"We Invented the Remix": The Legacy of Tom Moulton and Philadelphia Soul

"We Invented the Remix": 

The Legacy of Tom Moulton and Philadelphia Soul

by Mark Anthony Neal

“As the dance floor itself became a site where the African-American Diaspora reintegrated with itself, Gamble and Huff…created a soundtrack aimed at repairing and sustaining communal relations across the chasms of class and geography.”

—What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1999)

For Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, Philadelphia International Records (PIR) was always more than a record company. Though they, along with Mighty Three publishing partner Thom Bell, were the most visible practitioners of “Philly Soul,” the music of PIR was as much a social movement; Gamble’s pseudo-political uplift narratives often finding a space on the album jackets of their artists and in the lyrics, he often wrote for those artists.

Artists such as The O’Jay’s (“For the Love of Money” and “Give the People What They Want”), Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (“Wake Up Everybody” and “Be for Real”), the Intruders (“I’ll Always Love My Mama”) and McFadden and Whitehead (“Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now”) were the musical mouthpieces for Gamble and Huff’s belief that the “revolution” (spinning at 33 1/3 rpms) would be broadcast on radio stations and mixed on dance floors across the nation. Producer Tom Moulton, was a willing conspirator in Gamble and Huff’s dance floor revolution and Philadelphia Classics (originally released in 1977) showcased Moulton’s extended remixes of some of PIR’s most classic sides.

Moulton was first approached by Harry Chipetz, general manager of Sigma Sound Studios—where Gamble and Huff et al did most of their magic—to mix one of PIRs songs, as a way to introduce his skills to the duo. That song was People Choice’s bumping groove “Do It Any Way You Wanna,” notable because the song is one of the few PIR hits that lacks PIR’s signature string arrangements. It was also Chipetz, who suggested that Moulton embark on the full-length remix project that would eventually become Philadelphia Classics.

Moulton had been in and out of the industry (modeled for awhile as the Camel Cigarette Man), when he began creating extended mixes on his own. As Mouton tells Shapiro in Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco, the idea came to him one night at a club where he was “watching these White people, really getting off on [Soul] music. And I’m really observing them and, of course, all the songs are like two and a half, three minutes long.” Moulton sensed that folks would walk off the dance floor, before they really got open emotionally. Weeks later Moulton produced a 45-minute mixtape—this in the era before digital editing machines—featuring songs by Ann Peebles, Syl Johnson and the Detroit Emeralds, among others.

Eventually Moulton’s tapes began to circulate to record company execs, all trying to cash in on the burgeoning Disco frenzy, by creating extended versions of their hit songs, that club DJs would find attractive. Moulton’s first big success was with B.T. Express’s “Do It (‘Till Your Satisfied)” which was a top ten hit on the R&B, Pop, and Dance charts in 1974. It was at that time the Mouton and other also began pressing tracks on 12-inch discs; the first commercially available 12-inch was the Double Exposure classic “Ten-Percent,” which was released a week before the Moulton mixed “So Much for Love” by Moment of Truth in 1976. Thereafter, records touched by Moulton would feature the tag: “A Tom Moulton Mix.”

The former Camel Cigarette Man

Though PIR experienced success with dance music dating back to Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, which some claim as the first Disco song, Moulton’s work with the label allowed them to solidify their presence within the genre. MFSB’s “Love is the Message,” seemed tailored for just the kind of aural re-visioning, that Moulton specialized in. The song was the title track of the second MFSB second album. MFSB was the PIR house band (an orchestra really) featuring among others Earl Young on drums, Norman Harris and Roland Chambers on guitar, bassist Ronnie Baker, and Vince Montana on Vibes. The album featured their signature track, “T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia),” which topped the Pop and R&B charts in 1974, though the song is most synonymous as the theme to Soul Train.

Though “Love is the Message,” didn’t even chart in the R&B Top-40 upon its release, it was Moulton’s 11-minute plus remix of the song that would take on a life of its own. As Nelson George relates in Hip Hop America (1998), “On a hot summer night in about 1977 a mobile jock with gigantic speakers and an ego to match introduced me to two records that were not just simply fly, progressive things to play, but that twenty years later, still help define hip-hop.” According to George, “Trans Europe Express” and “Love is the Message” was the music “of people who voted for Jimmy Carter and feared Ronald Reagan. It was the music of people who did the Hustle on asphalt in the summer wearing Converse and espadrilles; it was the music of a city nearly bankrupt yet found millions to remodel Yankee stadium.” For those who inhabited DJ Nicky Siano’s Gallery in the early 1970s, according the music journalist Peter Shapiro, “Love is the Message” was the “national anthem of New York.”

MFSB: Heart & Soul of PIR

For the remix, Moulton extended the “break” section that appeared on the original including recording a new Fender solo for the part. It was Leon Huff who unwittingly recorded the new electric piano solo. “Moulton wasn’t just elongating records to meet the demands of the dance floor, Shapiro writes in Turn the Beat Around, he was “toying and playing with these records, using his equalizer to boost the bottom end and adding breaks to create disco extravaganzas out of three-minute pop song,” a process only enhanced by the 12-inch format. Of course neither Moulton or Huff were aware of the young Black and Latino men, up in Harlem, N.Y. and the Boogie-down, who liked to spin on their heads to extended break beats like the one Moulton crafted for the remix.

The release of the Philadelphia Classics in 1977 coincided with the explosion of Disco culture into the mainstream. The genre had been incubated in the underground years before in dance clubs like the aforementioned Gallery and The Loft, where DJs like David Mancuso and later Larry Levan favored a wide range of dance music including Motown tracks like Eddie Kendricks’ “Girl You Need a Change of Mind,” the Afro-Funk Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makoussa,” and the bubble-gum girl Soul of First Choice (“Smarty Pants”).

Philadelphia Classics allowed PIR to take advantage of the moment by re-issuing dance grooves were already in the can and had a proven track record. By describing the remixed tracks as Philly “classics” the label was also staking a major claim on their musical legacy. Because of the labels overall dedication to musicianship and quality vocals (though it was in decline by 1977), PIR managed to escape the ire of mainstream audiences who quickly tired of the repetitive formulas that marked much of (bad) Disco music (any one remember Dan Hartman’s “Instant Replay”?).

Very often Mouton just added subtle flavors to extend the tracks, allowing for extended grooves, but also a more pleasurable listening experience. A Norman Harris guitar solo was added to the nine minute version of the O’Jays’ “I Love Music” and their barely three-minute breakthrough hit “Love Train” (Backstabbers, 1972) is given a new three minute introduction. Similarly, the Mother’s Day anthem “I’ll Always Love My Mama” by the Intruders, was given a new three minute introduction that could stand alone musically on its own (and give jocks three full minutes to give Mother’s Day shout-outs before the vocals started).

Some of the best work done on Philadelphia Classics was done in the service of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Though most audiences are familiar with Thelma Houston’s “chitlin n’ grits” disco version of “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (1977), the track was originally recorded by the Blue Notes on their classic Wake Up Everybody (1976). Perhaps in response to the break out success of the Houston’s version, Moulton gives the Blue Notes’ original a brand new flavor. Both versions of the Blue Note song highlight lead vocalist Teddy Pendergrass’ “Marvin Junior-turned Joe Ligon” gospel sensibilities (Junior and Ligon are lead vocalists of the Dells and the Mighty Clouds of Joy, respectively).

Nowhere Moulton touch more apparent than on Pendergrass’ lead on the “still-brilliant-after-all-these-years” “Bad Luck” (To Be True, 1975). Moulton simply extends the middle of the song two minutes with a string-laden groove. Moulton’s remix tempers the break-neck angel dust pace of the original track, allowing audience to more fully experience and appreciate the genius of Pendergrass’ closing sermon and his brilliant referencing of the Nixon Watergate proceedings. It is in that closing where Pendergrass literally screams the lyrics:

“I know none of y’all satisfied, satisfied / The way prices has been going up on things / I can barely buy a morning paper…But then early one morning I got me a paper / I sat down on my living room floor and opened it up / Guess what I saw? I saw the president of the United States / The man said he wasn’t gonna give it up / He did resign / But he still turned around and left all us poor folks behind / They say they got another man to take his place / But I don’t think that he can satisfy the human race.”  

As the song begins to fade, Pendergrass can be heard “The only thing that I got that I can hold on to is my God, my good, Jesus be with me and give me good luck, good luck.” The track is unquestionably the strongest of Pendergrass’ performances as a member of the Blue Notes.

While Sean Combs can legitimately talk about birthing the era of the hip-hop remix—his remix of Craig Mack’s “Flava in Your Ear” had the same impact of Moulton’s “Love is the Message” remix—Philadelphia Classics highlights the legacy on one of the greatest record makers of the 20th century and the man who truly invented the remix.