Kenny Gamble 5? Leon Huff SS
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^HMT^RTEGjù^WARDn Kenny Gamble 5? Leon Huff SS BY BILLY ALYM AK here’s certainly a good ring - both lit' Jones,” “Love Train,” “For the Love of Money,” “Wake erally and figuratively - to the story Up Everybody,” “Rich Get Richer,” “Ain’t No Stoppin’ that Kenny Gamble and Leon H uff like Us Now,” “Do It Anyway You Wanna.” A s they - they to tell about meeting for the first time being Gamble and Huff themselves — would say: “The in a Schubert Building elevator on Message Is in the Music.” Philadelphia’s Broad Street in the summer of 1964. In Anyone familiar with New Orleans cooking will T tell you that regardless of where you want your dish to those days, the Schubert was Philly’s equivalent of New York’s Brill Building, its office space finish, you’d better start with that filled by virtually all o f the city’s key Holy Trinity foundation of onions, music'business movers and shak' These two distinctly celery, and bell peppers. Taste just ers. They were there because each different personalities about any Gamble and Huff musi' of these ambitious young African' quichjy discovered cal pot'au'feu from the more than American men - one (Gamble) a 1,000 entries in their songwriters’ singer, the other (Huff) a piano in each other cookbook, and you’ll invariably find player, and both aspiring songwrit' distinctly shared in the recipe another Holy Trinity ers — had gotten their feet in some musical roots base: blues, gospel, and jazz. When, newly opened doors of opportU' not long after that fateful elevator nity with established local writing/ ride, Philadelphia homeboy Gam' production companies hungry for a piece of the bub' ble (b. 1943) trekked across the Penn state line to see bling soubmusic pie. A chance encounter, and before New Jersey native Huff (b. 1942) in his Camden digs to the ride is even over, talk of getting together to try attempt to write together, these two distinctly different and w rite together. That simple. That direct. That fast. personalities quickly discovered in each other distinctly That driven. shared musical roots: an innate inner'city, tradition-rich Upwardly mobile. Forwardly mobile. Side'tO'Side rhythmic mix o f church and street, harmony and groove. mobile. In just about any direction you can think of, And once that pilot light was lit and the muse started the music that Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff would heating up between them, it wasn’t long before the hits soon start writing, producing, and ultimately becoming came simmering up to a rolling boil. world'famous for — TSOP, The Sound of Philadelphia — In retrospect, it’s fitting that Gamble and Huff’s has come to symbolize the path, and the journey, of not first major hit, the blue'eyed Soul Survivors’ riff'driven just African'American pop music of the late 1960s and “Expressway to Your Heart,” was a 1967 smash(up) 1970s but African'American, and, ultimately, just plain inspired by the newly opened, traffic'clogged highway American life, period. If that sounds like hyperbole, try running through Philadelphia’s Center City area. And these titles on for size: “Only the Strong Survive,” “I that the next one, the infectious “Cowboys to Girls,”p Can’t Stop Dancing,” “(We’ll Be) United,” “Don’t Let the from local lads the Intruders, came out on their own Green Grass Fool You,” “Back Stabbers,” “Me and Mrs. Gamble label in early 1968. Listen to what’s around you When Philadelphia went international: Songwriting/production team Leon Huff (left) and Kenny Gamble made their hometown an R&B mecca in the 1970s. Huff and Gamble in their Philadelphia headquarters MFSB delivers TSOP: Philadelphia International’s house band in 1974. Huff, Clive Davis, and Gamble, c. 1971 Patti LaBelle signs with P.l. in the early 1980s. to make your music, and know the business around you so took listeners by the (spreading) lapels in the summer of 1972, you can make your money. Those were lessons in creativ TSO P was on its w ay to legendary status. ity and commerce that Gamble and Huff learned from the Gamble and Huff’s musical soul/love train chugged likes of such pioneers as Leiber and Stoller, and Spector along mightily throughout the 1970s, punching hit tick and Gordy Jr. And the two dedicated students earned their ets for just about every performer who hopped on board. master’s degree in ’68 with the recording of Jerry Butler’s They ranged from old pros like Wilson Pickett, Joe Simon, classic album The Ice Man Cometh, which spawned four Top and Billy Paul to young hopefuls like Harold Melvin and Ten hits, including the chart toppers “Hey, Western Union the Blue Notes’ Teddy Pendergrass, whom Gamble and Man” and, of course, ’69’s proud anthem of love and life Huff transformed into a bona fide superstar by unleashing “Only the Strong Survive.” his inner preacher on songs like 1972’s heartbreaking “If By then, Gamble and Huff were beginning to ensconce You Don’t Know Me By Now” and 1973’s pulsating “The themselves in engineer Joe Tarsia’s new Sigma Sound Studios, Love I Lost.” and it was there, as the seventies dawned, that the lush, lay That latter tune, propelled by Earl Young5s incessant hi-1 ered, uptown-meets-downtown Sound of Philadelphia was hat, is generally acknowledged as the prime source o f the disco born. It was a sound painstakingly forged by Gamble and beat, and, looking back, there’s no denying that Gamble and Huff, with the considerable help of arrangers Bobby Martin Huff were the chief architects of the bridge between sixties and fellow writer/producer Thom Bell — and polished to per soul and seventies disco. Lesser talents took what they could fection by guitarists Roland Chambers and Norman Harris, from their soijnd and eventually appropriated it for their bassist Ronnie Baker, drummer Earl Young, vibist Vince Mon own mirror-balled purposes. But in thinking about Kenny tana, saxophonist Zach Zachary, and the rest of the cream Gamble and Leon Huff’s overall body of work and substantial of Philadelphia’s black, white, and Latino session musicians legacy, which continues to influentially echo down through ultimately commemorated under the M FSB (Mother, Father, the ages and across generations via everything from A m erican Sister, Brother) banner. At that point, all Gamble and Huff Id o l repertoires to rap and hip-hop samples, it’s hard not to really needed was some organizational muscle to flex in the defer to a fellow musician’s wonderful description of their marketplace, which they finally got in 1971 when they struck music during its heady-yet-ever-danceable heyday: “Funk — a deal with Clive Davis to form the CBS-distributed Philadel with a bow tie.” W hich seems fitting for these two new Rock phia International Records. And once Leon H uff5s piano and and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. As their fellow Hall of Famer the rest o f that M F o f an intro to the O’Jays’ “Back Stabbers” Curtis Mayfield would say, M ove on up. & OPPOSITE: Huff and Gamble feted at the Sony Club, November 27, 2007, in New York City Record Stores Nearly every music lover over the age of forty has a favorite record store that helped fuel their thirst for rock & roll. Here, a few of the great ones are fondly remembered. BYAMDT SCHWARTZ 11 things must pass,” sang Rock and Roll browsers, and to offer listening booths where patrons could Hall o f Fame inductee George Harrison, and preview their selections. In 1942, Glen Wallichs cofounded today it appears that the American record Capitol Records with songwriter Johnny Mercer and movie store is destined to become one of those producer Buddy DeSylva. things. In July 2006, In the mid-thirties, Hall of Fame the 7s[ew T o r\ Times quoted a report from inductee M ilt Gabler’s Commodore a California market-research firm, the Music Shop on East 42nd Street in Almighty Institute of Music Retail, esti- Manhattan became the prototype of the mating that 900 independent record stores “enthusiast” record store - one driven had shut down since late 2003 - leaving more by its owner’s musical passions about 2,700 stores in operation. than by any promise of ready profits. Milt A s someone who began his music Gabler “firsts” included the sale of records industry career behind the counter of by mail order, the purchase o f out-of- one such outlet, I see the entire saga of print discs for resale to collectors, and American record retail as having taken on the licensing of early jazz recordings for the qualities of a vivid and slightly crasy rerelease (thus foretelling the entire field dream. Nothing else in my life has ever of reissues). Commodore, recalls Gabler’s replaced the record store as a locus of friend and customer Jerry Wexler, musical community, and probably nothing stocked “only the pure and sublime Jazzus ever will. A great record store was a mar- Americanus: Louis Armstrong Hot Fives ketplace not only o f music but o f ideas and on OKeh, Jelly Roll on Victor, and Duke opinions - and of the innumerable schemes and scams that on any label.” Gabler’s success did not go unnoticed by Samuel played out endlessly among retailers, labels, and distributors, Gutowitz, a.k.a. Sam Goody: In 1951» he opened the first Store from the inflation of B illb o a rd sales reports to the wholesale in his eponymous N ew York-based chain.