Black Music Month QLS Classic: Kenny Gamble

A daily celebration for Black Music Month comes to a close with one of its founders. Living legend Kenny Gamble is considered one of the greatest composers, producers and music businessmen of all time. He and his partner Leon Huff literally crafted The Sound Of Philadelphia. So get ready to join him along with Questlove and Team Supreme. Class is now in session!

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey what's up, y'all?

Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Questlove And as you've noticed throughout June, we
are celebrating Black Music Money by releasing an episode every day.
So every day you're either going to hear a special
pick QLs Classic and on Wednesdays we're dropping new two
part episodes with Queene Brady and James.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Poyser, both of which were filmed in studio, so make
sure you also watch us on YouTube. We are closing
out with one of the architects of Black music Money,
the amazing Kenny Gamble.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Ladies and gentlemen. You know that's all I got, Ladies
and gentlemen. This is another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
We have this Preme team with us. We have Fine
Tikeolo in the house. Yeah, and we got Boss Bill
and yeah you hear loud and clear, we got Unpaid
Bill and we also have Sugar Steve and of course

(01:11):
like ya, how are you? This is a special episode.
We are not doing the Supreme rold Call. We are
in the presence of Black Music Royalty, Universal Music Royalty,
and it's just going to cut this song off in
a minute too.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
This is my jam.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
No, the best part is about to happen. Oh, ladies
and gentlemen, we are blessed to be in the presence
of one of the greatest, one of the greatest composers, businessman, producers,
so and so funk. Yeah, I can't even perform us something.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Just be quiet, talking, ladies and gentlemen. The man who.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Gave us the sound of Philadelphia, the man who gave
me my own career. Without him, there is no sound
of Philadelphia, the one and only Kenny Gamble question.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And I almost don't want you to.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
I'm sorry. You got wait wait till my part come on.
It's coming, don't don't. Can we tell people what the
song this is MFS Big Mysteries of the World.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
You kipped it? No, I didn't. This is so good.
I had to go back to the top.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
I'm sorry, but this is right there.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Actually I went to the end of the song to
avoid that bridge. But I didn't know that meant so
much that you know, I just ruined the moment for you.
You did, you did the quest. This this is what
I just argue about things.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Again.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Uh, mister Kenny Gamble, doctor Kenmble Man, thank you, this.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Is that's beautiful. Wow, what about.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Oh man?

Speaker 3 (03:11):
I was listening to you Can't Be You can be
what you want to be this morning in the shower.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
That's jam you want to be.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
It's a great one yea and one million miles from
the ground. So we're just gonna start.

Speaker 5 (03:24):
I'm sorry, Yeah, I'm yeah, and I want to say
just it's I'm so. It's such an honor to have
you here because you're the first record label. As a kid,
I knew exactly what the records were going to sound
like just from the label.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
From the label.

Speaker 5 (03:39):
I remember like my aunt, she was like a big
you know, fill international, so she had everything. She was
a she was a really big Gene carn fan, and
so she used to play like I'm Back for More,
like that's like one.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Of my favorite.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
But I remember like going through a record collection and
anytime I saw like that green the green label with
the little red, I knew it was gonna be strings.
I knew it was going be like super clean, like I
just knew that.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
And they tried to make it red, black and green.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
You know about that?

Speaker 1 (04:10):
So the vinyl was black black, right because the people
the power levels so okay, So was it by design,
because there was a point in history when that logo
didn't have the two white dots in the middle logo.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yes, the very first like the odd Uh, I mean,
I miss you.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Uh, how.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
There are the two white dots aren't in the middle
of the Philly International Look. That didn't come until like
seventy three, So there are a few albums that are
without that white dots. I thought that was by.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
No design and just the first I'm mean about.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
What could have been different pressing plants similar.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, but that's great, man, it really is. And uh,
I tell you we we tried our best, and we
had good people with us too.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
You guys succeeded as far as I'm yes.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well, I'm thankful, thank you very much, and I'm glad
to be here. This is a beautiful thing with a
lot of energy going on. Were you born in Philadelphia,
South Philly? Yeah? Where fifteenth in Christian.

Speaker 6 (05:21):
Wow, down the block from where you live now.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Right down the block from where I lived, and you
still live there, still live there.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
How does it feel to grow up there?

Speaker 1 (05:32):
To be born there and see where it it was
sort of dissolved to and you single handedly, well you
did gentrification the right way, the right way. Yeah, well
I had those restaurants. I loved eating those restaurants. Everything
that you did for that neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
It was it's it's been, you know it really to me,
it was like it was like a no brainer almost.
You know, how can you live in the world where
you got the area that I grew up in, where
you got Malcolm X, you got Muhamad Ali, you got
Eli to Muhammads, you got revenuely On Sullivan, you got

(06:13):
all these great people.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Talking about building our community.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
And then I used to go to a lot of
meetings and now I would ask people, I said, well,
who's going to do it? You know what I mean?
We all say, you know.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
You know, we should do this, and we should do that,
and we could have this, and we could have that.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
But the question is is who's going to do it.
So with my children and everything, with Cleave and Saladan
and an Idea and my family, you know, we decided
to give it a try. And I didn't live there
all the time. Of course, I lived there, and then
I moved away like everybody else do. I moved into

(06:52):
the suburbs and it was really nice, but I kept
thinking about South Philly, you know, and I'm always inside,
i feel, because that's where our office was and everything.
So eventually a little inspiration comes came and said, look,
and when we did, let's clean up the ghetto. That
was that was one of those ones that kept pounding

(07:13):
in your head. And so it's it's like, ah, you
gotta put one foot foot forward and see what you
can do. And and it all started pretty much with
with buying the properties. Once we started buying all the
properties and we had so many of them, he said,
and what we're gonna do with all these raggedy houses,

(07:37):
all all these bigger lots and raggedy houses and uh.
And so it's just a matter of, hey, we're going
to clean up the ghetto. We're going to rebuild. And
the way to we not only rebuild the houses and whatever,
but rebuild the people, rebuild the culture and and everything.
And so so it started working. It's we've been announced.

(08:00):
We moved like nineteen ninety. Nineteen ninety is when we
moved back to South Philly, you know, and we were
we were in Gladwin, you know, because it was beautiful
out and glad one and but it wasn't as beautiful
as it was when we moved back to South Philly,

(08:20):
although it was a culture shock for my kids everybody,
you know, but see where we're at now, you know.
But it's like one of those things where you know,
you can't you can't really keep asking somebody else to
do something for you talk about that you can do

(08:40):
for yourself, you know. So that's pretty much what this
is an effort. And then it's not by myself. We
got hundreds of people that really saw where we were
coming from. And you rebuild a whole neighborhood, you rebuild
a whole community of people.

Speaker 6 (08:56):
Not to mention the school system.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
And the schools, and that was everything is evolves around health,
good health and education. That's it. So we have some
tremendous health programs that we work on. In education was
the was the number one thing that we got involved with,
and that was the charter schools, and so we have

(09:21):
eight charter schools. And believe me, it's not an easy thing.
It's not easy. It's going to take it's going to
take years, in years to reverse this this consciousness that
within especially the African American community. But it's working, it

(09:42):
can and it will work, you know. So so it's
not it's not it's not easy.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Did you know that you were going to see it
through from the very beginning, assuming Matt you started acquiring
the property in the late eighties, because even I heard,
like I when my uncle used to drive me to
and from school and we used to go like all
that dilapidated, busted down property, and he was like, yeah,

(10:10):
you know, Kenny Gamble owns all and I could imagine
like all these blocks and he's like, yeah, you know,
And I couldn't see that far in the future to
figure out what vision you had to refurbish it and
restore it back to what it is now.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Like so from what year did you start to say that.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
I'm going to rebuild?

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, we did records at fourteen and fifteen blocks in
South Philly, or well we well we started like from
from like eleventh Street all the way up to like
twenty fourth Street, from South Street all the way over
to Washington Avenue. That was the area. And within that

(11:00):
area there were a lot of vacant We had maps,
we had like a war room, you know what I mean,
maps that at every house, every abandoned lot, every school,
everything on these on these maps and what we did
is came up with our plan. Our plan was to
be able to build a community that you could take

(11:22):
and have some open spaces, you know where you'd have
some some gardens and have something open. The schools, I mean,
this has been the hardest part is the schools, I
mean the education thing. And wasn't developing it, like you
just can't tell the city.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
You got to work with them.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
You got to work with.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Them, even if it's a private school or well, these
are charter schools, so these are public private schools.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
The problem with private schools is the economics of it,
you know, and and because many of our people don't
have the money to pay to go to a charter school,
I mean to a private shart school. Yeah. So so
we have we got one wonderful thing going. And one

(12:10):
of the things I can't think of it now. You know.
That's one of the things that happened when you get old,
you start missing things here you'd be thinking about it.
It's gone, but it'll come back, it'll come back later.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah. Man. So how did music first enter your life
growing up in Philadelphia?

Speaker 2 (12:31):
What got you into the music? Well, you know, the
music to me was always there. I always loved music.
And there was a day that that sticks out in
my life. Right the day that sticks out in my
life was there used to be a baptism that used

(12:52):
to have happened on fifteen Christian where I used to live,
and it was the Daddy Grace Church prayer House of prayer.
So the bands, I don't know if you ever heard
their bands in there, but it was around my birthdays
when they have their their convocations and uh. And that

(13:14):
morning when my mother I asked her, I said, well,
who is that you know up the street and they
were out there baptizing people with this hose with the hose, yeah,
with the water holes like and it was so interesting
that even today I still go there because they always

(13:35):
had the convocation around my birthday. They have it all
across the country, by the way, and so last that's
what really got me listening to music. That when and
when you listen to our music, listen to them horns
in there, because I try to get them horns going
in there, and it was good. One other thing you
asked me was seeing the whole project through the h

(14:00):
we started in the seventies with the buying. The properties
were cleaned up the ghetto. The intention was to buy
those properties and get the land first, and so that
was there was a brother's name was Norman Gatzon who
worked along with us, and he was he's a real
estate guy. He knew a lot about real estate, and

(14:22):
my wife she knew about real estate. So we kind
of disguised Norman as a person because then we could
get them for very low prices because at that particular time,
the property in these neighborhoods that I mean these vacant
lots and whatever, at that time they were very very cheap,

(14:44):
you know, and the city really wanted to see things developed,
and they had a couple of public housing programs and
so we were able to build up construction, development come
and it worked out good. It worked out real good
that the city of Philadelphia. It's not easy. It's not

(15:07):
easy because it's a lot of red tape involved in
all this stuff, but you know, you got to go
through it to get to where you want to go.
And that's what started the whole thing. But the one
ingredient as we were doing this, brother, the one thing
that came into my mind was why haven't these programs
worked before? You have so many good intention people that

(15:30):
want to do something in the community. And what I
found out is that in the development business is that
you have people who live out of the African American
community doing all the work in the community. And so
what we decided to do is to live in the community.

(15:51):
So that was the biggest decision of all is to
move back into South Philadelphia and be there so that
the neighborhood, because it was all in the newspapers, you know,
Kenny Gamble boos back to southfully, you know they once
because the what do you call it when the neighborhood's
being turned around? Gentrification, thank you brothers, that was starting

(16:16):
to happen. And even today, I mean, it's just unbelievable.
And you got lots in South Philadelphia that were at
that particular time maybe you know, you could buy them
for five thousand dollars or whatever, but today those same
lots today might cost you fifty one hundred thousand dollars.
And so it's become a money game. In fact, all

(16:39):
of it is based on economics. And it's just like
New York and Harlem. Same thing happened there, same things
happened in Washington, DC. All over the country. You know,
so that's what happened. Wow.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
So with music, what you were a guitar player correct
or you played.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
A still guitar. I've heard about you dabbling guitar back. Yeah,
I got maybe about six cords that I can play.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
What was the first musical performance he gave, like, how
did you developed your chops?

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Well, well, you know, we had a band called the Romeos,
and always we had some good people, I mean Rolling Chambers,
he was a guitar players. Oh, he was great man,
you know. And and then his brother Karl was a
drummer called Chambers. And you had Tom Bell who played keyboards.

(17:41):
You had Leon Huff who was with us who played
keyboards and worlds and all that stuff. And you had
Lenny Pecoola who was played the organ. And so we
used to play. We used to play on the weekends
all the time. All the time. We play on the weekends,
and and that that was a lot of fun. That

(18:04):
was a whole lot of fun working on the weekend.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Well, it's I would say that. So you're saying that
the gathering of the what you would form or dub
the sound of Philadelphia. The Tom Bell and all those guys,
they you all started together when you were in high school.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Oh yeah, tom Bell. I met him. His sister. My
name is Barbara. She used to be in my class,
and so she asked me.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
She said, come on walk me home one day. One day,
so I walked home. She lived on.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Parish Street fifty fiftieth in Parish. When I got to
the house, I heard somebody playing the piano. So I asked,
I said, who was that playing the piano? She said,
that's my brother, Tommy. I said, I Me, Me, Me
and Tommy Bell. We wrote three songs that day.

Speaker 6 (19:00):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Really we still got those songs. I mean. And the
funny part about it is I.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Keep telling them, I said, tom I said, we gotta
cut them songs. I said, we gotta cut them songs, man,
because if we go, nobody will know, you.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 6 (19:15):
Well, wait, I got a question. You weren't you raised?
Were you raised Jehovah's witness Right?

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (19:21):
So how did the music? How did you? Because I'm
kind of strict when it comes to the music, or
how did you?

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah? Well, yeah, they have their own music, Joe's Witnesses.

Speaker 6 (19:30):
But they don't even know that scary.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, well, I mean they're not their own music that
they have their own little song book. It's not like
going to a Baptist church or whatever.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
And they got you were never raised in that sort
of none hollering fine brimstone.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
No, not really none, never raised in that. But you
know what, I loved it, you know, I love I
love being in the House of Prayer, and and I
still go around there.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
I still go there even now when I want to.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
I want to. I want to see the real thing happening.
I mean, you get it, like you said, you go there,
go the good meal, right and and uh not only
spiritual food, but you get some physical food, you know,
and uh wow. And so I always keep it on
on in mind.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
You know your partnership with uh brother Leon Huff, when
did that?

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Uh uh? That was that was really the key to
the whole thing. There used to be the Schubert Theater
on Broad Streuss And and Huff and I we were
working in the same building. I was working on the
sixth floor and Huff was working on the fourth floor.

(20:43):
I was working with a guy named Jerry Ross who
had a label the Dream Lovers. I don't know if
you remember them. When we get married, and all those
songs like that. And uh, and Huff was working with
Maderra and associates. They had they had Bunny Siegler, he
was working with them, and you had Lynn Barry who

(21:04):
did one, two three at they were working with Leslie Gore.
I mean, so me and me and me and Huff
just met up one day coming in that building and uh,
and we started talking because it wasn't that many African
Americans in that building.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
So was it kind of like a real building for Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
There you go, the same thing, but much much smaller
than the Brill Building, you know what I mean. And
so we was able to to meet up and talk
a little bit about what we wanted to do, you know,
with our dreams and aspirations were. And so I went
over his eye. I said, I'm gonna come over your house.
He lived in Camden. So I went over his house

(21:44):
one day and we started writing songs. It was it
was just like me meeting Tommy Bell. Me enough must
have wrote maybe about six seven songs, you know, and uh.
From that point on, the Huff got in the band
the day. That's what made it really us gel even

(22:04):
closer because we would be arsing all the time and
the key to the Romeos was that the Romeos was
a band that we used to take songs that were
already out that were very popular, like Safer they keep
on Pushing, like Curtis Mayfield and people like that. We
would take their songs and rearrange them. We do a

(22:27):
lot of medals we do. People be familiar with the songs,
but they would be different. So and huff Is he's
a singer, Roland was a singer, Tommy was a singer.
I could sing a little bit. So we used to
do like the high Lows.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Oh wow, we were like yeah, like like take six.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
We used to do that kind of music too, you know.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
And I really liked that better than anything, you know,
when we all sang together, because I never really did
like being on stage myself, not by.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Myself, you know. I never did Strength and Numbers, Strength
and Numbers. It was beautiful, you know.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
So, so do you know the first song that you
charted on an artist pre Philly International, pre fully International,
the first hit that we had before International?

Speaker 4 (23:23):
What was the label seemed like in Philly, Like, I know,
There's Lost Night.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
It was a lot of them, Yeah, there was a
lot of them. It was Chancellor there was CAMEO Parkway
and I.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Did that like record for all these labels, although I
have a collection of like fifty labels, all with different
unbelievable and of the Andrew I was a fan of
you Can I knew him, Yeah, unbelievable he was. His
voice was like unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
So how how was it that we had like over twenty.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Labels in Philadelphia and then suddenly they just started to
dissolve one by one.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
The industry changed, Okay, industry change, it's like it's changing now.
The industry changed then because it went from independent distributors
to the corporations taken over. Say, for example, you would
have I would say in Philadelphia, they were about let's

(24:30):
say fifteen distributors in Philadelphia, and those distributors might might
be Rosen's was a distributor on North broad Street and
he would sell he would distribute maybe Mercury Records, ARSCA Records,
and maybe Epic. Then you'd have William's distribution. They would

(24:52):
have four or five other labels. Now, the thing of
it is is that it got down to the point
where where the industry became more consolidated, like a Chips
Chippets had Motown, it had Scepter, it had had all

(25:15):
these labels, you know, and you would you would make
a record. We made records, and uh, it was much
easier in those days for us because you make a record,
you go get Chippets to distribute it for you and
you get it was airplay was the whole thing. You

(25:35):
got to get your record on the radio. Somebody's got
to play it in order for people to want it.
And and so the whole industry changed when the CBS's,
the Warner Brothers and all of these major corporations started
to consolidate and they would buy all of these little

(26:00):
labels and put them all together. Then Warner Brothers became
a distributor themselves. Oh okay, Columbia Records became a distributor themselves.
And so once they became distributors, they were able to
take guys like Gambling Houff because we were independent. In fact,
it was a good thing and a bad thing because

(26:22):
they became your competition. Now you know, the major companies.
But what we were able to do is to survive
because we became a creative company and the marriage that
we needed was and that we searched for was an
administrator who could collect whatever royalties, whatever money that was

(26:44):
due from all over the world because it's a worldwide industry,
so you got to be collect money from from Philippines
and Brazil, every place you can think of.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, how familiar are you with the Harvard Report, which
I believe that the original Harvard Report was drafted in
nineteen seventy one, of.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Which I guess it was stated that.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
For I don't know if the point was that for
major labels to survive or for black music to survive,
but basically the idea of a major label adopting that's
what we were, a smaller black label.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, that's what Billa International was.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
So was it someone who because by that point in
seventy two, even though there was there was backstabbers and
like things were starting to heat up. But who was
the person that you know who was inspired to write
the Harvard Report that really argued for you guys to
have a deal with Clive Davis or he read this

(27:54):
Harvard Report.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
And it's like, you know, you're right, I should do this.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
I think they sponsored it. Oh, a lot of the
record companies sponsored it because we were there at CBS,
like nineteen sixty nine seventy is when we was making
our deal, and it was kind of like it shadowed
what we were doing with CBS, because there was a

(28:19):
time when we would do albums and we would have
album covers and we would put the like an artist
like Jerry Butler or somebody like that on the front cover,
and their sales department was saying, now, we can't sell it.
They can't sell it because it was a black face
on it. Race Records, Race Records, this is where they

(28:39):
were coming from. And so when we got into it,
it was a little more music became a little more
of a protests instrument, you know, and the industry just
opened up. It opened up wide. Like in Texas, there
was a rack job. At the rack job as a
guy who's got a warehouse and he'll buy one hundred

(29:02):
thousand albums and distributed them himself. But you'll see him
this guy's name, his name was Lieberman, and he wouldn't
really sell that many albums black albums in the beginning,
but radio changed from AM to FM had reached more people.

(29:24):
The whole marketplace just opened up. So a Lieberman, like
an earth Wind and Fire album, these albums were not
just hit R and B albums. These were hit pop,
everything else you can think of. You can see it
today in your commercials and everything. They're using that music
because that music crosses all those generations and and and

(29:48):
so I think I think that's what really had the
industry rolling, is that the times were changing.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Knowing that you guys initially went to I met Er
Uh and Wexler at Atlantic first Uh for Philly International.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Have you guys spoken to them since?

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Have they expressed any regret on not not taking the deal?

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Well, you know, all of them are gone. I'm and
Jerry Wexler and Uh next you way, I think they
chose to work with Stax rather.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
Than us, and that wasn't have been. That wasn't a
bad move. I mean Sax, but Stax was not like
Philly International. I worked with them a few times, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, there's definitely some sound.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Archie Bell, Yeah, Wilson record, Don't let Degree Res Fool?

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, that was a that was a echo of a session.
Didn't the Romeos put a record out on that co?
There you go? You know what I mean? It's hard
to find the right girl. And yeah, eight days a
week a week, eight days a week. That was before
the Beatles do, by the.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Way, So it should be noted that what you really
brought to the game of music is just a level
of sheen and cleanness that was right for FM radio

(31:21):
at the time. It wasn't It wasn't gut bucket back
porch sounding, which I love that sound too, But this
is definitely, you know, in the era of I know
there's there's always a debate in the era, in the
era of who holds the crown As far as I

(31:44):
know that Isaac Hayes started working with orchestration and Barry
White as well, But what was it about the sound
of less orchestras that told you this is what we
need in our music.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
During that time, Tommy Bell was he was evolving to
a greater ranger, you know. He loved Burke Backack by
the way, you know, and Bobby Martin. It just seemed
like everybody wanted to all of the rangers. They wanted
to work with violent orchestrations. Let me put it like that.

(32:22):
It's so much different from what it is today today.
I guess the fewer the instruments, the better it is. Well,
you do get a better presence when you have fewer instruments,
you know. But but that's I think that's just one
of the simple way to say it is that that's
what we heard in the music. You know.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Oh, I was gonna say yeah, because when you guys
are cutting a basic track, the strings aren't done yet.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
So how do you how hard is it for you
to have faith that?

Speaker 1 (32:54):
All? Right? Great example, something as as bare as the Ojays.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
How can you Call Me Brother?

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah, which is a very basic rhythm track but really
depends on the horn orchestration of that sort of thing.
So is it that you have that much faith in
Bobby or Norman Harris was also a good arranged for
you guys as well, that you just like, I know,
once I feed them this, then they're gonna really put

(33:23):
the impact.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
You know. What we would do as we take a
concept player, we get a small cossette of the session
with the rhythm and the voices on it, and I'd
sit down with a Huff, would sit down with Bobby
Martin and we would hum parts to them. This is

(33:48):
what we want the trumpets to play, this is what
we want the trombones to play, this is what we
want the strings to play. And then and believe it
or not, I'm gonna tell you something. Even today, I
can still remember all those arrangements in my head. I mean,
it's like the brainwashed me almost. You know, you can

(34:09):
still hear it all. And it was unbelievable. Plus two,
if if you listen to the tracks, a lot of
the stuff happens when you write the song. The arrangement
is in the song, you know. And so where Huff
used to play on every session, and between him and

(34:30):
myself and Tom Bell, and like you said, Norman Harris,
Norman Harris, he did an excellent job because he couldn't
even arrange at first. You're talking about guys who couldn't
even write music when we first started. Now these guys
are between Rolling and Bobby Martin. They probably taught all
of those guys how to write and arrange music. And

(34:53):
also Vince Montana. Oh yeah, it was great.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
But these are sixty pieces, right, we read sixty pieces.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
We would have at least eight or nine rhythm people.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
We would have.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
I'd say at least ten between trumpets, horns and brass.
But see we would doubles things so it would sound sneaky.
I thought it was super time recorded No, we would
double stuff and triple stuff at that at sometimes to
really get that fullness. Because you know, you mentioned something

(35:33):
a moment ago when the industry moved from mono to stereo,
was a big difference. When it moved from AM to film,
it was a big change because you got to look
at the mixing process became totally different. Joe Jarja was
an excellent engineer.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
I was going to say, talk about Joe Tarcia and
how uh did you totally trust your mixing in his hands?
Was it a thing where you guys had to micromanage
and be over his shoulders or he knew exactly what
to do.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
We had to be there withinning. We had to be
there with him because you know what, sometimes we would
mix him toil one two three o'clock in the morning.
Right the next day, I come in and Joe don
did something to it during the night.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
M M.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
I said, Joe, why did you pull that piano down
like that? He said, but you can hear that because
you can hear stuff when it means something to you, right, Okay?
And so Joe was he was excellent man.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
He was.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
He's a good he was a good team player. We
had a great team. That's that's what happened with us.

Speaker 6 (36:42):
Speaking of the team, I was going to ask you
because we were talking about this before we got we
started recording about Larry Gold since we're in the house
that he built. He's in the back somewhere. But I
was trying to figure out, so back in these days,
was he just like a session player, because now, of
course he's a string ranger.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Oh, he's great.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
But he was on all the sessions, him and and
Don Rinaldo and uh, A lot of the guys from
the old Uptown Theater were part.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Of our band.

Speaker 4 (37:12):
So the Uptown Theater had a house orchestra, house band.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Oh yeah, Sam Reid, really Sam Reid was was the
house band and he had. Most of those guys have
passed now, but but the Uptown was I used to
go get chicken sandwiches for them guys over at Pearls,
you know, and the Uptown Theater was that was a

(37:39):
nest too for some great, great artists. You don't have
places like the Uptown and places like that anymore to
to develop new young people, you know, to give them
a chance to uh some reasonable price to get in
a place or whatever.

Speaker 6 (37:54):
You know, is that what you plan on doing a
mirror when you fix up the Uptown, you're gonna bring
it back.

Speaker 4 (37:58):
To that put me on the spot, sure, like yeah.

Speaker 6 (38:02):
I didn't even know if he knew that you was.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
I was really no, it's a dream of mind to
bring it back. You know. We were talking to some
people the other day, man Khalif, when they were talking
about the Uptown you know, doing something then so we
have to like it's it's too much history there, like, yeah,
the Apollo.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Is still thriving in DC theater. Howard Theaters is coming back.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
You know what you need to though with the Uptown
money the same money you need. You need the same
thing that Apollo as. You need somebody to underwrite it
like a Coca Cola. I think it takes care of
apollow and it's not a roo.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, I need to know more billionaires. That's Ron Perelman.
Is that the guy from Philly you're talking about? Ron
Perlmans from Proman's a very weird billionaire.

Speaker 6 (38:50):
He owns like he was a Revlon wasn't he too?

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, but he has a lot of companies. But things
you don't think about.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Like you know, like person the person that that makes
cotton balls or or Q tips or.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
That's a good one.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Rubber band companies like things that you don't think that
people everything. A guy that owns duct tape, like.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
That's the type of business that ron.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Right there. Yeah. So the the sound, I've always been
curious about the sound of Philadelphia because along with that sophistication,
you know, I would say that, you know, part of
the part of the charm of Motown was like it
was it was part church uh done by jazz musicians

(39:41):
who thought they were above playing pop music or whatever.
But and with stacks their sound was all the way
you know, look, but yet just the sound, were you
giving your input as far as like you wanted these

(40:01):
drums to sound dead? Only bring this up because one
I mean, like what my first five six records at Sigma,
And one day Joe Tarcia is in the hallway and
he knew how I was struggling with a drum part
and I couldn't get it right, like I was wasting
all this duct tape on my snare or whatever.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
And he says, say, hang on, I'll be right back,
and he runs upstairs.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
He comes down with this blue blanket and he's like,
this is the blue blanket that I would put it
on top of, you know, on on top of Earl's
drums and everything whatever, and he's like, this is the
sound you're looking for, And he like went to the
board and did us a solid in ten minutes and
I got the sound I wanted.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
But it was so radical to see it at the time.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Was it was it how did you guys construct this sound?
Like it's it's such a like the drums are dead,
but it's more live and plus with Earl Young being
the proprietor of disco, like, how how did you guys
discover Was it just accidentally discovering like, oh, people like

(41:12):
dancing to this type of music?

Speaker 2 (41:13):
And you know, I used to always say, like the drums,
there's two parts to the drums. It's the bass drum.
That bass drum is very important, and also the snare
and the symbols and and so forth, and the sock symbol.
That sock symbol sound that we came up with that

(41:34):
come from the House of prayer. That's like that's like yeah, yeah,
like tambourines, you know what I mean. So it was
a mix between all of that, you know, and we
did it so much the musicians say, man, please, let's
don't play that no more. You gotta play it because
that's what that's keeping the food on. Yeah, keep it going.

(41:54):
And then uh and then really the drums and the
bass was like a pair, you know that basse the
bass and the bass drum that they walk together.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
One one question I always wanted to know when you're
doing basic cutting tracks for ballots. Let's say, okay, let's
say Harold Melvin and Blue Notes be for Real?

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, where.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
For you hip hop fans?

Speaker 2 (42:26):
The song that ghost Face He uses to argue, oh wow,
not Wildflower?

Speaker 4 (42:33):
No, no, well he uses be for Real with can
I talk to you like the Teddy?

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah? Yeah. My whole point is that it is are
you guys saying that? Okay? We know that we want
Teddy to have two minutes and forty seven seconds of
dialogue right before the first core starts, Like, how do
you guys map out without without Teddy and the group

(42:59):
being there to have a compelling acting performance, you know
the part of the song when the song's over, and
then you got to talk to.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Your trash Oh baby, you know I need you? And
this goes on.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
But the thing is is that the arrangement is so perfectly,
it's so timed that I always wondered, do you map
ahead of time, like, okay, well Teddy's going to talk
for two minutes and forty seven seconds and then is
he going on his own?

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Are you writing out his dialogue? When what happens with
those kind of things is that we had a lot
of rehearsals before these artists go into the studio. We
would rehearse I mean with the Ojays off and I
used to rehearse them days really days before we go

(43:51):
into the studio. You know, we cut the tracks and
then we rehearse them again with the track because it'd
be different. It's one thing rehears them on the piano,
you know, with me, and but then when you cut
the track, it's totally different. You got different figures and everything.
But like I think, I think the rehearsals were the
key to everything that we did.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
You know, So for like Sunshine OJ's which is ten minutes,
you're saying that even in rehearsal, Eddie LeVert is.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Going balls to the wall that hard with his at libs. No,
there's a certain part of it that the artist basically
It's like Bunnie Sigler wrote Sunshine Okay on and he
helped the produce it. He and what's the other guy
that was with him, Phil Hurt I think Phil's name was.
And so they did rehearse the ojys because the OJ's

(44:45):
used to come in Philadelphia to record, and they would
stay here for a month, okay, for a whole month.
The first week we would do nothing but send them
around to each little room. We had rooms, and Fat
and White Ad had a room. Bunnie Sliger, Phil, I
mean Sherman Marshall who wrote for Think Came Youth with
Dion Warick and all that, right, and so everybody had

(45:07):
their own rooms. So Huff and I would have about
eighty nine songs for him, Bunny Siegler would have five
or six songs for him, and then they we put
them all on the cassette tape and then we listened
to him and figure out which ones we were going
to cut. That would be the second phase, and once
we start cutting the tracks, it could be fifteen sixteen

(45:29):
tracks that we cut all total. And the ojs.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Say, for example, like a song like I Love music right,
it took all night to get those background parts together,
no prosals all night.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Yeah, this was a whole different thing. And the editing
aspect of all this stuff here was just crazy because
you got cutting tape all over the floor, you know.
So so huff and he played the keyboards, and the
keyboards was essential to finding out how many bars.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
I mean we talk about bar. We weren't really counting.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Bars and stuff like that, you know, and and rehearsing
like tells me now he said, Man, my back hurts.
I said, I guess so E've been rocking on that
piano years. No, we had we had a great team
of people working together. And I think that you know,
when you got people like like Dexter when you played me,

(46:35):
I mean, Dexter is to me, I thought he was
like Quincy Jones, to be honest with you, you know, and
I used to always tell him, I said, you know,
you should go out and get with Quincy Jones because
this guy had that kind of talent in my view,
you know.

Speaker 6 (46:48):
So in twenty nineteen, the kids no pop Linzel.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, which is wonderful, Yes, it is. He used to be.
He used to be walking around the floor all the time,
which is great.

Speaker 5 (46:59):
You know, between you and Huff you mentioned that he
would be uh, you know on the piano. Were you
more of like the lyric writer or did you lyrics
write music as well?

Speaker 2 (47:09):
No, I really didn't. Look I basically was lyrics, you know,
and concepts and and we write lyrics sometimes too. And
I played like me and Missus Jones and stuff like that.
I got I got about I got about six chords,
a few chords on the guitar.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
And then so they come with the music verson and
bring it to you or you're there at the same time.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
And no, when you when you say, say, for example
and Fat and White there, who were how did they
work together? They were? They were just like me and Huff.
They were excellent.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
They had Victor Carlstaffen that worked with them. He was
a keyboard player and so and then you had Tom
Bell and Linda Creed. Linda Creed was an unbelievable lyricist,
you know, to be bet you by golly while all
that stuff and uh, people make the world go around,
how were you Okay?

Speaker 1 (48:05):
So of course a majority of the stuff is done
under the Philly International umbrella, right, but for some of
those projects that wanted that Philly sound Eddie Kendricks, he's
a friend or or then Kim you down work in
the Spinners or even the Spinners themselves, Like how were

(48:26):
you able to where they contractually bound to you guys
first and you gained permission to Okay.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
You know what happened with that. Just take the Spinners
for example, and tom Bell. Tom Bell was like an
independent producer. They had an independent production because there were
people like the Spinners, dayn Warick, Johnny Mathis.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
And all these people. The music was you, I mean,
was it associated with you or was it?

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yeah, we were all working together because where we all
linked up at wasn't publishing see with the six three,
mighty three, mighty three twenty three, Yeah we're publishing. And
also too with with the cross pollination of of mcfatt
and white Hair working with Tommy and it was different,
different people all working together. But when Tom Bell brings

(49:18):
in a Johnny Mathis to take because most of the
songs he did with Johnny Mathis have been recorded before.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
That we cut before. So it was a new expansion
for us.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
And and that's pretty because Huff and I did we
didn't really do a lot of outside production things with
people on different labels. Earlier in the game, we did,
you know, like Archie Bell and Wilson Piccott what you mentioned,
which was fun. But after we got to a certain point,

(49:47):
our whole thing was to build Philly International, because what
happened with that would be is more of a First
of all, we had a strong association with CBS, and
we were strong as anybody with the Internet national side
of the industry. And then I would think that that
we had the same the same music. We had a

(50:10):
great team in Philly and a great team in New York.
Ronald Luxemburg and Clive Davis and all these people, you know,
we had. We had a good run. For the life
of me. Can you please answer this question? Go ahead?

Speaker 5 (50:24):
Why why why did you guys not call T S
O P.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Soul train?

Speaker 4 (50:35):
Now you could have just called the song soul trained.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Now let me tell you what happened. What happened was John, Yeah, doctor,
you've seen that already. I haven't seen it, but I
think I know where you're going with the store doctor
is I told Don, I said, Don, I said, we're
gonna call this soul trained thing. He said, Nah, I
want to keep soul trained. Sad separate what I said.

(51:02):
I said, you can't do that, you know, no, we
wanted to call it Soul Trained, but you just said right.
So then what happened when it became such a monster
a monster, monster monster. It was number one all.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Over the world.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
It was number one everywhere. And the funny part about
it is we called it the soul We called it
the Sound of Philadelphia, and then parenthesis, it was the
Soul Trained theme. But he didn't want it to be
the Soul Trained.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Or whatever, you know, just in case he didn't.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
But you know, he actually really said that, and they
did an interview with him somewhere and he said that
was the dumbest movie ever made. But he was good people. Man,
We could you talk about a vehicle for our music?
And I used to talk to him every week. Every
week he said, Okay, we're gonna send out this week,

(51:55):
you know what I mean. So we would always have
a place on this show, and that was pretty much
the it's show for for that particular time. I mean,
Soul Train was was unbelievable.

Speaker 6 (52:09):
And weren't we just watching some footage where he was
actually an advocate for Black Music Month as well. So
y'all were all in.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Yah, yeah, yeah, we were. We were real good friends.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Yeah. Black Music Month. That was Deana, that was yeah.

Speaker 6 (52:21):
She was showing us the footage and he was testifying
the Congress on his way somewhere Black Music Month.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Okay, I'm gonna I always present this in the worst
possible scenario. Go ahead.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
So I'm not going to do gun to your head
as I normally do.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
What is that? No?

Speaker 4 (52:38):
No, I always give you the ultimatum, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
So between.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Eddie Livert, I'm trying I'm trying to I'm trying to
figure out your your top.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
Five starting squad.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Good now in your powerhouse lead singing voice with Eddie
Livert and Teddy Pendergrad.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Was Kenny Ebol even in the picture. Was he after
a the Ebo joined the Blue Notes? Did he join
the Blue Notes after reaching for the was? Okay?

Speaker 2 (53:14):
So you don't count, all right?

Speaker 1 (53:15):
So who is your Who gets the advantage? Eddie Livert,
Teddy Pendergrass in your powerhouse lead singing voice?

Speaker 2 (53:29):
This is an easy one for me, really seriously, Yeah, alright,
you go first.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
I say it's Eddie because Teddy is not available right now?

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yeah, but I believe let's go let's go to history.

Speaker 5 (53:43):
If we're talking history, I still give it to That
would be my pa.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
Because I mean, that's Eddie LeVert bro I don't know.
I know Teddy, I've heard, I've heard Teddy Pendergrass singing.
Teddy is a monster. But Eddie, oh my god, really
he just to me it was more so.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I thought that Eddie was more of a He could
just emote.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
A song better and like he I don't know, I mean,
which is saying a lot compared to Teddy.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
But yeah, mother will go to Eddie too. All right,
let me tell you what I.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Like all of them. But I'll tell you this, y'all
sleeping one guy. Wait, we're missing somebody you know. Let
me tell you it's Walter. But he's my my Yeah,
he's my assist. See is my best second. Lot of
people sleep.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Walk because see, Eddie is more of a performing artist.
When you think of Eddie, you think of a guy
that's hollering and screaming and on the floor singer.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
But Walter.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
I remember when I used to give Walter the lyrics.
He was excellent, man, he was exactly. He would just
the way I heard him singing it. He would sing it.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
So but I know what you trying to get after
here you're talking about who favorites, but well who is
I still say Walter wins.

Speaker 5 (55:12):
So when you would do when you would write the songs,
who would sing the demo or the reference tracks for
the men?

Speaker 2 (55:20):
He was saying, really, yeah, So.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Was there any time y'all was like, you know what?

Speaker 2 (55:29):
I might keep this? Did y'all keep for yourself?

Speaker 1 (55:30):
I used to tell her that, me and him say
that now, I said, he, I said, we should have
kept that man, Missus Jones, we're being Vegas and me
and Missus Jones.

Speaker 5 (55:42):
I wanted like, can we just the genius of that
song because for years I didn't know it was about
an affair, an affair we love affair? Yeah, we never
we never thought that. But that's just all I knew
was that him and Missus Jones had something going on
going on.

Speaker 6 (55:57):
They don't know it was wrong. So the wrong didn't.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Yeah it didn't.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
It was, but it was much too strong.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
So a lot of these songs from personal experience or
is it just hey, this is what's going on in
life and let me you know, I would think like, okay, people,
someone needs someone out there needs a song about this
specific situation, and I'm I'm the funnel that's going to
to bring it to life, Like how does this song

(56:32):
like that come to be?

Speaker 2 (56:33):
And someone in your life is not looking at you
side right right? You mean me?

Speaker 6 (56:37):
And Dean wasn't here before you. So there was a
couple of songs. She liked to claim, have you.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Ever written a song that someone's like that's about in
a minute that sounds like us?

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Well, yeah, you know what happened to me as a song,
right and half we before we would write songs and
we were sitting in the room just like this here
like we're doing it and talk and just talk and
laugh and talk about the fantasy. The fantasy was a
bar that he was right across the street from us,

(57:13):
and everybody used to be here, the fantasy, you know,
mister Loretta, and we used to go there to eat.
It was Jordan Spruce, unbelievable. I went there once and
more like, oh it was great. But anyway, so what
we would do is going we could go into fantasy, right,
and all you gotta do is sit there and you

(57:33):
see all these people and and you make up stuff,
you make up stories, make up just look at that
guy over there. Man, he's with that young girl. Man
that's not his wife or whatever, you know what I mean. Yeah,
And then we go back and sit at.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
The piano and uh and come up with stories.

Speaker 5 (57:51):
About how often did I mean, because at this time,
I mean, you got Eddie, you got Teddy. You know,
you have all these great singers, lou Rose I imagine,
had several unbelievable how.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Much of their lives.

Speaker 5 (58:06):
Would you look at and say, like, damn, Teddy's going
through this, and then take it and write about it.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
I don't know. I mean, it was so much to
write about, so much to write about, and we were
having so much fun. And then, you know, you put
a formula together. Our formula was because at that time,
albums was the whole thing. Albums were selling. And so
you take an artist like Teddy Pendergrads who was so

(58:33):
versatile number one and as a matter of fact, I
heard one of his songs today, my latest greatest, and
and I was listening to us, said, wow, what a record,
you know what I mean, just all of the parts
of it, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (58:51):
So how many hours would it take for you to
know that you have a great Teddy performance? Like and
do you is there a code word? Like all right,
take them take it home. You don't what to do
because this guy.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
Teddy Penogras, we will rehearse him too. Wow, you weren't
scared to waste the performance? No, well, rehearse him because See,
the theory we had was when you're recording, we don't
want you standing in there reading on the paper. We
wanted to to come from inside. You gotta come from here,

(59:27):
forget that. You gotta know these songs, you see, because
it's better. That makes sense, But it's a better performance.
And so Teddy Penogras was the worst guy, you know,
because he'd always lose the papers, you know, But.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
You had to do it. You gotta learn it, Teddy.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
You got to learn these lyrics and you gotta go
in there and you gotta sing them.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Well. Okay, So speaking of the latest greatest, I'm trying
to figure it is that the song that Teddy has
went the most.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Man, When how do you pull.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
That out of I didn't do that. He did that hisself,
And there was no I mean I wanted more. That
was that was unusual for him to even do that,
but that song made him do that really, you know.
And then the background was so sweet with Cecil Womack Ahow,

(01:00:28):
Leon Huff and myself. It was the three of us
singing on that. It was Cecil Walmac I was saying,
So we were still a Romeos. We're still background and
sing and everything. So it was fun, you know what
I mean to be in the studio and and sing background.
We did background, uh for stylistics. We was on all

(01:00:52):
of that stuff, and we was on if you don't
know me by now? We sang the background on that.
Really okay? You know what I always wanted.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
To know, could you name three acts that were close
but no cigar acts that could have been on Philly
International or even produced by you, Like, did you guys
have a chance to Always wanted to know if you
guys ever had a chance to at least talk with
the Dells. I know that Charles Stephanie was with him

(01:01:24):
for a long time. Then when he passed away, they
were without a producer and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
They did Yeah, we did an album with him.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
When, uh, what year was that the Dells came I
Salute you nineteen nine.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
I salute you. Yeah, what was it was Marvin Junior
still in He's still in there, and you know what,
we got stuff in on on uh in the can
on them and because they did a version of Ave Maria,
say what I'm telling no, We was just like in
the studio and we were just all talking and everything,

(01:02:00):
and then all of a sudden they started singing of
the Maria and we had to we had to mic
someone and everything, and man, I'll tell you it was beautiful.
The Dell's doing Dells doing they could do that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
There's they have a really weird version of You Are
My Sunshine, which I never They did it a minor, right,
Charles Stephanie and the Dells did like a minor version.
It's like the darkest version, the most soulful, darkest version

(01:02:35):
of You Are My Sunshine.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
He was talented, definitely excellent.

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):
So but what three acts did you have that you
were close?

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
But no Cigars like came to Philly and yeah, let's
work together, and then it just didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Well, Earth went Fire is one. What this was years
and years like when we were first getting started, you know,
and we had a we had a deal with chest
Checker and we had a management company called Huga h
u g a huffing gamble. It's called Hugo Hugo Management.

(01:03:13):
And Earth went and fire. This is when they had
the girl with them. I forget Justic cold Cleve and
they came up and we were we were trying to
get ourselves together, be honest with you, and they were
trying to get theirselves together. But then they became monsters
and we were at the same label they was with
Columbia too, CBS. Well that's one, okay, one act like that.

(01:03:35):
And I always wanted to cut the temptations, always tried
to and they slipped right through my fingers temptations.

Speaker 4 (01:03:43):
And was this doing the period that they went to
Atlantic instead?

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
As a matter of fact, we were bringing we we
had David Ruff and Eddie Kin. We had them all
back together again. We did and man just didn't work out.
It didn't work out. And oldest be and oldest always
remained good friends.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
And then.

Speaker 6 (01:04:08):
Somebody told me to mention Bob Marley. It was almost
Bob Marley.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Yeah wait what yeah, we.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Yeah, Bob Marley Records.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Man, that would have been great. Bob was he was
for destiny and purpose, you know what I mean. So
he liked what we were doing with music and the
messages that were because our whole thing was the message
in the music.

Speaker 6 (01:04:34):
You know this post clean up the Ghetto, right, Yeah,
all of.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
This was And Bob Marley he was like when I
met with him, he said, man, we can bring people
together from all over the world. I said, well, let's
do it. Let's get it. And so his manager and
lawyer at the time, I think they were trying to
get a big money deal, you know what I mean.
And we didn't have a whole lot of money.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
We had we.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Had a lot of talent on the preside. Yeah, Bob
would have been Then Bob got sick, he got sick.
This was gotta be I don't know. I guess around
seventy nine eighty Philly.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
No, he did city Lights in eighty one, eighty one
city Lights appearance.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
It was at his last one. Yeah, it was like
this around that time where I met with him, and
that could have been something. Oh, it would have been great.
As a matter of fact, when we had the Black
Music Association, we had Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder right
here in Philadelphia. That was then Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder
was the entertainment for the Black Music Associations. Wow, unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
No, no, no, no, it's it's okay. So for some reason,
are you guys familiar with.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
The seven? How many thousands of reels came from Sigma?

Speaker 7 (01:06:00):
You said seven?

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Yeah, like over seven? Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
So when Sigma imploded a lot of these reels were
just about to go in the trash like it was
going to go to storage, and that didn't happen. So
basically Drexel University wound up with thousands and thousands and
thousands of reels. So there is a week that Stevie

(01:06:28):
Wonders spent in Philadelphia.

Speaker 4 (01:06:32):
In which.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
I don't know the particular date on the call sheet,
but he's at Sigma demoing what will Become I Love
You Too Much?

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
That was in square circles.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Yeah, I think that the real day.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Was it seventy nine to eighty or something?

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Yeah, So it's there is about there's about two weeks
worth of Philadelphia Sigma reels of Stevie Wonder recutting a
Seeds of Star and like five or six other songs.
But one song is actually with al Green him giving
it to al Green. It's it's like a demo, but

(01:07:13):
it's good enough for me to steal and deja hey listen,
he used to be here all the time, Stevie. Really yeah.
He would fall asleep on the couch.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
He would come to the studio, I mean, unannounced everything.
Just it sounds like Stevie.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
It was great to show up, like.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Stevie wonder not the first time.

Speaker 3 (01:07:34):
Can we rewind just a little bit because we kind
of see yeah, yeah, we skipped big. We skipped a
couple of things, two of my favorite songs that have
the Gamble and Tough name on them.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
Right, he was completely glossed over.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
We didn't we just I'm trying to turn the car
back to mind. I was about to go back to
Richard Barrett so we can come o. I was going
back to the Soul Survivors and Expressway to Your Heart,
which that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
I remember I was probably like six or seven years
old in my bedroom. Somehow that record had gotten into
my room and it stayed on my little Fisher Price
turntable for like three weeks. Like I played that record
over and yeah, yeah, yeah, so but it was it
was on Gamble Records, which predated Philadelphia International. So can

(01:08:21):
you talk about that early label experience and what that
was like and the transition into Philly International.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
Wow, Gamble Records was my partner. There was Benny Crash
remember Crash Brother's clothing store. Yes, that was my partner.
What Benny kras that loud guy Crash Brothers. Isn't it
if you didn't buy your clothes Crash Brothers, you've been robbed?

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Wow, he's no New York he was.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
Yes, he probably made too much. It's kind of like
the he was a crazy, crazy crazy Okay, but Crash Brothers,
Grass Brothers like, he was your partner, my partner.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Benny said, if you got to go, go in the
Crass Brother's suit, he was in a casket. Benny was great.
He taught me a lot man, he really did. And
he loved music. He liked to sing himself. So one
day I was in there, all of us used to
buy clothes, stage and stuff like that, and he said,

(01:09:26):
you know, can even want to make a record. He said,
could you and your band work with me? I said, yeah,
we'll work with you. I said, well, I said, I
got some groups that I'm working with I said, I
need you to help.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Me out with them.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
So we made a deal. He became my partner and
the groups he had his songs was called his group
was called the Knights, and Arthur was the name of
his group. And we cut that. It was good, and
he had one song that Curtis Mayfield took what's called
man old Man, Man, old Man. Have you been in

(01:10:04):
the Spain? The young Jeezy sample?

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
There you go, he wrote, man o Man, Man, old Man.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
He wrote it unbelievable. I gotta bring it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
I wasn't going to do it, but I gotta read it.
What is that crash that when someone drops a bomb?
And I just got it?

Speaker 4 (01:10:29):
A crash brothers man, He wrote, man o.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Man, Benny krash that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
There's a key vital scene in Dead President's movie when
that comes on, of which.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
Does something I'm never ever going I got to tell
his daughter and that's Benny krash Man.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Yeah, oh man, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Yeah. So Filly in the National was in coming, you know,
So me and how we were working with the intruders.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Cowboys and girls, Boys and girls.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
I was going to bring up cowboys to girls. Always
love my Mama.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
That was later much later. That was later, and let
me think, Uh, we had a lot of little groups
music Makers music Makers United.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Yeah, that was another one that stayed in my room
quite a bit too. We had the music Makers we
also did. We did something else with them that I
really like. It was instrumental. I think it was I'm
Gonna make you Love Me that we did on them.
But uh, I think that from that experience we had.
We had some girls from Camden called the Swans, the

(01:11:39):
the Baby Dolls and Sammy Seven's everybody do the Crossfire.
I mean, we we we were doing all kinds of stuff. Man,
you're making me really think. My brain is going deep
in my head thinking of those days, you know, because
you had, like he was saying a moment ago, he
had so many record companies in Philly and it was

(01:12:00):
hard for me enough to get in there, you know what.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
I mean, Richard Barrett, I know who started the Three degrees?
How did were you guys evolved at all involved it?
Back when they were on I forget what label they
were on before they came to Philly International.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
I don't even know what label they were on back then.
Let me think Swan Records. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Huff
was working with him then, Okay, Huff was working and
I never worked with him until they came to Philly International.
I love working with them because they were tremendous harmony
they harmony was was really tight and Richard Richard was

(01:12:47):
extremely talented. What was his role in the group? Was
he their manager? Their manager and their I mean their conductor.
I mean he was. He's the one that made him,
to be honest with you. They taught them everything you know,
and they were very disciplined. In Three Degrees that that
that stage performers wasn't wasn't it was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Who's whose idea was it? I guess it's no coincidence
of the of all the live records cut in London.
I guess when Philly International went on tour, because I
know the OJ's cut their album True and and and
Billy Paul in the Three Degrees. So was it just

(01:13:31):
like were they all at this one venue?

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
This one all that?

Speaker 4 (01:13:36):
I never knew if it was like separate times.

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
No, it made sense, got everything at one time and
it was great. Okay, Billy Pool. I guess we should
also mentioned the Jackson I mean, that's accident Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:13:51):
I wanted to ask you just about your work with
them because I read the interview once. I think it
was you that recognized that they were ready to produce themselves,
and I just wanted to know what was it that
you were One what were those sessions like just working
with them?

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
And two?

Speaker 5 (01:14:07):
Uh, how can you tell as a producer when someone
is ready to produce themselves?

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Well, you can just feel it. You can feel like
they got a pretty good sense of who they are.
You know that Michael Jackson working with them. I used
to ask him all the time. I said, you hear yourself.
So he used to go to the piano. He played
the piano a little bit and he said, well let
me try. Let me try something. When we went to

(01:14:37):
to overdub his voice, and that was the first time
that I saw an artist double live voice, triple live voice.
He had all kinds of little tricks and stuff that
he was doing to go yeah. I used to think
that was one take.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Sing that yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
So he was he was showing me. I said, go ahead,
you know what I mean, that's true. I think him
and Tito, be honest with you. Tito was the musician,
and so I think him and Tito was really really talented,
and the other guys like Jackie and and Marlon, and
you know, what I tried to do was bring it
out of them because they had been beat down so much.

(01:15:19):
With Michael just became just such a giant, you know
what I mean that they were scared to say anything.
Come on, Marlin was a tremendous dancer, still unbelievable. In fact,
I talked to him the other day, and they've been
through a lot. They've been through a lot, that group.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
And I'll say that my it's it's weird because, uh,
Sony just re released the Jackson's Ain't Going Places, uh
like a month ago, Like, oh really going place? Is
still a personal favorite of mine, I don't. I mean,
I just have sentimental attached into it because I was

(01:16:01):
seven at the time and I used to see them.
I never knew that Philly International was next to my school.
I went to perform an art school on Broad Street.
Broad Street three thirteen. You guys were three or nine,
three o nine, and never knew that how long were
you guys at three or nine?

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Oh my god? We went to three o nine about
what was it about? Nineteen seventy nineteen sixty nine seventy.
Y'all were always there. We were across the street at
the Shooters Super on the sixth floor.

Speaker 6 (01:16:37):
Okay, can you tell the story how you had to
have somebody else come in and look at the building?

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
What happened, Well, they wouldn't sell the building to us
at first, of course. So what we did is we
got a lawyer name was Eric Cromfell, got him to
go to the bank and everything to make the settlement
and everything. And then when it got down to the
point where they needed us a sign, we've come over
and signed the papers. Because see they were yeah, because

(01:17:06):
that's exactly what it was too. They they looked at
what's hard even today, it's hard for for African American
people to get building a building credit, you know. But
it was it was good move. It was a good Alan.
As a matter of fact, Alan Klein was the owner
of the building. Yeah, Alan, Alan Klin, the guy who

(01:17:27):
had the Beatles.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
Yeah, app co And even with your stature at that time,
they just felt like nope.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
So I'm telling you, I mean what they did to
us was, uh, you got to get finance and we
couldn't pay for the building. I wish, I wish we
could have, but you have to get mortgages. Because the
thing of it is, too is that that building. Uh,
the tragedy of it is when we speak of that
building is that there was an arson. The guy who

(01:17:59):
who who put that place on fire? That was that
was that was no way for that building to go.
That was terrible, you know.

Speaker 6 (01:18:07):
Yeah, rest in peace? Three on nine.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
Yeah, it was a lot there, I'll tell you a
whole lot.

Speaker 6 (01:18:13):
Now is it a parking lot?

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
But no, Well it's about to be a hotel.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Yeah, it's gonna be. It's gonna be a condominiums in
uh in a hotel and no hotel all this time though.
That's good.

Speaker 6 (01:18:27):
Did you put the Jacksons through the same rehearsal situation
that you put through the other.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
Artists in exactly everybody?

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
Everybody?

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
Yeah? Yeah, and they were great? I mean and uh
and they father man, this guy was. He was a
wonderful dude. Man.

Speaker 6 (01:18:45):
He that a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Ye, No, he was. He's great.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
Here's a random question about the Jackson's. Did you miss
Jermaine's presence? It would have been good if he was there.
Let me put it like that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
He also came to Philly. There's four songs.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
Songs. He also cuts some tracks at Sigma in nineteen
seventy six. I don't know if it's with Tom Bell,
but there was a point where Jermaine Jackson two, Yes,
it's uh, what's good for the cancer? Norman Harris, Norman Harris.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
It sounds like that, sounds just like it. So just
help me understand.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
So if someone comes into Sigma and leaves with a
product that still has the gamble and huff DNA, like,
you guys, don't wipe the board. You guys don't like
you can't use our microphones or because even for that song,

(01:19:59):
which technically has nothing to do with gambled and.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Huff, you can hear it. Yeah, so it's like, how
did you take the secret sauce?

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
But you know, but then like David Bowie came to Philly,
his records sound like, so, how do you do you
feel some sort of did you ever feel sort of
way when an artist comes to Sigma and still uses
your board, you're mixing your your session, the rhythm section.

(01:20:28):
Yes see that's what made it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
But you know what I used to think, you know,
it's enough for everybody, You know what I mean, and
you know, that was a good hustle they had, you know,
Joe good hustle. It was. It was a good hustle
because everybody wanted that sound. BB King was there and
like David Bowie was there, and who else, Elton John
came over. But everybody was grabbing, trying to grab their

(01:20:52):
little piece or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
But I never felt without coming to the water well
because see the bottom line of it was it was
this is that it's not to try to make that
little bit of money from a session, is to make
a classic product, because then you really got something. And
I used to tell them, I said, you know what
I said, you can't get around it. You can't get

(01:21:16):
around hard work, and you can't get around having a
great songs. And if you got if you just going
in there and you're just gonna throw some people together
and you're gonna do a record that it almost sounds
like what they've come in there for, you wasting the
whole thing. So because even and everybody was trying to
get their little piece. Everybody, everybody, if bands was itching

(01:21:39):
and they wanted to get money.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
They wanted to get money. Because I even told Tommy Bell,
even with Elton John. It would have been great if
we could have all worked on Elton John together. You know,
but you know who knows who knows what would have happened?

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
You know who?

Speaker 6 (01:21:58):
I'm just gonna ask to any of those artists have
a circle back to you with no, not really, I mean,
even with conversation about it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
I wouldn't even I wouldn't do nothing with him. I
mean we had our hands full.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
But believe me, but who decides the division of labor?
Like if if some artist has only the second week
of April to come to Philly to do something and
you're not available, are you saying, okay, well take him
to Dexter? Like are you the person that throws the

(01:22:31):
ball and decides who goes where?

Speaker 2 (01:22:33):
Or not? Really? I mean because we generally work it
out because the first part of the work is on us,
is on me and Huff and mcfad and Whitehead, Dexter
and Cynthia. Cynthia Biggs was great also too. She used
to write with Dexter and Charlie Boy and Bruce Hall's.

(01:22:55):
You know, we had a little group that we work
with and we would the first thing that we would
have to do is get the songs do we have
the songs that we need before we bring these guys
in here. And if we got the songs, and we
all sit around and listening to the songs and we say,

(01:23:15):
well we got some songs, let's bring them. Then we
map out with their tour people like with the Old
J's or our Melvin Blueenute whoever or Teddy say Okay,
we need them for ten days. Then they can go
away for a week and come back and give us
another ten days. And they would schedule and then the reschedule,

(01:23:40):
the release dates, photos for the album. Everything would be
be set up, be set up so that so that
it's not really it's not an inconvenience to anybody. The
way we were recording.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
Why did you not why? But what was the inspiration
behind you doing? You would alway do these paragraphs of whatever.
The concept of the record was.

Speaker 2 (01:24:04):
Line of notes. Oh yeah, I forgot Yeah. I don't
know why I started doing that, but I.

Speaker 4 (01:24:13):
Love that man. But it really got me obsessed with.

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):
Because you know what I used to write about what
the theme of the album.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
Was, you know, you know, like would you name it?
Sometimes the album ship a hoy and yeah, I used
to say stuff on it. Who was I signing shipp
Ahoy to it? Yeah, he's got him over there. Where's
that album at I just signed it for it? Let
me see that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
So with ship a Hoy your concept and they were
with it because this is pre roots, like nobody was
really dealing with the slave trade and.

Speaker 2 (01:24:44):
Oh yeah this was something. Yeah yeah, ship Ahoy, Yeah
this was something. It was Yeah, this was something because
you know what this is around the time of the
whole Alex Haley and the Roots and all that stuf. Elf,
what's going on? I said, there's no music about it,
you know. So we did this album, man, I got

(01:25:06):
it's a it's a song that goes with this. We
never got a chance to uh to do.

Speaker 1 (01:25:12):
Speaking of speaking of ship aboard, uh, I gotta know,
how did you guys wind up with Anthony Jackson who
he used to play with Billy Paul that base.

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
Famous baseline probably of all time. Wasn't great?

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
He was great?

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
Yes? He also Anthony told me he invented the five
string bass.

Speaker 4 (01:25:36):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
Did he invent that?

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
Yes? He there was never a five string bass till
he came along. And when he customized his bass he
I tell you one thing. He was great that day
he played.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
He played like I don't I'm telling you it was unbelievable.
Did you have that baseline for for the Love of
Money or was that?

Speaker 6 (01:25:56):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
He was that in his mind.

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
Yeah. No, we basically had the concept and he took
it and emphasized. I mean, he just he took it
to another level once you play that real quick intro.

Speaker 7 (01:26:11):
So you said there was a song that goes with that?

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
What?

Speaker 4 (01:26:16):
No, No, he didn't recorded.

Speaker 6 (01:26:19):
Yeah right, you said that y'all didn't record or y'all
didn't put it on the album.

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
No, it's gotta be.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:26:26):
On all of these albums there was the message. He
would write a paragraph.

Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
You know. That's where.

Speaker 6 (01:26:35):
Now I want to know what the paragraph?

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
I want to I guess we had it on it.
I'm pretty sure this was important to me.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
It's the great Anthony Jackson on base y'all no echo
right there? You know this right, it's not from the
beginning again. That was that that Joe Tarcia, Oh that
was Joseph told me you couldn't do it. I said, man,
are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
Nowhere echo back? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:27:13):
Does it go back and forth? Throughout the whole song.
I never noticed intro like I knew. I noticed it
in the intro button, but only that first time.

Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
You can tell me, say you can't do that?

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):
I said, why not?

Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
Why can't you put echo on a base? Can you? Can?

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
You speak upon Teddy at it at the height of
his powers, and I don't think there's there's not much
emphasis on how powerful he was and where he was headed, uh,
where he was headed.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
In his career. But it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
And how how I mean starting as a drummer and
howld Melvin the blue notes? Like how was that power
just contained inside of that unit before you eventually had
to bring it out like you always knew that voice
was there. Nope.

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
As a matter of fact, my introduction to Teddy pinegress
I was out doing something and called me and upset
Gamble because we were always telling Howard Melvin and he
needed a lead singer.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
You know, how do he take that that he wasn't.
He's like Charlie Brown, not the star of his own.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
But how how is a genius? I mean this man
here he put he put that he could take all
of us and make us the blue notes. You know,
that's the kind of gift he has. And I used
to tell him I was he was my friend number one,
and we're trying to get we're trying to make it.
And so the key of it would be is that

(01:28:53):
he had a lot of competition out there, and so
to compete, Hal had a softer voice, a real smooth voice,
a nice voice. But you needed that voice that could
rock the house. Yeah, you needed a voice that could
rock the house. And so I've called me one day
and said, man, said, how got a guy here that
plays the drums? He said, yeah, but you got to
hit this guy. So by the time I got down

(01:29:15):
there to the office and I heard him, I said, oh,
that's the guy we've been looking for.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
How did you.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
Break the news to Harold that how this guy should sing?

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
I miss you?

Speaker 4 (01:29:29):
Because we all thought that was Harold Milt, right.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
I know it. That's where the problem came in at
is that you know that there was some kind of
Hald Melvin and the Blue Notes, and we had Al
Melvin the Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass, and then we
even changed it because how was really putting together a
fantastic show he had because it could have been Hal
Melvin and The Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass and Shine Page.

Speaker 4 (01:29:56):
What was Sharon Page before she was singing in the group.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
McFadden and white Head brought Sharon Page in. You know,
they knew her. She was from North Philly and she
had well her voice is so sweet, man. I hope
we can be together soon. That's great. And that was
a song that we did with Dusty Springfield, Oh wow,
years ago, hope we can be together soon. And and

(01:30:22):
how Melvin took Sharon Page and rehearsed her. And when
I listened to it, I said, wow, I said, this
is good. I said, but you know what I said,
we got to put Teddy on here. So so it
was how Sharon Page and Teddy Pendergrass I put Teddy
in on the end and right, yeah, which which really

(01:30:43):
made it made it to me, made it nice, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
And it was kind of hard to argue with success.
But I know that that must have caused some sort
of conflict with.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
I didn't know. I didn't look at it like that.
I looked at it because well, I'm telling I was
telling him. I said, were trying to make it, you know,
and to me, you'd be like fooling yourself if you
don't try to at least do the best that you
can do.

Speaker 4 (01:31:09):
Did he try to attempt to sing these songs himself?

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
He did, He did have a part in him.

Speaker 4 (01:31:13):
Oh, I was going to say, you have a version
of I Miss You with Harold.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
I miss you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
I mean, oh okay, I was like, I got here.
I don't think it might be though, you know somewhere right, Okay, yeah,
but no, that song was made for Teddy belly Gred.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
What was the decision to have him leave the group
and did it cause did it cause a conflict of interests?

Speaker 4 (01:31:40):
Like, okay, you're going to produce us both now or.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
What we could have? And that's what I suggested. So
was that a conflict of interest from them? Or well
they wanted to leave, he they wanted they broke the group.
But Teddy left the group right And he came to
me and said, look, I'm leaving Harold Melvine and uh
I can't get paid or whatever the situation was. I said, well,

(01:32:04):
so he said can I stay here? I said, yeah,
he can stay, it's no problem. So then when how
came in and the house, well, you know, Teddy left
the group. I got me a new singer, you know.
I mean, and I'll stay, but I don't want Teddy
over here. I said, well, I can't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:32:20):
You're gonna lose this one, right, I can't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:22):
So and he had a good group, because that's when Ebo,
I think you were in David Ebo. I think his
name was Kenny might be, but.

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):
Anyway, he was good.

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
And but it wasn't like Teddy Pendergrass and the whole thing.
And uh and I think that's during the time when
wake Up Everybody came out and that was pretty much
didn't need a background, wake Up Everybody, and so we
didn't use the background. But that was before the group
broke up anyway, right, Okay, okay, So it wasn't it

(01:32:56):
wasn't anything. But I loved how Harold Melvin had. We
had a lot of talent and h he's the guy
who discovered Teddy Pentograss.

Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
So the of the classic Philly International records, I mean,
do you consider the classic logo era of Philly International.
Do you consider paddle la Belle to be the end
of that sentence?

Speaker 2 (01:33:22):
Or Wow, ain't that something? She's great? I'm in love again.
That's a great song, right, away.

Speaker 5 (01:33:29):
If only you knew that was like, that's one of
my favorite my.

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
Loved even want you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
Yeah, you know, Patti LaBelle, She's a classic, you know.
And I mean when we start to think of these people,
you know, these are all all good friends. I try
to make sure that we had not only make music together,
but we also respect one another. And uh, Patty, I've

(01:33:56):
been knowing Patty since we were teenagers.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
I was really glad to be able to work with her,
and I'm really glad to get the hits that we
got with her. We got some stuff on her right
now in the can that I want to get it out.
So we're going to start trying to put some of
this stuff out. I want to know what's in the can.
You want you, I want to know what's in the can. Yeah,
I want to know what's in the can. So are

(01:34:19):
you of your entire Did you hear that? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:34:24):
I was like I heard it, but I didn't absorb it. Yeah,
we'll talk about that. Yeah, okay, of of your entire canon?
What do you what do you feel? What is the
most special to you, the most sentimental? Your your baby,
You're the song that you've written. Can you say that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
Wow, there's quite a few.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
All right, I'll give you three.

Speaker 4 (01:34:50):
Give me what are your What are your three?

Speaker 2 (01:34:53):
Well, let's go with let's go with Family Reunion. That's
a good one. Okay. You feel if you feel a
certain way when you when you have songs.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
When when those opening notes come in, like it's just
warmth all over there.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
It's great. Yeah, that's that's I love that record. Yeah,
that's like potatoes out. Yeah, it's good for you in
the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
Oh, it's a real picture.

Speaker 2 (01:35:29):
Yeah, that's nice.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
And for nineteen seventy six, what else you got? I think,
well this but for the love of money, of course,
you know that.

Speaker 6 (01:35:44):
That's just you're doing your top earners over there.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
Check this out on this album. Here, here's a song
that we did. It's called this Air.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
I breathe.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
Now, this was before all the pollution and oncology, right
is there? I breathe It don't belong to me. I
breathe it in, I take it in and I breathe
it out. It just won't stay in my mouth. That's
the lyrics. Yeah, Wow, don't call me brother. That's a
good one. People, I love that song. That's a good one.
It's the truth. That is my favorite song. That's the

(01:36:18):
original player hater call that.

Speaker 7 (01:36:22):
And I asked a question.

Speaker 8 (01:36:24):
Yes, I'm noticing in some of the songwriting credits sometimes
it's uh huff gamble, sometimes it's gamble hoff.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
I didn't notice it. John Lennon, Lenna McCartney.

Speaker 1 (01:36:37):
Yeah, situation. I'm not sure.

Speaker 7 (01:36:38):
Did that mean anything that I represent?

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
Not to me, I've never even seen that.

Speaker 8 (01:36:45):
Yeah, I'm the same album something executive songs. It's like, yeah,
it might just be a type.

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
What song is that?

Speaker 8 (01:36:52):
Nobody could take your place? As half gamble? Nobody could
ever take it?

Speaker 7 (01:36:55):
Somewhere down the line is gamble hoof same thing?

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
Nobody could ever take your place? That's a good song?

Speaker 6 (01:37:02):
Was lou Rawls You'll never find? Is that one of
your top three?

Speaker 2 (01:37:06):
Ye, that's a good one.

Speaker 6 (01:37:08):
I got to give it to Belief again, I can't
take the credit.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
Did you ever think a song wasn't going to be
a hit and wound up being a hit?

Speaker 1 (01:37:16):
Or vice versa?

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
Three degrees? What which one?

Speaker 6 (01:37:22):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
It just hit me that a big part of their
notariety was the fact that that song was also a
favorite of Prince Charles. Yeah, so the Prince Charles was
like that was his was that was his TLC. So
he invited them over.

Speaker 6 (01:37:39):
Yeah, yeah, he was cheating with Camilla.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
This is when this is when he was a teenager.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
He invited them over them and then like they were
in the press, they're like, meet Prince Charles's favorite group,
the Three Degrees and that that's.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
How like that that helped.

Speaker 1 (01:37:59):
Them a lot, like was the Drake of his day.

Speaker 2 (01:38:08):
The Jones girls. Wow, the Jones girls.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
Man, you guys are just pulling them out iterations of it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
That goes back to Dexter WANs All again.

Speaker 1 (01:38:20):
Yeah, turned into the.

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
Most The beautiful thing was we had so much competition
amongst each other, you know, and so that makes it better.
When you got people that you have to compete with,
you gotta win, so you gotta be good. And I
listened to songs like like Sadie Jefferson and Simmons. It

(01:38:48):
was a great song Sadie, you know. And the Spinners
were they were excellent. I mean Philippe, the guy who
was the lead single fan when this guy was unbelievable,
you know he was.

Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
He was as good almost as a Teddy Pendergrass.

Speaker 2 (01:39:06):
You know what I mean especially in performing, like out
on stage, this guy would turn the joint out man.
And it's unfortunate that he that he got hisself in
that in that situation where he had that heart attack
or whatever, but he had a tremendous future. I would
even compare him to who had the potential of becoming

(01:39:29):
like a Sam Cook. That's the kind of voice that
this guy had. You know, they had some great albums together.
I mean Tommy Bell, I mean, he made some beautiful
music with the Spinners, Din Warick. And then there's another
songwriter that we had with us as Vinny Barrett. She
was great, Benny Barrett.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
What is your favorite obscure piro joint?

Speaker 2 (01:39:55):
Probably one of them is Oh, Jay's my favorite person.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
So good one. Jam That's a good one. Yeah, yeah,
like yours. Bill I mentioned it earlier. It's Dexter one.
You can be what you want to be, Okay, Like, yeah,
I love that one.

Speaker 6 (01:40:15):
Just asked I did mine niceer reason because I know
it's not but I know some people but it was.

Speaker 5 (01:40:23):
But I'm just saying, but no, that's that's a great song.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
I people talk about like clean.

Speaker 6 (01:40:31):
Up the Ghetto is still skew to some people, So
I'll take that one.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
I wasn't familiar with until Daft Punk used cold Bottom.
I forgot that was p I R.

Speaker 2 (01:40:44):
Yeah. Oh wow damn yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:40:46):
Well yeah, actually there's three daft Punk samples off that first.

Speaker 2 (01:40:51):
Uh, Edwards, how do you feel about people sampling your stuff?

Speaker 1 (01:40:55):
It's great, I'll take another.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
All that's a perfect answer because it basically it recontextualizes
it for an entire new generation. Like I mean, there's
so much classic music that was sampled via hip hop
that I probably wouldn't have heard of.

Speaker 2 (01:41:12):
So it just opened my ears to so much more.

Speaker 6 (01:41:15):
Oh, that was the Kanye story I was telling earlier
when we was on stage and Kanye asked, you could
he get hit there's some samples for free beautiful?

Speaker 4 (01:41:22):
Yeah, and you literally.

Speaker 6 (01:41:23):
Literally he was like we literally.

Speaker 2 (01:41:25):
Kobe said, would you like.

Speaker 6 (01:41:27):
What was the first thing you would like to say
to mister Gamble? Can I get some samples for free?
Promise you?

Speaker 2 (01:41:34):
What was your response?

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
No, I can't do that. All yeah, I mean free.

Speaker 3 (01:41:41):
We can work together, maybe nothing off the top, but
something off the back end.

Speaker 2 (01:41:45):
But it's good to work you know. But Kanye, he's
done good. He's not real good.

Speaker 6 (01:41:52):
Do you have a faith? How long ages that? That
was like fifteen years ago?

Speaker 1 (01:41:56):
Wow?

Speaker 6 (01:41:58):
I mean it's been a long Like do you have
a favorite use of a of a sample of your song?

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
Oh? Man?

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
Oh no, Cliff, they did what did y'all do? What
was that thing y'all did that CD did with Anthony Ellis?
Samthology was? What's biggest smalls on that? Use?

Speaker 6 (01:42:24):
The Dynasty record? The jay z on more?

Speaker 1 (01:42:28):
Can I say? Well, mindset singing something nothing y That's
not what I'm talking about.

Speaker 6 (01:42:35):
I'm talking about. That's another song he used.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
Yeah, yeah, do you have anything else? Man? I got
so many?

Speaker 5 (01:42:46):
So okay, I want to say and correct me if
I'm wrong. I remember, I think I remember this was
like ninety seven ninety eight. You did an interview with
Vibe I want to say, and they played you. They
were playing you like some new songs and you were
kind of getting your opinion on them, and one of
the songs that you really liked was it was hot

(01:43:09):
at that time, happily happily ever after about the case.
And I remember you, you know you really liked that song.
You were saying, you know, this reminds me of something
that you know me and that we would have did
back in our day. And I was and that was
one of the times I really I had even more
respect for you because a lot of times the older
cats would look at the younger dudes like, nah, that

(01:43:30):
that's not real music. But that was a hot record
and it was a really good song at studio when
I thought because first one. So when I saw you
give that process, I was like, Okay, he's still on it.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
You know, he's still in it.

Speaker 5 (01:43:43):
So do you have any artists now that you hear,
like from a songwriter perspective, and you're like, you know what,
this is a really good crafted song.

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
I wish I had read that well. I think song wise,
I think what what comes in my head right now?
It's that song about meet me in the middle.

Speaker 1 (01:44:04):
Yeah, I love.

Speaker 2 (01:44:07):
You all right now?

Speaker 4 (01:44:08):
And because right now, yeah I don't know, in the
uber some point right now.

Speaker 6 (01:44:15):
Stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:44:16):
It's like a really popular tonight show. So you still
lost at Target?

Speaker 2 (01:44:20):
Target, Why don't you you've heard the song world?

Speaker 1 (01:44:27):
Probably I got a feeling of two thousand and seventeen,
it still has a.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
You know, I thought it was good. I think it's
a good it's real catchy you know, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:44:38):
And that girl was a songwriter first, she just started
really thanks singing.

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:44:43):
Marin Moore surprising, show's surprised as the bell she's on street.

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
I like this girl. Her name is her yeah yeah?
And what's the other girl's name? Yell yeah boot. I
like both of them.

Speaker 1 (01:45:02):
I like, I like it's a little bit different, you
know what I mean. And their voices are different.

Speaker 2 (01:45:07):
You like John Legend. I love John Legend. Yeah. Version
of wake Up, Wake Up Everybody. I think there's too
many people on it.

Speaker 1 (01:45:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:45:19):
I think I should have did it by itself.

Speaker 1 (01:45:21):
You know, yeah, I think so too. I think so too.
I think something.

Speaker 6 (01:45:24):
You know who produced that record?

Speaker 2 (01:45:27):
Quest?

Speaker 3 (01:45:29):
That's why you yes, exactly great.

Speaker 1 (01:45:37):
So in terms of how many people like you, why
didn't know Common Melanie were on it?

Speaker 4 (01:45:41):
You know, we just we did the bear tracks and
then went on tour and it's.

Speaker 1 (01:45:45):
Like, oh, came back and it was But you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:47):
Know what, that song is going to be around a
long time because of that, because of y'all doing it,
because all of y'all careers is just blooming, get bigger
and bigger and bigger, and it's just gonna make more
people let's into it when I got an oscar? Now, yeah,
what was that common comment? Yeah, it's great. He was,
he gonna wake.

Speaker 6 (01:46:07):
Up everything him to.

Speaker 2 (01:46:11):
What did what did you.

Speaker 3 (01:46:14):
Don't ask you about? What do you think about new stuff?
It was it was on that epic or Columbia, Columbia, Columbia.

Speaker 6 (01:46:21):
I was just gonna ask him what he thought about
the resurgence of like Philly Soul when you know the
roots black Lily, like when that Jill, when all that happened,
you thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:46:30):
I loved it. I love I love the whole black
I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:46:33):
He worked with Victor Play, Victor Cook, Victor Play.

Speaker 6 (01:46:39):
And James Poyser, who, yes mc fee also worked in
pr R.

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):
Right, Yeah, I love it man, because you know what,
like I've seen James in the in the train station
one day and men were sitting there talking, were waiting
for the train, and I said, James, I said, you're
really doing good.

Speaker 1 (01:46:58):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:46:59):
I said, I said, I see you every night. Like
I told him, was I see you every night? And uh,
you talk about talented people like James is a very
talented person. I mean I was telling him, I said,
you know the the part that Jimmy fallon does when
he says thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
Oh yeah, the thank you notes.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
Well, that's a beautiful melody he's playing there, you know
what I mean. I would let's not guess.

Speaker 6 (01:47:24):
James Award winning James.

Speaker 2 (01:47:29):
Yeah, I mean that that is in my view, that's
a great melody. And I'm listening to us as Wow,
I said, that would be great. Maybe if you had maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:47:38):
Keep a song over it. You should borrow it and
do something with it.

Speaker 7 (01:47:43):
You.

Speaker 3 (01:47:44):
I'm talking to mister Gamble over here. You should give
that songs the blue Face make it hit.

Speaker 2 (01:47:49):
Blue Face. Don't go down there.

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
I'm saying, all the all the kids are taking your stuff,
so why don't you take some of the I just.

Speaker 1 (01:47:57):
Might it's take it back and finish it there. Yeah, well,
you don't need no lyrics to it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):
It's a melody, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:48:06):
And you know, but some words could take it to
the next place. Okay, Well with.

Speaker 5 (01:48:13):
That said, I just want to love is the message
MFSB Oh, yeah, I was. Are you aware of the
So there's a version probably like the most famous version. Honestly,
the first version of love is the message that I
ever heard.

Speaker 1 (01:48:27):
Like I don't even know which version of Love.

Speaker 2 (01:48:29):
Never Yeah, because I just don't agree with it.

Speaker 5 (01:48:33):
So there's a DJ named Danny Crivitt that did a
re edit of Love is the.

Speaker 9 (01:48:38):
New York From New York, I've heard it, Okay, what
were your thoughts on I thought it was great, Okay,
because that was the first version I heard I love.

Speaker 3 (01:48:46):
Man, how did you feel when you found out that
song was such a huge record in discos? Like it's
like it's was the loft, it was the anthem of
the loft, it was the work.

Speaker 1 (01:48:56):
Yeah, Like you know what Mike Tyson told me, he said, Man,
he said, I used to take that song Love is
a Message.

Speaker 2 (01:49:04):
He said, I used to exercise to it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:07):
Oh yeah, I'll tell you something.

Speaker 2 (01:49:11):
You know, you know how I know it's summer in
New York.

Speaker 3 (01:49:15):
Somebody driving down the street playing Love is a Message,
no matter what neighborhood I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:49:19):
In, Ain't that's something they could have gone a different way.
I'm like, God.

Speaker 1 (01:49:24):
Thank God.

Speaker 2 (01:49:25):
But no, Like.

Speaker 3 (01:49:27):
I think I think I noticed it, maybe the I
moved to New York and maybe like two two thousand
and two, I probably noticed that summer, like I first
heard somebody driving down the street, and then every summer afterwards,
I would notice, like I'm always hearing somebody blasting love
is a message going down the street, no matter what
neighborhood I'm in.

Speaker 2 (01:49:45):
Ain't that's something were you?

Speaker 1 (01:49:47):
Were you guys aware at the impact of because based
on the times that I see on these records, and
you weren't making twelve inch.

Speaker 4 (01:49:57):
Records as of yet, But did.

Speaker 1 (01:49:59):
You guys have an inkling like, Okay, the longer we
make the song, the more they keep it on, the.

Speaker 2 (01:50:05):
Better it is.

Speaker 1 (01:50:05):
Yeah, I'm telling you. They tell you we had.

Speaker 2 (01:50:11):
We had a fight with with CBS when we were
with them because the first long Vergin record that we
did was The Love I Lost, Yes, and then we
came back. Yeah, this was a good one. I mean
that was that was smoking that track. And we told
them about the twelve inches, right, but CBS wanted to

(01:50:35):
have them on a forty five.

Speaker 1 (01:50:39):
It's not gonna work, you know what I mean. You
gotta have you gotta have. The twelve inch has got
to be the same size as the album because mastering it.
If you try to master for a little forty five, ye,
the grooves gonna knod. Yeah, you wouldn't get the same sound.

Speaker 2 (01:50:59):
But yeah, that that, but we finally won and and
uh the battle with them on that twelve inch being
the long version thirty three and the third and ain't
no stopping this now.

Speaker 1 (01:51:20):
I think we must have sold like seventy five thousand
in New York alone on the twelve inch. I got
warmer question than you got to wrap up Jacko's Rhythm Talk.
Oh my god, that's my man. I love Jacko. How okay?
What was that?

Speaker 3 (01:51:40):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:51:40):
I'm this is gonna be my last song that I
played right when when rappers the light was red hot.
Jacko Jacko Henderson basically is the father of hip hop.
That that kind of cat, who's hey Papa. He used
to get in the back Philly guy.

Speaker 2 (01:51:58):
Uh he was a.

Speaker 1 (01:52:01):
New York Yes, yeah, probably a month later after rappers
are like, rhythm Talk comes out and at least in Philadelphia,
it just dominated.

Speaker 2 (01:52:15):
Jocko used to tell me, he said, rap is the thing, Kenny,
And he said, he said, let me go in the
studio and give me this track. So he went in
there and did that track. He did an excellent job. Yes,
I've heard the music.

Speaker 1 (01:52:31):
I've heard this and that's how we're going to fade out, Yo,
doctor Gamble. Great listen, thank you for everything, everything and
everything for everything.

Speaker 9 (01:52:44):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:52:46):
It's beautiful family. I remember.

Speaker 1 (01:52:58):
And this used to get the dude. I copied all
these lyrics and performed it in fourth grade.

Speaker 2 (01:53:05):
Good but don't let probably for you? Wow? What year
seventy nine?

Speaker 4 (01:53:19):
Wow, November seventy nine. It's my part, said.

Speaker 1 (01:53:29):
The originator of Mumble Rap. Yeah, Mumble rap, God jac anyway,
I want we have everybody on Quest Love Supreme, this
Quest Love the Family.

Speaker 2 (01:53:38):
Thank you, doctor gamb I appreciate it. Man, please shout
up and glee. Thank you for let us go next up.
I need the hood, I need to hoodie.

Speaker 1 (01:53:45):
Yes, absolutely, we'll see you all next time on Quest Supreme.
Got you against the love.

Speaker 2 (01:53:51):
I'm gonna make you scream for Mom, says bringing me
up to you, Mom.

Speaker 1 (01:53:55):
Your sister's naming your needs.

Speaker 4 (01:53:57):
Freeze you like first.

Speaker 2 (01:54:01):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:54:07):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.