Black Music Month 2011: The Thom Bell Sessions

Black Music Month 2011: 

The Thom Bell Sessions

by Mark Anthony Neal

When Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, it  again placed a focus on the legacy of “Philly” Soul. The success, in recent years, of Philadelphia based acts like Boyz II Men, Jill Scott, The Roots, Musiq, Eric Roberson, Jaguar Wright, Kindred the Family Soul and of course the timeless presence of Patti Labelle, has helped give the very idea of Philly Soul contemporary cache. But all too often memories of the classic days of Philly Soul fail to recall the impact of Philly based doo-wop acts, which featured high-pitched lead vocalists and many of the forgotten musicians and producers that gave the city its signature sound.

At the height of their power, Gamble and Huff managed Philadelphia International Records (the groundbreaking black boutique label) and presided over a music publishing company known as “Mighty Three Publishing.” The third member of that triad was Thom Bell, a staunchly independent, Caribbean bred musician and producer who always resisted joining the Philly International’s camp. Instead Bell chose to free-lance giving him the liberty to work with artists that he wanted to work with. The product of that independence are definitive Soul recordings from The Delfonics, The Stylistics and The Spinners. Here’s a playlist of some of the best of the Thom Bell Sessions:

“La-La (Means I Love You)”—The Delfonics (1968)

“Can You Remember?”—The Delfonics (1968)

The Delfonics were the first Philly Soul group that Thom Bell had regular success with. They would never reach the super-group status of groups like The Stylistics and The Spinners, but like their New York City based peers The Main Ingredient, they were the quintessential East-Coast Soul harmony group of the late 1960s. “La-La (Means I Love You)”, co-written with William Hart, from the Delfonics album of the same title, is just timeless, from the simplicity of the lyrics: “Now I don’t wear a diamond ring and I don’t even have song to sing, all I know is la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…la mean, I love you,” to the earnestness of lead singer William Hart’s soaring falsetto. “Can You Remember?” was a product of the same session. The genius of both songs song was not lost on a young Michael Jackson—a big fan of Hart—who recorded a handful of Bell compositions including “Can You Remember?” on the Jackson Five’s first Motown recording Diana Ross Presents and “La La” on The Jackson Five’s ABC (1970) recording.

“People Make the World Go ‘Round”—The Stylistics (1971)

As would be a regular occurrence with Bell, once he did all that he could with a group, he would move on to the next challenge. That next challenge was Russell Thompkins, Jr. and the Stylistics. Thompkins, who is one of the most legendary falsettos of all time, fit perfectly into Bell’s Philly-Soul sensibilities. What Bell was able to bring into the mix (literally) that he didn’t with The Delfonics were lush arrangements. With new writing partner Linda Creed in tow, the Stylistics recorded a string of classic recordings including, “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” “Betcha by Golly Wow” and “Break Up to Make Up”. Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Al Green, notwithstanding, Bell’s work with the Stylistics in the early 1970s was the definitive Pop-Soul sound of the era—a sound you hear a generation later in the work of Antonio “LA” Reid and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds. But I always go back to that very first album, when the stakes were less, and find the brilliance of “People Make the World Go Round.” Powerful and subtle social commentary (with the winds of change literally blowing in the background) with an insurgent energy that aimed to find the human connection of it all. The song was never more powerfully employed that in the opening segment of Spike Lee’s period piece Crooklyn.

“You Are Everything”—The Stylistics (1971)

“Today I saw somebody who looked just like you/she walked like you do/I thought it was you/As she turned the corner/I called out your name, I felt so ashamed, when it wasn’t you…” Damn. Thom Bell wrote those lyrics only a short time after mistakenly believing that he saw someone he knew in the street. These lyrics to again highlight how Bell and Creed often took simple everyday experiences and turned them into lyrics and melodies that just tugged at the heart. I mean damn, who hasn’t thought they saw a long lost boyfriend and girlfriend walking across the street or on a passing subway train and then spent the next hour lamenting about what could have been?

“I’ll be Around”—The Spinners (1973)

When signed to Motown in the late 1960s, The Spinners were little more than an afterthought. After a still youthful Stevie Wonder provided them with the gift, “It’s A Shame” in 1970, the group bounced to Atlantic (sans co-lead vocalist GC Cameron) with Philippe Wynne joining Bobby Smith on lead vocals. As the story goes, Atlantic offered Thom Bell the opportunity to record any act on their roster (which at the time included Donny Hathaway and Aretha Franklin) and he choose The Spinners. The rest is history, as the B-side of the first Spinners/Bell single, “I’ll Be Around” can still be heard on cell phone commercials 35-years after its release. Classics like “Could It be I’m Falling in Love,” “Mighty Love” and everybody’s favorite mama song, “Sadie” would soon follow.

“Mama Can’t Buy You Love”—Elton John (1979)

On the surface, Elton John and Thom Bell seem like an odd pairing, but John was a big fan (like David Bowie) of American Soul music, and the Philly Sound in particular; John’s 1975 classic “Philadelphia Freedom,” was in part a tribute to Mighty Three. Though the so-called Thom Bell Sessions did not result in a full album—Bell and John reportedly butted heads in what was John’s first session minus writing partner Bernie Taupin—a 12-inch featuring the hit “Mama Can’t Buy You Love, which was John’s first hit in three years. The full Thom Bell Sessions, with six completed songs was released in 1989/

“Silly”—Deniece Williams (1981)

“It’s Gonna Take a Miracle”—Deniece (1982)

One of the reasons that Bell desired to be more of an independent producer, was the often failing health of his wife; as the professional pressures began to mount, Bell left Philadelphia for Seattle, working much less frequently. One artists who compelled him to return back to the studio was Deniece Williams, one time backing vocalist for Stevie Wonder. Williams had experienced moderate success, most notably with the single “Free” from her debut This is Niecy (1976), before Bell joined her to work on My Melody in 1981. That session produced the now classic “Silly.” Bell and Williams reteamed a year later for Niecy, which produced the cross-over hit “It’s Gonna Take a Miracle.” The song was originally recorded by the Royalettes in 1965 and later by Laura Nyro and Labelle, in a session that was produced by Bell’s Mighty Three partners, Gamble and Huff. The song earned Williams her first Grammy Award nomination.

“Old Friend”—Phyllis Hyman--Living All Alone (1986)

Bell’s writing partner Linda Creed was diagnosed with breast cancer in the late 1970s and as Bell began to retreat from day to day activities in the recording industry, Creed sought other writing partners, including Michael Masser, with whom she wrote “The Greatest Love of All” (initially recorded by George Benson, but a major pop hit for Whitney Houston in 1986, the same year that Creed succumbed cancer. In the backdrop of Houston’s success, the late Phyllis Hyman released her career defining release Living All Alone, which included one of the last major collaborations between Creed and Bell, with “Old Friend.”

Black Music Month '09: Remembering Ronnie Dyson

BLACK MUSIC MONTH 2009

Why Can’t I Touch You? : Remembering Ronnie Dyson
by Mark Anthony Neal

A few years ago, I sat in the lobby of a Greensboro, NC hotel, talking with R&B singer Rahsaan Patterson about his artistic influences. Patterson cited Eddie Kendricks, Frankie Lymon and Russell Thompkins, Jr. as obvious exemplars of the falsetto style that he represents so exquisitely today. But when the name of Ronnie Dyson is mentioned, Patterson is almost beside himself: “Dyson had a beautiful [expletive] voice. Beautiful,” exclaimed Patterson, adding that the late Pop-Soul singer was “one of the first voices that I remember hearing that possessed this quality in a male voice that was different from even some of the falsetto guys that I mentioned before.” Patterson was not alone. As Earl Calloway, longtime arts critic at the Chicago Defender wrote of the singer, “Dyson has the voice and talent to become the supreme super star of the ‘70s in the manner of Nat “King” Cole, Billy Eckstine, Frank Sinatra or even greater.” Yet some 35 years after Calloway's prediction, Ronnie Dyson, who died in 1990, has remained, at best, an afterthought and at worst, totally forgotten. What happened?

Born in Washington, DC in 1950 and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Dyson spent his early years singing in the choir at the Washington Temple in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of the borough. Dyson’s big break came in the spring of 1968 when he was cast, at age 17, in the Broadway production of the groundbreaking “rock musical” Hair. Dyson’s star-turn in the musical occurred at the opening with his rendition of “Aquarius”—a song purportedly written for him. That audiences are most familiar with The Fifth Dimension’s medley version of “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” which topped the pop charts for six weeks in 1969 and earned the group two Grammy Awards in 1970 as “Record of the Year” and “Best Vocal Performance by a Group” (both mainstream pop categories), speaks volumes about the difficulties that Dyson faced very early in his professional career.

Dyson had the misfortune, perhaps, to emerge in the late 1960s recording in the same era as signature Soul Men such as Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, and Donny Hathaway. Unlike many of his peers, Dyson’s musical sensibilities were more geared to the theater and the cabaret as than the Chitlin’ Circuit of the day. Dyson was above all, a song stylist who was most comfortable singing tunes in the vein of aforementioned Fifth Dimension, Nancy Wilson, Dionne Warwick, and Johnny Mathis. At the dawning of the 1970s and with Stax and Motown defining the sounds of Blackness for mainstream audiences, pitching the youthful Dyson to mainstream audiences with show tunes and 1960s pop standards was going to be a difficult sell. As such, Dyson spent the better part of the first decade of his career trying to find his voice. Nevertheless, it was a show tune, “(If You Let Me Make Love To You) Why Can’t I Touch You?,” from the musical Salvation! that gave Dyson his first taste of pop stardom in 1970, peaking at #9 on both the Pop and Soul charts.

Dyson followed up “Why Can’t I Touch You,” with a cover of Chuck Jackson’s (another progenitor of “white bread Soul”) “I Don’t Wanna Cry,” which made a tepid entry into the pop charts. Dyson then began to work, on what would be the most ambitious project on his career. In 1973, Dyson released One Man Band, working with the production and songwriting duo of Thom Bell and Linda Creed. Though Bell had earlier success with his work with The Delfonics and The Stylistics, his skills were in particular demand in 1973 after he had resurrected the careers of Motown cast-offs The Spinners and turned the group into the epitome of 1970s era Corporate Soul. Clearly Dyson’s record company, Columbia, was hoping find such success, not just for Dyson, but also Johnny Mathis who recorded I’m Coming Home with Bell and Creed in 1973. Dyson expressed excitement at the time telling the Atlanta Daily World, “I feel very good about the new product I recorded with Thom Bell. He’s probably the hottest producer in the world today…[and] his writing partner Linda Creed also helped a great deal,” adding that “they’re both dynamic people.”

Bell’s work with Dyson and Mathis was arguably some of the finest of his career and One Man Band is one of the best testaments to Dyson’s own talents, but neither recording found an audience. To add insult to injury, the second single from One Man Band, “Just Don’t Wanna Be Lonely” barely charted for Dyson, though the same song would become a major crossover hit for The Main Ingredient six months later. Granted, The Main Ingredient, then led by Cuba Gooding, Sr. was a known pop entity—their 1972 single Everybody Plays the Fool peaked at #2 on the pop charts—and their version of the song was arguably a better product, but there’s still little explanation as to why the song didn’t help Dyson find more success.

It would be nearly three years before Dyson would capture audience attention again and in the interim there were minor shifts in the black musical landscape as the so-called Philly Sound, culled by The Mighty Three outfit of Bell, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff (using the same Philadelphia based musicians) and disco began to catch the attention of the major labels. Part of that shift also included the emergence of the duo of Chuck Jackson (not the legendary singer) and Marvin Yancy, who initially met in Chicago at one of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s (Chuck’s brother) Operation Breadbasket gatherings. After recording some deep Soul with The Independents, Jackson and Yancy found mainstream success with Natalie Cole who became a major pop star courtesy of Jackson and Yancy compositions like “This Will Be,” “Mr. Melody” and “I’ve Got Love on My Mind.” Indeed, Dyson’s work with the duo allowed him not only an re-introduction to Black audiences, but a another shot at crossover success. As Dyson noted at the time, “those times I fell from the public eye made it hard to get the acceptance back…but meeting Chuck and Marvin was like a whole new life.”



The initial product of Dyson’s work with Jackson and Yancy was The More You Do It (1976). The lead single and title track became Dyson’s highest charting single ever on the R&B Charts and in the parlance of record company executives, easily the “blackest” recording in Dyson’s oeuvre. Dyson followed up The More You Do It with Love in All Flavors (1977) and both recordings are testament to Jackson and Yancy providing, perhaps, the best musical environment for Dyson’s talents. Highlights from the recordings include a stellar and jaw-dropping rendition of Major Harris’s “Love Won’t Let Me Wait” (the likely template for Luther Vandross’s later version of the song) and Jackson and Yancy originals “Ain’t Nothing Wrong” and “No Way” which are on-par with the best of any of the Soul and R&B ballads produced at the time.

For the next decade of his career, Dyson essentially followed trends, mainly to the dance floor, though his subsequent recordings If the Shoe Fits (1979), Phase 2 (1982) and Brand New Day (1983) all contained glimpses of Dyson’s vocal genius, particularly on the track “Say You Will” from Phase 2. “All Over Your Face” was Dyson’s last foray onto the charts, finding some favor among audiences congregating in spaces like The Paradise Garage and The Loft. After a brief appearance on the soundtrack on Spike Lee’s first theatrical release She’s Gotta Have It (1986), Dyson disappeared from the public eye. After years of chain-smoking and other excesses, Dyson died at the age of 40 in November of 1990.

There are lots of reasons to speculate as to why someone with Dyson’s talents never achieved more lasting success; indeed the recording industry is littered with exceptional talents who never find the right material or audience. As a singer who craved mainstream success, at a historical moment when mainstream record companies were more concerned with selling “black” music to black audiences and much less interested in selling black artists to white audiences, Dyson had a difficult path to follow. His were difficulties that were shared by figures like Johnny Mathis (after the 1960s), Clint Holmes (“Playground in My Mind’), Al Wilson (“Show and Tell”) and a host of other black male singers from the era. When acts like Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson, and to a lesser extent, Jeffrey Osborne began to generate a mainstream appeal in the early 1980s and transcend the black music divisions at the major labels, they did so after cultivating a strong following among black audiences—audiences that in some instances they never recovered after they crossed-over. In the case of Dyson, he was a black pop singer that really had to cultivate a black following, and he never quite found that balance.

But Ronnie Dyson, if we are to be honest, was also challenged by his quite different investment in the performance of black masculinity at the time. This is part of what Rahsaan Patterson alludes to in his remembrance of Dyson as possessing “this quality in a male voice that was different.” Dyson, like Jimmy Scott before him and Rahsaan Paterson after him, possessed a vocal instrument that deconstructed and collapsed our notions of the hyper-sexualized black male soul singers of his era like Teddy Pendergrass and Barry White and Wilson Pickett from an earlier generation. In an arena in which the range of black male emotions continued to be restricted by corporate desires for only certain mode of black male expression, Ronnie Dyson was simply too emotive. In light of his own singing style Patterson admits “The fact that I can consciously sing a song in falsetto, knowing that people are gonna ask, 'Is that a girl?' doesn't bother me at all… It's scares them, because it's raw and it's real and it's human and it has no contrived phony bullshit on top of it. It's raw emotion." As Ernest Hardy brilliantly argues in his two volume collection Blood Beats "naked emotionalism renders almost any male in American culture suspect, but especially if he's of the Negro persuasion, and most especially if the emotion is not exaggeratedly countered with macho or thug signifiers." In simple terms, Ronnie Dyson was too suspect for much of his career.

In the end, Ronnie Dyson left an incredible body of work—much of it unavailable commercially at this time—and offers an example of a black male singer who was comfortable in his body—or rather, comfortable in his voice. Rahsaan Patterson perhaps says it best when he says that Ronnie Dyson “had this really independent spirit and freedom to just sing and express who he was.”

***

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of several books including What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1999) and Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003). He is currently completing Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities for NYU Press.

Black Music Month 2008: The Thom Bell Sessions

This is the second in a series Black Music Month Playlists that will explore common themes explored in the Soul Music Tradition.


***

When Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year, it put again placed a focus on the legacy of "Philly" Soul. The success of Philadelphia based acts like Boyz II Men, Jill Scott, The Roots, Musiq, Eric Roberson, Jaguar Wright and Kindred the Family Soul has helped give the very idea of Philly Soul contemporary cache. But all too often memories of the classic days of Philly Soul fail to recall the impact of Philly based doo-wop acts, which featured high-pitched lead vocalist and many of the forgotten musicians and producers that gave the city its signature sound. At the height of their power, Gamble and Huff managed Philadelphia International Records (the groundbreaking black boutique label) and presided over a music publishing company known as "Mighty Three Publishing." The third member of that triad was Thom Bell, a staunchly independent, Caribbean bred musician and producer who always resisted joining into the Philly International's camp. Instead Bell chose the role of the free agent, who would have the liberty to work with artist that he wanted to work with. The product of that independence are definitive Soul recordings from The Delfonics, The Stylistics and The Spinners. Here's a playlist of some of the best of the Thom Bell Sessions:

"La-La (Means I Love You)"--The Delfonics

The Delfonics were the first Philly Soul group that Thom Bell had regular success with. They would never reach the supergroup status of groups like The Stylistics and The Spinners, but like their New York City based peers The Main Ingredient, they were the quintessential East-Coast Soul harmony group of the late 1960s. And "La-La (Means I Love You)" is just timeless, from the simplicity of the lyrics: "Now I don't wear a diamond ring and I don't even have song to sing, all I know is la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la...la mean, I love you" to the earnestness of lead singer William Hart's soaring falsetto. The genius of the song was not lost on a young Michael Jackson--a big fan of Hart--who recorded his own classic version of the song on the Jackson Five's ABC (1970) recording.

"People Make the World Go 'Round"--The Stylistics

As would be a regular occurrence with Bell, once he did all that he could with a group, he would move on to the next challenge. That next challenge was Russell Thompkins, Jr. and the Stylistics. Thompkins, who is one of the most legendary falsettos of all time, fit perfectly into Bell's Philly-Soul sensibilities. With new writing partner Linda Creed in tow, the Stylistics recorded a string of simply classic recordings including, "You Make Me Feel Brand New," "Betcha by Golly Wow" and "Break Up to Make Up". Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Al Green, notwithstanding, Bell's work with the Stylistics in the early 1970s was the definitive Soul sound. But I always go back to that very first album, when the stakes were less, and find the brilliance of "People Make the World Go Round." Powerful and subtle social commentary (with the winds of change literally blowing in the background) with an insurgent energy that aimed to find the human connection of it all. The song was never more powerfully employed that in the opening segment of Spike Lee's 1993 period piece Crooklyn.

"You Are Everything"--The Stylistics

"Today I saw somebody who looked just like you/she walked like you do/I thought it was you/As she turned the corner/I called out your name, I felt so ashamed, when it wasn't you..." Damn. Thom Bell and Linda Creed wrote those lyrics only a short time after Bell mistakenly believed that he saw someone he knew in the street. And I cite these lyrics to again highlight how Bell and Creed often took simple everyday experiences and turned them into lyrics and melodies that just tugged at the heart. I mean damn, who hasn't thought they saw a long lost boyfriend and girlfriend walking across the street or on a passing subway train and then spent the next hour lamenting about what could have been? Cards on the table, I'm a romantic cat, and Ne-Yo ain't writing nothing like this.

Read the Full Article at Critical Noir @ Vibe.com