Huff: Linda Creed, she’d say, “Come on, Leon, let’s write some stuff,” and I’d say, “I got to go in here with Gamble; I can’t do any writing today.” Linda was just floating around, but eventually Gamble got her to Tommy, and that worked. Gamble: Me and Huff had signed Linda to a songwriter contract, so she was working with us. Tommy was like an independent when he first started working with us, but he needed somebody to write with. He was a good arranger and everything, but he needed somebody who could write lyrics, and Linda was the perfect person.
Huff: From the head—we didn’t go to no Julliard or nothing.
Gamble: [ laughs ]
Can you write music?
Gamble: Nope.
Huff: I don’t know anything about it. I know chords, but note for note, no. It’s funny, because there are a lot of people who can write music, but there aren’t a lot of people who can hear music. We were the ones who could hear the music and the sound that we wanted, and the melodies that we wanted to put into the tracks.
Talk about Bobby Martin.
Huff: Bobby was from the big band era. He was doing arrangements for a lot of people, a lot of independent producers, but I really got to know him when we started doing our thing. I think Gamble knew him before I did. Gamble: I met Bobby Martin up in West Philly. I was walking down Locust Street, about Fifty-fourth and Locust, and I heard a group in this house, singing. I just stood outside the house and said, “Damn, these cats sound good.” I went up and knocked on the door, and it was Bobby Martin’s house. [ laughs ] I think they were called the Dolls. That was the first time I met him. I told him I had some songs or whatever, and that’s how the relationship started. He and Morris Bailey and Leon Mitchell had a little office down here on Broad Street. Morris Bailey, he was talented too. He was a little abstract, but he was good. Huff: During that era, everybody was trying to write songs and get into groups. Philly was just saturated with music and musicians. It was unique. Gamble: And we had the right arrangers. Those arrangements were developed from the piano. We used to sit right in here and put a tape recorder on, and with Bobby Martin or whoever else was arranging our stuff, we would hum out the parts.
Joe Tarsia.
Huff: He was the technician. Joe was the man.
Gamble: He worked just as hard as we worked to make sure the fidelity of the music was what we wanted, because we would be on him. After working together for so many years, it became second nature, because he knew exactly what to do. It was hard for us to work with another engineer, because we would have to tell them we wanted a certain drum sound, a certain bass sound… Huff: Joe to us was like a Bruce Swedien was to Quincy Jones. He was the only engineer we ever used, unless we went to California and did some recording. Gamble: Which was uncomfortable—to be honest with you— going to other studios. It was uncomfortable. We were more comfortable when we were in our studio. Huff: That was the best thing to ever happen to us, I think. The time that we were allowed to work at our own pace and didn’t have to look at the clock…you talk about a blessing? We had autonomy over our own creativity. In New York, you know, you had to do four songs in three hours. Gamble: They’d say, “You got ten minutes!” And we’d have one more song to do. When we cut Jerry Butler up there, the first session we cut with him was “Lost.” I forget the other song, but we had three songs we wanted to do, and we only got two of them done. What was the guy’s name, Artie Butler?
Huff: Gamble would sit right there and hum out every part.
Gamble: Every part, because I knew what was going on in the track. I knew the parts that me and Huff had already thought about when we were writing the songs. Man, I used to listen to those tracks a million times. I knew every little note in them.
Huff: And when it would come time for the session, if it was wrong, we’d correct it on the spot.
Huff: Artie Kaplan.
Gamble: Many times—we’d take the whole arrangement and just start from scratch.
Gamble: Artie Kaplan, there you go. Artie Kaplan was the contractor, and he said, “Man, these guys got another session.”
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( opposite ) Leon Huff photograph by Don Huntein and courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment Archives.
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