recordings has just released a new remix of a hit from 1974, TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia), cut by the label’s house band, MFSB and featuring the Three Degrees. The new version was created by Tracy Young who, in 2019, became the first woman to win a best remix Grammy, for Madonna’s I Rise.

None of the women who spoke to the Guardian about their time with Philly International blamed the label for their lack of superstar status. In fact, they all spoke about their time there as the peak of their careers.

“I learned so much about writing and producing from the best in the business,” said Shirley Jones, lead singer of the Jones Girls. “The label also helped me to become an activist.”

The first release by a female act on the label – the self-titled album by the Three Degrees – came two years and 12 albums into Philly International’s history. The Three Degrees experienced more hits in the UK than the US, including two gold albums and a hit single, Year of Decision. The lyrics to the single epitomized the label’s socio-political mission, told in its pointed entreaties to “open up your mind” and “leave the bad stuff behind”.

The trio’s initial success, and their chic presentation, painted them as Philly’s answer to the Supremes. But as Valerie Holiday made clear, “our sound was totally different. We were not interested in having just one main singer [like Diana Ross],” she said. “All three of us sang lead.”

Jean Carn: ‘Philly Soul was even more than a sound.’ Photograph: Don Hunstein/Sony BMG/Getty Images

As a result, Holiday believes, “our albums gave you a variety of sounds”. But there’s a striking difference in how they sounded live from their studio work. While the latter tended to be smooth, in concert their voices had a rawer, harder edge, evidenced by their live album from 1975, where they performed rousing takes on pop hits like Edgar Winter’s Free Ride and Elton John’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.

(In 1977, Elton recorded his own tribute to Philly soul on his EP The Thom Bell Sessions, named for the city’s ace arranger/producer.)

The label’s next female act, Dee Dee Sharp, made her debut for Philly in 1976 with the album Happy About the Whole Thing. Sharp, who scored doo-wop hits in the early 1960s like the No 1 song Mashed Potato Time, and who married Kenny Gamble in 1967, had a huge vocal range. Her Philly work gave her the chance to show it off in cuts like a highly theatrical cover of 10cc’s I’m Not in Love and a take on Terry Collier’s rapturous jazz ballad What Color Is Love.

“Dee Dee has this great throaty quality to her voice,” Carn said. “She places her attack at the back of the throat. Her male counterparts would be Percy Sledge or Jerry Butler. Technically, it’s a constriction of the chords so you get that great, guttural tinge to your notes. She also has a ballsy attitude when she sings – like, ‘Don’t mess with me!’”

Carn made her own debut for the label in 1977 with a self-titled work that stands as one of the company’s most sophisticated releases. She brought to it a wide range of influences, having previously recorded a series of jazz albums with her husband of the time, pianist Doug Carn.

“Initially, I recorded jazz, but since I was a little girl I sang everything from Italian arias to German lieder to French art song to pop,” she said. “I also played organ in church choirs from the time I was 12.”

Coming to Philly allowed her to work in the label’s patented style and to expand it, aided by ace arranger/artist Dexter Wansel, one of the company’s mainstays. “All of the tunes I did with him were experimental,” Carn said, which may explain why they sailed over the heads of most pop programmers.

Still, the first song on her debut, Free Love, written and produced by Jerry Butler, did become a hit in the discos. “That wasn’t by design,” Carn said. “The clubs just picked it up.”

Elements of Philly soul actually anticipated disco, with its fanciful swirls of strings and its danceable beats, though their take didn’t strictly conform to the genre. Regardless, clubs like Studio 54 played the Jones Girls’ song You’re Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else, helping to make it a top-40 pop hit, the group’s sole score on that chart. The trio of Jones sisters came to the label in 1979 after serving as backup singers for Diana Ross. It was Ross who pushed them to become their own act. As Jones explained: “She told us you’re too good to sing background.”

To prove it, Ross gave them a showcase in her show and then invited various labels to see them. Motown expressed interest but, at the time, Ross was battling with them so she steered the women towards Philly International instead. Like most of the Philly women, the Jones Girls did well on the R&B charts, scoring several top-10 hits without parallel success in pop. “Back then, pop was white and R&B was black,” she said. “It was as simple as that. Today, it’s all mixed up. If we came out today, with satellite radio and streaming and the internet, we would have reached a broader audience.”

Phyllis Hyman, who died in 1995. Photograph: Anthony Barboza/Getty Images

The last female artist released by the label, as well as its final artist overall – Phyllis Hyman – already had a decade-long track record on Buddha and Arista Records although her Philly releases rank among her greatest works. They expanded her status as a vocalist who was highly respected by her peers and by black audiences. But the fact that she never earned a pop hit gnawed at her. “She felt very underappreciated,” Carn said. She also had depression. “I saw those mood swings – everybody did.”

In 1995, Phyllis Hyman killed herself. “It was such a terrible waste,” Carn said. “What a talent. She should be here today and in command.”

Of course, Hyman’s albums live on, as does the deep catalogue of Philly International. “The label put together some of the greatest music of the 70s and 80s, and it transcended that time as well,” Jones said. “It’s still played the world over.”

According to Carn, the label also left a legacy of uplifting messages. “Kenny Gamble was like a griot, a town crier full of wisdom and motivation,” she said. “The music they made is like a positive form of brain-washing. Your consciousness is getting raised while you’re dancing so you don’t even know it’s happening. All you know is that after you listen you’re cooler.”

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50 Years Later, Gamble and Huff’s Philly Sound Stirs the Soul

February 22, 2021 by Narek Torosyan

By Alan Light
Feb. 25, 2021
Updated 10:52 a.m. ET
By the late 1970s, things had gotten so busy at Philadelphia International Records that the label’s co-founders, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, had to leave town to write new songs. During one trip to Jamaica, they were settling in at the piano when a power outage hit the island.

“It was scary for a second, but then we said, ‘Turn off the lights,’” Huff recalled in a recent interview. “Gamble got a candle so we could see, so that was the second line: ‘Light a candle.’” Sitting in the dark, they soon sketched out “Turn Off the Lights,” which became a No. 2 R&B hit for the powerhouse sex symbol Teddy Pendergrass.

“We were just in a creative zone,” Huff explained, still sounding both amused and a little bit awed.

It was a zone they inhabited for a long time. During the ’70s, 40 songs written by Gamble and Huff reached the R&B Top 10, including 14 No. 1s. A dozen of those songs crossed over to the pop Top 10, including classics like Billy Paul’s “Me and Mrs. Jones,” “Love Train” by the O’Jays, and “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)” — better known as the “Soul Train” theme — credited to the label’s house band, MFSB.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Philadelphia International, which is being celebrated with a series of reissues, remixes and a channel on Sonos Radio HD. Mostly, though, the milestone provides a chance to reflect on the contributions and legacy of a musical dynasty that not only established its own signature style of symphonic soul but expanded the scope of social commentary in Black pop music, with songs like Paul’s “Am I Black Enough for You?” or the O’Jays’ “Ship Ahoy,” a chilling account of the African slave trade.

“We were able to capture the ears of that generation,” Gamble said. “We had a line in the song ‘Message in Our Music’ — ‘understand while you dance.’ You can be dancing, but are you listening to what these people are saying? There’s a group of people who will listen if it’s got that beat to it.”

Alongside its bold, conscious lyrics, the Philadelphia International team also provided a pioneering example of a Black-owned company that retained strong connections to its community. Multiple generations of Black artists and executives have been inspired and mentored by Gamble and Huff. And the songs still resonate with today’s activists: The O’Jays recorded a new version of “Love Train” for the 2020 Democratic Convention, and on Election Day, observers gathered outside Philadelphia’s convention center encouraged the vote tabulations by singing “Ain’t no stopping the count” to the tune of McFadden and Whitehead’s 1979 hit “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now.”

Troy Carter, founder of the artist services company Q&A, said in a telephone interview that he recalled meeting Gamble in their native Philadelphia when Carter was a 17-year-old aspiring rapper. “I asked him to give me some advice and he said, ‘Every dollar you make from music, put it into real estate,’” said Carter, whose previous positions include managing Lady Gaga and serving as Spotify’s global head of creator services. “I was looking for advice in my music career, and he was already training me to be a businessman.”

In separate telephone conversations from their homes, both members of the duo — who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 — said they’re still writing songs during the pandemic. “I’m just reviewing things a little bit,” said Gamble, who still lives in South Philadelphia, “because the world is a whole lot different now, and I want to see where it’s going.”

Huff, 78, resides in south New Jersey; he grew up in Camden, playing piano and drums. After finishing high school, he started booking sessions in New York, and played on such hits as “Baby I Love You” by the Ronettes and “The Boy From New York City” by the Ad-Libs. At 21, he wrote “Mixed-Up, Shook-Up Girl” for Patty & the Emblems, which reached the Top 20.

Gamble, 78, led a popular local band in his hometown called Kenny Gamble and the Romeos. The young musicians met in the elevator of the Shubert Building, where they were both writing songs for local music-production companies. “Gamble came over to my house in the projects,” Huff said, “and the first time we sat down, we wrote six or seven songs.”

When the two songwriters decided to form a production company of their own, they traveled to Detroit and visited the home of their greatest inspiration, Motown Records.

“That was my first airplane ride,” Gamble said. He explained that Eddie Holland, of the producing/songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland, showed the duo how Motown worked, from the studios to the contracts. “Me and Huff were very excited — that was a dream, to be able to see Motown,” Gamble said. “On the way back, we discussed it and said that rather than have to go all the way to Detroit to fulfill our dreams, we would stay in Philly and create something similar to Motown. And that’s exactly what we did.”

With money borrowed from a friend in the clothing business, the partners set up shop in the mid-60s, and by 1967, they had a Top 5 hit with “Expressway to Your Heart” by the Soul Survivors. Gamble and Huff made a few attempts at starting their own record company, but in 1971, Clive Davis — concerned that CBS Records was lagging in the Black music market — offered them a distribution deal, and Philadelphia International Records was born.

“Philadelphia International really took the reins from Motown,” said the Grammy-winning producer and songwriter Jimmy Jam in a telephone conversation, explaining that the label provided the “blueprint” for the work he has done with his partner, Terry Lewis. “I didn’t understand joint ventures and all that stuff, I just knew that at the bottom of that green label it said ‘Distributed by CBS Records’ — and that was Columbia and Epic. So here’s a company run by Black people that’s on the same level as those labels, and I remember thinking how cool that was. And you knew when you saw that green label that it was going to be something great.”

Carter noted the connection between Philadelphia International’s corporate and creative sides. “Looking at what they did in terms of entrepreneurship, they owned the recording studio, the label, the masters, they had a publishing company,” he said. “It’s one thing to want to become an artist or an athlete, but they showed us that you can actually start and build some serious businesses. And the music was about Black unity — messages of positive reinforcement that just happened to have the sweetest melodies and great lyrics.”

As the hits started pouring out of Sigma Sound Studios, the label’s primary recording base, the company was becoming synonymous with a sound known as “Philly Soul.” The core musicians from the Romeos were augmented with horn and string players — in the early years, under the direction of the arranger Thom Bell — named the MFSB Orchestra (the letters stood for “Mother Father Sister Brother”), to create a lush, swirling sound over the driving, gospel-inflected rhythms. It’s been said that Philadelphia International “put a bow tie on the funk.”

“The string players came from the Academy of Music,” Huff said. “They were all accomplished musicians, playing classical music, and then they’d come over to our studio and get funky, and they loved it.”

Eddie Levert of the O’Jays — whose 1972 album “Back Stabbers” is often considered the pinnacle of the Philly Sound — said PI.R. “was almost like a workshop,” in a telephone interview. “They were able to take people who had the talent, and then rehearse those songs until they became a part of you, and really lived in you.”

As the label and its roster grew, so did the subject matter of the songs. Where Motown had resisted political messages in its lyrics (Berry Gordy Jr. fought hard to convince Marvin Gaye not to release “What’s Going On”), at P.I.R. they came to the foreground: “The Love I Lost” and “When Will I See You Again” gave way to “For the Love of Money” and “Wake Up Everybody.”

“That was the atmosphere in the world at that time,” Huff said. “We were always aware of what was going on in the community and with the people around us, so we wrote about real life — just expressed ourselves through music.”

Levert pointed out the continuing relevance of their recordings. “Those songs stand the test of time,” he explained. “When we did them, we were talking about that period we were living in, what was going on at that time. But they’re still relevant, because nothing has changed — the same message can still apply to us and our way of life today.”

Philly Soul laid out a road map for disco, and the songs have been consistently covered and sampled in the hip-hop era. The label continued to release important records in the ’80s, most notably “If Only You Knew,” Patti LaBelle’s first solo single to reach No. 1 on the R&B chart, and first to cross over to pop success.

But as the hits slowed down, Gamble and Huff increasingly turned their attention to activism. In 1977, they put together an all-star benefit project called “Let’s Clean Up the Ghetto,” and Gamble got involved in real estate, building and renovating homes in South Philadelphia and backing local businesses and charter schools. (“He went into the worst neighborhoods,” Carter said. “Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.”)

Jimmy Jam said that the duo modeled an approach to having a second or third act, “where you’ve already been successful, but you take that platform and the money you made and the lessons you’ve learned and you put that into making your community thrive.”

After 50 years of Philadelphia International Records, it’s that achievement — spreading a message of empowerment and then backing it up with action — that Gamble and Huff point to as their true source of pride. “We’ve done a lot to contribute to the future and try to help our people,” said Gamble. “The music was the bottom line to the whole thing, but what did that music represent?

“When you think of our music, it was 360 degrees of knowledge that we gave,” he continued. “A lot of great love songs, which is important in life, but also a lot of songs about building our community, building people. It don’t mean anything if you don’t leave something for the next generation.”

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50 Years Later, Gamble and Huff’s Philly Sound Stirs the Soul