Gamble: No, it wasn’t easy.
the ’60s with the independents—independent distributors and independent record companies. The key was, during the late ’60s and early ’70s, the major companies bought up all the independents. There was no more independent distribution, so when we made our arrangement with Columbia Records, it was a good move for both of us. It would have been better if it had been through the independents, but there weren’t any. And so joining up with CBS, we not only had national distribution, we had international distribution, and we were also able to work out arrangements with them so that we could get the resources we needed, financially, in order to expand. And that helped us out a lot. And outside of the music, you had what was going on, politically. The Black Panthers were fading, Martin Luther King Jr. was gone, Malcolm X was gone, but through their work, Blacks still felt empowered. How did you see things for brothers and sisters, culturally? Gamble: I just say one thing—I think that the most eventful thing in Black people’s history that woke Black people up was James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” “Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud.” When that record came out, it confirmed everything, between Martin Luther King, and James Brown, and Malcolm X, and Motown, and everything… and television. See, television exposed. In Philly, and I can only speak for myself, I never knew that much about the racial discrimination [elsewhere], because it was never even talked about in the Black community that much. Basically, all we were doing was listening to the radio and listening to music. Then Georgie Woods and the WDAS disc jockeys started [putting on the] “Freedom Shows,” the NAACP was starting to become more aggressive, and I think in the late ’50s, early ’60s, we got a television, and I said, “Wow.” I come home one day, and my brother Charles was looking at TV, and they had the news on and the riots and the dogs biting people and everything. I never even heard of anything like that. I said, “What’s going on?” We never had any problem with White people. It probably was like that, but we never had any problems. Or I should say, I never had any problems with any Caucasian people, because they never even came around our neighborhood, period.
Why is that?
Huff: We had to make certain business moves when we came together, but that was our goal to do that.
What moves, in particular?
Huff: Well, I was a signed writer. Gamble was always independent, so I had to make a decision about Madara/White.
Gamble: Who were good people, but it was time for us to get moving. Because, we, at that particular time, I think we were just as strong as them, or stronger. Plus, we had a lot of connections. Our connections were at radio and our relationships with the artists in this community, so negotiating and making sure all of that stuff was taken care of so Huff could be independent—so we were both independent—that was the number one goal at that time. We wanted to get moving so that we could work together every day, and that’s what we were able to do. It wasn’t easy, but we did it.
Huff: You talk about hard decisions, but you’ve got to be able to do that—to make a hard decision and then build on it.
Gamble: You’ve got to take the risk—take the chance—and we took the chance, and it worked out well.
When you started Philadelphia International, it was the early ’70s. How did you see the music at that time, and how did that impact what you were doing? Gamble: I think the music at that time was on fire. The Motown era left a tremendous impression on me, not only the music but the business, and how these African Americans were able to work together and build an institution. And during that time, you had the change from AM to FM in music, and I think that’s what really did it for us, because AM was basically all mono. When music started going to FM, then stereo came in. That was the big thing, stereo, because the music sounded totally different.
You’re from South Philly?
Especially your sound.
Gamble: South Philly—and they never came to our neighborhood, so I didn’t have any problems.
Gamble: Yeah, yeah, because we had a whole orchestra. We had orchestrations, beautiful strings, and horns, and all kinds of sounds. We needed FM, and so I think the industry kind of leaned toward us and our kind of music. And that played a real big part. Plus, the whole industry was changing. We had been through
Huff: It was a little different where I was brought up in Camden. Where I lived on Ferry Avenue, when I was a kid, my mother and father always used to tell me and my sister, “Stay out of Woodlynne. Stay out of Gloucester. Stay out of
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