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Kenneth Gamble (born August 11, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) [1] and Leon A. Huff (born April 8, 1942, Camden, New Jersey) [2] are an American songwriting and production duo credited for developing the Philadelphia soul music genre (also known as Philly sound) of the 1970s.
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25 févr. 2021 · The songwriters and producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Black-owned label Philadelphia International Records turned a city’s aesthetic into a movement that reverberated around the world.
12 sept. 2021 · NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff about 50 years of Philadelphia International Records and the founding of the Philly sound.
- Overview
- The iconic Philadelphia sound
By the early 1970s, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff were regularly meeting in Gamble’s office by an upright piano with a list of titles and a tape recorder to talk about the news or what was happening throughout Philadelphia. Their chemistry as songwriters and producers, combined with those frequent chats, laid the foundation for some of popular music’s most memorable, socially conscious songs to date.
“It was like Gamble and Huff at the Apollo, man,” Huff recalls. “Gamble would be singing, and I’m playing. Once we got started, we didn’t stop; as fast as I was figuring out which chord to play next, Gamble could write lyrics off the top of his head. It was an amazing time.”
It’s five decades later, and Gamble and Huff are commemorating their lightning in a bottle. The elder statesmen who signed veteran performers like The O’Jays, The Three Degrees, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, The Jacksons, Billy Paul, Phyllis Hyman, The Jones Girls, Lou Rawls, Jean Carne and Patti LaBelle are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their label, Philadelphia International Records, with a yearlong campaign featuring digital and new media partnerships; remastered and limited edition releases; and monthly themes associated with the now iconic brand.
The Grammy-winning twosome recorded at Sigma Sound Studios as two-thirds of The Mighty Three, with arranger/producer Thom Bell. Responsible for composing the “Soul Train” theme song, “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia),” Gamble and Huff are synonymous with crafting “Philly Soul'' or the “Philly Sound,” a hybrid of lush string arrangements, pre-disco rhythms, jazz horns, precise melodies, spirited harmonies, and funky grooves performed by their 40-piece orchestra, MFSB.
“The ʼ70s was our era,” Gamble said. “‘Soul Train’ took off, and it became a monster. All of us were together; I give Don Cornelius his props because it seems like every other week, he had one of our artists until all of our artists were on there. It was magnificent and unbelievable.”
Classic songs like “Back Stabbers,” “For the Love of Money,” “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” “When Will I See You Again,” “Turn Out the Lights,” “Me and Mrs. Jones,” ''Don’t Leave Me This Way,” “You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else,” “Love Train,” “You’ll Never Find a Love Like Mine,” “Close the Door,” and “Wake Up Everybody” all stem from Black catchphrases or colloquialisms the writing pair often heard.
Gamble and Huff met in 1963 getting on an elevator in the office building where they worked four floors apart. Huff, a session musician who worked menial labor, started regularly commuting to Philadelphia from his hometown, Camden, N.J., to hold marathon songwriting sessions with Gamble, a record store owner and leader of a vocal group, The Romeos. Huff, the former co-chairmen of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, cranked out 10 songs at their first full meeting.
“I didn’t have no plan B,” Huff said. “My goal was to make it in the music business some way; I wasn’t doing nothing but washing dishes in hospitals, but I knew that wasn’t my calling.”
Among Gamble and Huff’s early successes were The Intruders’ “Cowboys to Girls,” The Soul Survivors’ “Expressway to Your Heart,” Archie Bell and the Drells’ “I Can’t Stop Dancin’” and Jerry Butler’s “Only the Strong Survive.” Also the owners of several rotating boutique record companies, Gamble and Huff’s first attempt to get distribution from Atlantic Records was turned down.
But Clive Davis, then president of CBS Records, took notice of the pair’s growing list of writing credits and signed them to a distribution deal for PIR in 1971. Gamble and Huff built a stable network with distributors and radio programmers for their past creations but felt it was necessary to land support from a major brand to promote and distribute their consistent output.
“Huff and I had been totally independent, and that’s the way we worked best,” Gamble said. “Every couple of years, you start to notice record companies would have new people in there, but me and Huff worked like dogs, but we love it because we love music. We love doing this everyday; we had fun doing it; and we had a lot of help, especially Black disc jockeys.”
Gamble and Huff used their influence to create more diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the music business in the post-civil rights movement era. Under PIR, they developed and groomed an in-house roster of writers, producers, arrangers and engineers like Bunny Sigler, Phil Hurtt, Linda Creed, Gene McFadden & John Whitehead, Bobby Martin, Joe Tarsia and Cynthia Biggs. “Let’s Clean Up the Ghetto,” PIR’s 1977 ensemble project credited to its Philadelphia International All-Stars, is the precursor for “posse cuts” later popularized by hip-hop record labels and crews, and also birthed national campaigns in Black neighborhoods for community development.
- Christopher A. Daniel
30 juin 2021 · Gamble and Huff, who originally met in an elevator over six decades ago, recently sat with GRAMMY.com to reminisce about their storied career, the key to their friendship, and staying relevant. How does that feel commemorating a 50-year legacy this year?
Kenny Gamble, né le 11 août 1943 à Philadelphie, et Leon Huff, né le 8 avril 1942 à Camden, est un tandem américain d'auteurs-compositeurs, réalisateurs artistiques et producteurs de musique, connu pour avoir notamment développé le style Philadelphia soul à partir de la fin des années 1960 et tout au long des années 1970.
