SO THAT'S WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE

If you've never heard the Soul Survivors' "Expressway to Your Heart", you should. Textbook one hit wonder, soul edition. If you have heard it, even if you've heard it hundreds of times over the years, you'd be hard pressed to name another song by them. You may not have even remembered who did it. I had never heard anything else by them, and walked around like that for decades. Until two days ago, when I ran into one over at Funky 16 Corners. It's a bad quality mp3, but it sent me looking for more.

The Soul Survivors were a Gamble and Huff thing. Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff were producers who pretty much defined Philly Soul in the late sixties through the seventies. Really, they owned it. Archie Bell and the Drells, the O'Jays, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and others. Oh yeah, and the People's Choice song "Do It Any Way You Wanna", the rhythm of which Dillinger borrowed for his "Cocaine (In My Brain)". I just had to add that. Anyway, trying hard here to give the Soul Survivors a belated fair shake, but, man, them O'Jays. Nevermind the Dillinger detour.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen: 
Soul Survivors - Expressway to Your Heart mp3 at Friday  In Athens
Soul Survivors - Mr. Pitiful mp3 at KMPROD
Soul Survivors - Mama  Soul mp3 at Dos Rios (?)
Soul Survivors - City of Brotherly Love mp3 at Dos Rios (?)
More Gamble and Huff:
Archie Bell and the Drells -  Tighten Up (streaming) at YouTube
The O'Jays - For the Love of Money mp3 at AMPS (?)
Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes - Wake Up Everybody mp3 at Basement Rug
People's Choice - Do It Any Way You Wanna (streaming) at YouTube
Unrelated, but mentioned:
Dillinger - Cocaine (In My Brain) mp3 at Isodisco

CLOSURE

It's always nice when you can finally get something that bugged you behind you. You can finally stop thinking about it. Some of you, noting the sleeve above, already know where I'm going. "I'm Archie Bell and the Drells". Not ten words into the song, a big fat grammatical error. It's bugged me for decades. Really. So, today, when I finally heard Drell sing "We're Archie Bell and the Drells", I could officially close the book.

There's another Drells thing down there too, the original of "There's Gonna Be a Showdown", the song the Dolls covered. What the hell, the Dolls' cover is down there too, just to remind you what they could do with a song.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~ 

Listen:

Archie Bell and the Drells - Tighten Up mp3 at DJNoDJ

Archie Bell and the Drells - There's Gonna Be a Showdown mp3 at Sale el Soul
New York Dolls - There's Gonna Be a Showdown mp3 at A.Tumblr (?)

BLUE NOTES-PHOBIA CURED

You could find reasons to dismiss Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, particularly if you don't dig fancy threads, tight afros, and an abundance of strings with your soul. I did, for years. That was before I found out that a Big Youth song that I'd been listening to for a long time, "Wake Up Everybody" was a Blue Notes cover. I just listened to Big Youth's version today for the first time in a long time, really digging it, and thought about how it had made me less Blue Note phobic. I like it when that happens.

"Wake Up Everybody", the original, is a classic piece of syrupy string soaked seventies soul, a message song, the subject of which is hard to argue with, and as relevant today as it was when it was released in 1975. It was produced by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff who practically invented syrupy string soaked seventies soul, their names synonymous with Philly soul. The duo were already successful hit makers before they started adding strings and whatnot, beginning with the Soul Survivors' "Expressway To Your Heart" in 1965, followed by Archie Bell and the Drells' "I Can't Stop Dancing" in 1968. Once they really hit their stride, chart appearances were regular, among them the O'Jays' "Love Train" and "Back Stabbers" and Billy Paul's "Me and Mrs. Jones".

But this was supposed to be about "Wake Up Everybody", before I got sidetracked. After listening to the two versions below, those of you familiar with Big Youth will note that his is a fairly straight forward cover. Released just a year after the original, it stays faithful to the original lyrically, with no toasting whatsoever. One could surmise it was because Big Youth had enough respect for the song itself not to fuck with it. Which is a good thing. Otherwise I'd have not given Melvin and mob a pass on the fancy threads and such.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes - Wake Up Everybody mp3 at Basement Rug
Big Youth - Wake Up Everybody (streaming) at YouTube
Gamble & Huff joints:
Soul Survivors - Expressway to Your Heart mp3 at LZ Center
Archie Bell and the Drells - I Just Can't Stop Dancing (streaming) at YouTube
The O'Jays - Back Stabbers mp3 at Setagaya Sounds
Visit:
Gamble and Huff at Wikipedia

NO "I" IN DRELLS

Damnit, "We're"!! "We're Archie Bell and the Drells"!! (That's been bottled up a long time.) You know that one, right? "Tighten Up"? You should. It was their biggest hit, the one with a big ol' grammatical error smack dab in the intro. There's a link to it and a half dozen covers of it, down below. (Go ahead, we'll wait.) The other one you might know is Bell and the Drells' original version of "(There's Gonna Be a) Showdown", the song the Dolls covered. It's an early Gamble and Huff song, back when their version of Philly soul was just getting wings. If you who know the first two Dolls albums like the back of your hand, you'll have a hard time not hearing their version in the back of your head when you listen to the original. Even if you don't care for them or haven't heard it, listen to their cover. You gotta cop to it. They did make it their own.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~ 

Listen:

Archie Bell and the Drells - Tighten Up mp3 at DJNoDJ

Eight covers of Tighten Up at DJNoDJ
Archie Bell and the Drells - There's Gonna Be a Showdown mp3 at Sale el Soul
New York Dolls - There's Gonna Be a Showdown mp3 at A.Tumblr (?)
Archie Bell and the Drells - Here I Go Again mp3 at Radio George