Gamble & Huff, MFSB, and Philadelphia International Records
The wikipedia entry for Sigma Sound Studios is pretty damn short; here it is in full:
[wikipedia]
Sigma Sound Studios is an American music recording studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania founded by recording engineer Joseph Tarsia in 1968.Located at 212 N. 12th Street in Philadelphia, it was the second studio in the country to offer 24-track recording and the first in the country to use console automation. Tarsia was formerly chief engineer at Philadelphia’s Cameo-Parkway Studios.
On April 15, 1972, singer-songwriter and pianist Billy Joel played an hour long concert at Sigma Studios. The recording of “Captain Jack” from this event received extensive radio play in the Philadelphia area, long before Joel became nationally known.
In the 1970s, Sigma Sound was strongly associated with Philadelphia soul and the sound of Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia International Records (a precursor to disco music), which combined a driving rhythm section with a full orchestral sound of strings and brass.
David Bowie recorded much of his album Young Americans in August 1974 at Sigma Sound.
Madonna used the studio to record her 1983 album debut (Madonna).
Tarsia opened a branch of Sigma Sound Studios in New York City which operated from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. He sold Sigma Sound Studios in 2003.
The majority of the tapes recorded in Sigma Sound Studio’s history are part of The Drexel University Audio Archive.
The studio recently underwent a massive renovation and now has five state-of-the-art production studios, a live production sound stage, and media production center.
[/wikipedia]
Not much to chew on for a blog post [though: Young Americans? Oh yeah, we can do this]. Digging a little deeper into Wikipedia reveals quite a bit more; let’s start with the house band, MFSB:
“MFSB (according to the ‘clean’ interpretation, Mother Father Sister Brother) was a pool of more than thirty studio musicians based at Philadelphia’s famed Sigma Sound Studios. They worked closely with the production team of Gamble and Huff and producer/arranger Thom Bell, and backed up such groups as Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, the O’Jays, the Stylistics, the Spinners, Wilson Pickett, and Billy Paul. In 1972, MFSB began recording as a named act for the Philadelphia International label. ‘TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)’ also known as the Soul Train theme was their first and most successful single. Released in March 1974, it peaked at number one on the US Billboard pop and R&B charts.” — wikipedia
MFSB featuring The Three Degrees – TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia) [Original 12” Version] (1974)
Wikipedia breaks it down for us – Sigma was the studio, but the brains in the studio were Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, Gamble and Huff’s output was released on Philadelphia International Records, and Philadelphia Soul gets an entry, too.
“Philadelphia (or Philly) soul, sometimes called the Philadelphia Sound or Sweet Philly, is a style of soul music characterized by funk influences and lush instrumental arrangements, often featuring sweeping strings and piercing horns. The subtle sound of a vibraphone can often be heard in the background of Philly soul songs. The genre laid the groundwork for disco and what are now considered quiet storm and smooth jazz by fusing the R&B rhythm sections of the 1960s with the pop vocal tradition, and featuring a slightly more pronounced jazz influence in its melodic structures and arrangements.” — wikipedia
MFSB – Universal Love (Full LP) 1975
When the bass and rhythm guitar players are playing syncopated counters and the drummer drops into four-on-the-floor with eighths on the high hat (what some onomatopoetically call the “boom-tiss, boom-tiss”) while the string section swells in the arrangements behind them, you can hear Disco being born.
I come to bury Disco, not to praise it. And I’ll remind you — if you have a strong aversion, you don’t have to click ‘play’ on any of the YouTube embeds below. The important thing to remember is that at first Disco was a place where folks went to dance, not a genre of music — and the music of the disco was just the popular dance music of the day: soul, latin, and funk of the late 60s and early 70s (the rock music of that era rocks but you can’t always dance to it); later came the string arrangements, a 1977 Movie, the clichéd mainstream ‘disco sound’, and then… the inevitable backlash.
Before Saturday Night Fever, disco—like the soul music it was born from—was popular enough, but was popular outside the mainstream.
“The term is derived from discothèque (French for ‘library of phonograph records’, but subsequently used as proper name for nightclubs in Paris). Its initial audiences were club-goers from the African American, gay, Italian American, Latino, and psychedelic communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Disco also was a reaction against both the domination of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music by the counterculture during this period.” — wikipedia
Saturday Night Fever was based on a New York magazine article; tellingly, the title of that article was “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” [the internet is great, you can read the whole piece for yourself: from 7 June 1976]. In 1976, at least to “[the] man in a tweed suit, a journalist from Manhattan,” Disco culture was still something foreign.
Disco grew up in the outer boroughs of New York, and other old eastern cities, and the sound is almost direct Motown — I say ‘almost’. Motown was ‘Hitsville’ through the 1960s, and while they still had many great artists on their roster, in 1969 Motown (the company) had moved from Detroit to Los Angeles — and perenial runner-up Stax, out of Memphis, would take over as the heart and soul of Soul music. (Now, that’s just my opinion, but I’ll fight you on it.) The transformation of Stax in 1968 was born out of desperation and that’s worthy of a post of its own (it’s coming) — but the disco sound isn’t the Southern Soul of Memphis, and Isaac Hayes (while hugely influential) was a bit too funky for what would later become a mainstream pop music genre.
Disco was born in Philadelphia. We even know which song it was, written by Gamble and Huff, recorded at Sigma Sound by the O’Jays (backed by MFSB), and released by Philadelphia International.
The O’Jays – Love Train
Compare “Love Train” to Issac Hayes, from the same year (1972):
Here’s Hayes in 1973; we can hear the strings & horns in the arrangement, but that rhythm section has got a whole ‘nother groove going on:
And now compare that Hayes to Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra (once again, this 1973)
From the waka-guitar to the 40 piece string section, this is the lush and lavish overlay that apparently the rest of the music industry was waiting for. (If you’re interested, here’s The Love Orchestra again—with White on the podium, conducting—in a 1974 TV performance. Now, some of it may be the difference between stereo and 70s-era-TV-audio, but it sounds like White decided to ask the drummer for a bit more oomph in ’74 than he did in ’73)
The third [canonical?] disco single to hit the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 was “TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)”, which is the first embed near the top of this post. From March of 1973 (when the O’Jays were Billboard’s number one) to April of 1974 (when TSOP hit) and on to July of 1975…
[aside: the 70s really were the last time the flute was a rock/pop instrument.]
[also: A lot of these early tracks were instrumentals. I think the 70s were also the last time an instrumental topped the pop charts. That says a lot about the state of music today, if you ask me]
Quite a few soulful artists were releasing disco music, but by 1975 disco had already lost its soul.
That was a long diversion — let’s get back to Philly Soul.
Soul Survivors – Expressway to Your Heart (1968)
Interview: The Soul Survivors & Philly
Archie Bell and The Drells – I Can’t Stop Dancing (1968)
The Delfonics – La-La Means I Love You (1968)
The Stylistics – You Are Everything (1971)
David Bowie – Young Americans (1975)
David Bowie – Fascination (also ’75, from the Young Americans album)
Bowie himself described Young Americans as ‘plastic soul’ – the appropration was self-aware, but respectful (in my opinion).
“Fascination” is Bowie making the most of the session musicians at Sigma Sound; it’s Bowie like you haven’t heard before. Luther Vandross is credited as cowriter on the track because it borrows heavily from the song “Funky Music”
“The Salsoul Orchestra consisted of most of the original members of Philadelphia International’s MFSB, who had moved on to Salsoul as the result of a disagreement with producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff over finances. Other members began performing as The Ritchie Family orchestra, and as John Davis and the Monster Orchestra. On later MFSB recordings, Gamble & Huff uses a new rhythm section which caused them to have a slightly different sound.” — wikipedia
The Salsoul Orchestra – Chicago Bus Stop (1975)
Here’s a Phildelphia International release from after the MFSB/Salsoul split. (I don’t know if I can hear the ‘difference’ on this track, but I’m sure Wikipedia is an infallible source.)
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes – Don’t Leave Me This Way (1977)
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Induction of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff in 2008
